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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/31522-8.txt b/31522-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1821b63 --- /dev/null +++ b/31522-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,13871 @@ +Project Gutenberg's The Pearl of Orr's Island, by Harriet Beecher Stowe + +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: The Pearl of Orr's Island + A Story of the Coast of Maine + +Author: Harriet Beecher Stowe + +Release Date: March 6, 2010 [EBook #31522] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND *** + + + + +Produced by David Edwards, Jane Hyland and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This +book was produced from scanned images of public domain +material from the Google Print project.) + + + + + + + +THE + +PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND + + +A Story of the Coast of Maine + + +BY + +HARRIET BEECHER STOWE + + +BOSTON AND NEW YORK + +HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY + +The Riverside Press, Cambridge + +1896 + + +Copyright, 1862 and 1890, + +BY HARRIET BEECHER STOWE. + + +Copyright, 1896, + +BY HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. + + +_All rights reserved._ + + +_The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U.S.A._ + +Electrotyped and Printed by H.O. Houghton & Co. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + INTRODUCTORY NOTE vii + + CHAP. PAGE + + I. NAOMI 1 + + II. MARA 5 + + III. THE BAPTISM AND THE BURIAL 9 + + IV. AUNT ROXY AND AUNT RUEY 15 + + V. THE KITTRIDGES 25 + + VI. GRANDPARENTS 36 + + VII. FROM THE SEA 47 + + VIII. THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN 58 + + IX. MOSES 74 + + X. THE MINISTER 85 + + XI. LITTLE ADVENTURERS 99 + + XII. SEA TALES 110 + + XIII. BOY AND GIRL 120 + + XIV. THE ENCHANTED ISLAND 132 + + XV. THE HOME COMING 143 + + XVI. THE NATURAL AND THE SPIRITUAL 154 + + XVII. LESSONS 165 + + XVIII. SALLY 175 + + XIX. EIGHTEEN 179 + + XX. REBELLION 186 + + XXI. THE TEMPTER 198 + + XXII. A FRIEND IN NEED 208 + + XXIII. THE BEGINNING OF THE STORY 218 + + XXIV. DESIRES AND DREAMS 229 + + XXV. MISS EMILY 235 + + XXVI. DOLORES 245 + + XXVII. HIDDEN THINGS 258 + + XXVIII. A COQUETTE 270 + + XXIX. NIGHT TALKS 279 + + XXX. THE LAUNCH OF THE ARIEL 290 + + XXXI. GREEK MEETS GREEK 303 + + XXXII. THE BETROTHAL 315 + + XXXIII. AT A QUILTING 323 + + XXXIV. FRIENDS 329 + + XXXV. THE TOOTHACRE COTTAGE 335 + + XXXVI. THE SHADOW OF DEATH 339 + + XXXVII. THE VICTORY 351 + + XXXVIII. OPEN VISION 358 + + XXXIX. THE LAND OF BEULAH 368 + + XL. THE MEETING 376 + + XLI. CONSOLATION 380 + + XLII. LAST WORDS 387 + + XLIII. THE PEARL 393 + + XLIV. FOUR YEARS AFTER 398 + +The frontispiece (Mara, page 376) was drawn by W.L. Taylor. The vignette +was etched by Charles H. Woodbury. + + + + +INTRODUCTORY NOTE. + + +The publication of _Uncle Tom's Cabin_, though much more than an +incident in an author's career, seems to have determined Mrs. Stowe more +surely in her purpose to devote herself to literature. During the summer +following its appearance, she was in Andover, making over the house +which she and her husband were to occupy upon leaving Brunswick; and +yet, busy as she was, she was writing articles for _The Independent_ and +_The National Era_. The following extract from a letter written at that +time, July 29, 1852, intimates that she already was sketching the +outline of the story which later grew into _The Pearl of Orr's +Island_:-- + +"I seem to have so much to fill my time, and yet there is my Maine story +waiting. However, I am composing it every day, only I greatly need +living studies for the filling in of my sketches. There is old Jonas, my +"fish father," a sturdy, independent fisherman farmer, who in his youth +sailed all over the world and made up his mind about everything. In his +old age he attends prayer-meetings and reads the _Missionary Herald_. He +also has plenty of money in an old brown sea-chest. He is a great heart +with an inflexible will and iron muscles. I must go to Orr's Island and +see him again." The story seems to have remained in her mind, for we are +told by her son that she worked upon it by turns with _The Minister's +Wooing_. + +It was not, however, until eight years later, after _The Minister's +Wooing_ had been published and _Agnes of Sorrento_ was well begun, that +she took up her old story in earnest and set about making it into a +short serial. It would seem that her first intention was to confine +herself to a sketch of the childhood of her chief characters, with a +view to delineating the influences at work upon them; but, as she +herself expressed it, "Out of the simple history of the little Pearl of +Orr's Island as it had shaped itself in her mind, rose up a Captain +Kittridge with his garrulous yarns, and Misses Roxy and Ruey, given to +talk, and a whole pigeon roost of yet undreamed of fancies and dreams +which would insist on being written." So it came about that the story as +originally planned came to a stopping place at the end of Chapter XVII., +as the reader may see when he reaches that place. The childish life of +her characters ended there, and a lapse of ten years was assumed before +their story was taken up again in the next chapter. The book when +published had no chapter headings. These have been supplied in the +present edition. + + + + +THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND + + + + +CHAPTER I + +NAOMI + + +On the road to the Kennebec, below the town of Bath, in the State of +Maine, might have been seen, on a certain autumnal afternoon, a +one-horse wagon, in which two persons were sitting. One was an old man, +with the peculiarly hard but expressive physiognomy which characterizes +the seafaring population of the New England shores. A clear blue eye, +evidently practiced in habits of keen observation, white hair, bronzed, +weather-beaten cheeks, and a face deeply lined with the furrows of +shrewd thought and anxious care, were points of the portrait that made +themselves felt at a glance. + +By his side sat a young woman of two-and-twenty, of a marked and +peculiar personal appearance. Her hair was black, and smoothly parted on +a broad forehead, to which a pair of penciled dark eyebrows gave a +striking and definite outline. Beneath, lay a pair of large black eyes, +remarkable for tremulous expression of melancholy and timidity. The +cheek was white and bloodless as a snowberry, though with the clear and +perfect oval of good health; the mouth was delicately formed, with a +certain sad quiet in its lines, which indicated a habitually repressed +and sensitive nature. + +The dress of this young person, as often happens in New England, was, in +refinement and even elegance, a marked contrast to that of her male +companion and to the humble vehicle in which she rode. There was not +only the most fastidious neatness, but a delicacy in the choice of +colors, an indication of elegant tastes in the whole arrangement, and +the quietest suggestion in the world of an acquaintance with the usages +of fashion, which struck one oddly in those wild and dreary +surroundings. On the whole, she impressed one like those fragile +wild-flowers which in April cast their fluttering shadows from the mossy +crevices of the old New England granite,--an existence in which +colorless delicacy is united to a sort of elastic hardihood of life, fit +for the rocky soil and harsh winds it is born to encounter. + +The scenery of the road along which the two were riding was wild and +bare. Only savins and mulleins, with their dark pyramids or white spires +of velvet leaves, diversified the sandy wayside; but out at sea was a +wide sweep of blue, reaching far to the open ocean, which lay rolling, +tossing, and breaking into white caps of foam in the bright sunshine. +For two or three days a northeast storm had been raging, and the sea was +in all the commotion which such a general upturning creates. + +The two travelers reached a point of elevated land, where they paused a +moment, and the man drew up the jogging, stiff-jointed old farm-horse, +and raised himself upon his feet to look out at the prospect. + +There might be seen in the distance the blue Kennebec sweeping out +toward the ocean through its picturesque rocky shores, docked with +cedars and other dusky evergreens, which were illuminated by the orange +and flame-colored trees of Indian summer. Here and there scarlet +creepers swung long trailing garlands over the faces of the dark rock, +and fringes of goldenrod above swayed with the brisk blowing wind that +was driving the blue waters seaward, in face of the up-coming ocean +tide,--a conflict which caused them to rise in great foam-crested +waves. There are two channels into this river from the open sea, +navigable for ships which are coming in to the city of Bath; one is +broad and shallow, the other narrow and deep, and these are divided by a +steep ledge of rocks. + +Where the spectators of this scene were sitting, they could see in the +distance a ship borne with tremendous force by the rising tide into the +mouth of the river, and encountering a northwest wind which had +succeeded the gale, as northwest winds often do on this coast. The ship, +from what might be observed in the distance, seemed struggling to make +the wider channel, but was constantly driven off by the baffling force +of the wind. + +"There she is, Naomi," said the old fisherman, eagerly, to his +companion, "coming right in." The young woman was one of the sort that +never start, and never exclaim, but with all deeper emotions grow still. +The color slowly mounted into her cheek, her lips parted, and her eyes +dilated with a wide, bright expression; her breathing came in thick +gasps, but she said nothing. + +The old fisherman stood up in the wagon, his coarse, butternut-colored +coat-flaps fluttering and snapping in the breeze, while his interest +seemed to be so intense in the efforts of the ship that he made +involuntary and eager movements as if to direct her course. A moment +passed, and his keen, practiced eye discovered a change in her +movements, for he cried out involuntarily,-- + +"_Don't_ take the narrow channel to-day!" and a moment after, "O Lord! O +Lord! have mercy,--there they go! Look! look! look!" + +And, in fact, the ship rose on a great wave clear out of the water, and +the next second seemed to leap with a desperate plunge into the narrow +passage; for a moment there was a shivering of the masts and the +rigging, and she went down and was gone. + +"They're split to pieces!" cried the fisherman. "Oh, my poor girl--my +poor girl--they're gone! O Lord, have mercy!" + +The woman lifted up no voice, but, as one who has been shot through the +heart falls with no cry, she fell back,--a mist rose up over her great +mournful eyes,--she had fainted. + +The story of this wreck of a home-bound ship just entering the harbor is +yet told in many a family on this coast. A few hours after, the +unfortunate crew were washed ashore in all the joyous holiday rig in +which they had attired themselves that morning to go to their sisters, +wives, and mothers. + +This is the first scene in our story. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +MARA + + +Down near the end of Orr's Island, facing the open ocean, stands a brown +house of the kind that the natives call "lean-to," or "linter,"--one of +those large, comfortable structures, barren in the ideal, but rich in +the practical, which the workingman of New England can always command. +The waters of the ocean came up within a rod of this house, and the +sound of its moaning waves was even now filling the clear autumn +starlight. Evidently something was going on within, for candles +fluttered and winked from window to window, like fireflies in a dark +meadow, and sounds as of quick footsteps, and the flutter of brushing +garments, might be heard. + +Something unusual is certainly going on within the dwelling of Zephaniah +Pennel to-night. + +Let us enter the dark front-door. We feel our way to the right, where a +solitary ray of light comes from the chink of a half-opened door. Here +is the front room of the house, set apart as its place of especial +social hilarity and sanctity,--the "best room," with its low studded +walls, white dimity window-curtains, rag carpet, and polished wood +chairs. It is now lit by the dim gleam of a solitary tallow candle, +which seems in the gloom to make only a feeble circle of light around +itself, leaving all the rest of the apartment in shadow. + +In the centre of the room, stretched upon a table, and covered partially +by a sea-cloak, lies the body of a man of twenty-five,--lies, too, +evidently as one of whom it is written, "He shall return to his house +no more, neither shall his place know him any more." A splendid manhood +has suddenly been called to forsake that lifeless form, leaving it, like +a deserted palace, beautiful in its desolation. The hair, dripping with +the salt wave, curled in glossy abundance on the finely-formed head; the +flat, broad brow; the closed eye, with its long black lashes; the firm, +manly mouth; the strongly-moulded chin,--all, all were sealed with that +seal which is never to be broken till the great resurrection day. + +He was lying in a full suit of broadcloth, with a white vest and smart +blue neck-tie, fastened with a pin, in which was some braided hair under +a crystal. All his clothing, as well as his hair, was saturated with +sea-water, which trickled from time to time, and struck with a leaden +and dropping sound into a sullen pool which lay under the table. + +This was the body of James Lincoln, ship-master of the brig Flying Scud, +who that morning had dressed himself gayly in his state-room to go on +shore and meet his wife,--singing and jesting as he did so. + +This is all that you have to learn in the room below; but as we stand +there, we hear a trampling of feet in the apartment above,--the quick +yet careful opening and shutting of doors,--and voices come and go about +the house, and whisper consultations on the stairs. Now comes the roll +of wheels, and the Doctor's gig drives up to the door; and, as he goes +creaking up with his heavy boots, we will follow and gain admission to +the dimly-lighted chamber. + +Two gossips are sitting in earnest, whispering conversation over a small +bundle done up in an old flannel petticoat. To them the doctor is about +to address himself cheerily, but is repelled by sundry signs and sounds +which warn him not to speak. Moderating his heavy boots as well as he +is able to a pace of quiet, he advances for a moment, and the petticoat +is unfolded for him to glance at its contents; while a low, eager, +whispered conversation, attended with much head-shaking, warns him that +his first duty is with somebody behind the checked curtains of a bed in +the farther corner of the room. He steps on tiptoe, and draws the +curtain; and there, with closed eye, and cheek as white as wintry snow, +lies the same face over which passed the shadow of death when that +ill-fated ship went down. + +This woman was wife to him who lies below, and within the hour has been +made mother to a frail little human existence, which the storm of a +great anguish has driven untimely on the shores of life,--a precious +pearl cast up from the past eternity upon the wet, wave-ribbed sand of +the present. Now, weary with her moanings, and beaten out with the +wrench of a double anguish, she lies with closed eyes in that passive +apathy which precedes deeper shadows and longer rest. + +Over against her, on the other side of the bed, sits an aged woman in an +attitude of deep dejection, and the old man we saw with her in the +morning is standing with an anxious, awestruck face at the foot of the +bed. + +The doctor feels the pulse of the woman, or rather lays an inquiring +finger where the slightest thread of vital current is scarcely +throbbing, and shakes his head mournfully. The touch of his hand rouses +her,--her large wild, melancholy eyes fix themselves on him with an +inquiring glance, then she shivers and moans,-- + +"Oh, Doctor, Doctor!--Jamie, Jamie!" + +"Come, come!" said the doctor, "cheer up, my girl, you've got a fine +little daughter,--the Lord mingles mercies with his afflictions." + +Her eyes closed, her head moved with a mournful but decided dissent. + +A moment after she spoke in the sad old words of the Hebrew Scripture,-- + +"Call her not Naomi; call her Mara, for the Almighty hath dealt very +bitterly with me." + +And as she spoke, there passed over her face the sharp frost of the last +winter; but even as it passed there broke out a smile, as if a flower +had been thrown down from Paradise, and she said,-- + +"Not my will, but thy will," and so was gone. + +Aunt Roxy and Aunt Ruey were soon left alone in the chamber of death. + +"She'll make a beautiful corpse," said Aunt Roxy, surveying the still, +white form contemplatively, with her head in an artistic attitude. + +"She was a pretty girl," said Aunt Ruey; "dear me, what a Providence! I +'member the wedd'n down in that lower room, and what a handsome couple +they were." + +"They were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their deaths they +were not divided," said Aunt Roxy, sententiously. + +"What was it she said, did ye hear?" said Aunt Ruey. + +"She called the baby 'Mary.'" + +"Ah! sure enough, her mother's name afore her. What a still, +softly-spoken thing she always was!" + +"A pity the poor baby didn't go with her," said Aunt Roxy; +"seven-months' children are so hard to raise." + +"'Tis a pity," said the other. + +But babies will live, and all the more when everybody says that it is a +pity they should. Life goes on as inexorably in this world as death. It +was ordered by THE WILL above that out of these two graves should spring +one frail, trembling autumn flower,--the "Mara" whose poor little roots +first struck deep in the salt, bitter waters of our mortal life. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE BAPTISM AND THE BURIAL + + +Now, I cannot think of anything more unlikely and uninteresting to make +a story of than that old brown "linter" house of Captain Zephaniah +Pennel, down on the south end of Orr's Island. + +Zephaniah and Mary Pennel, like Zacharias and Elizabeth, are a pair of +worthy, God-fearing people, walking in all the commandments and +ordinances of the Lord blameless; but that is no great recommendation to +a world gaping for sensation and calling for something stimulating. This +worthy couple never read anything but the Bible, the "Missionary +Herald," and the "Christian Mirror,"--never went anywhere except in the +round of daily business. He owned a fishing-smack, in which he labored +after the apostolic fashion; and she washed, and ironed, and scrubbed, +and brewed, and baked, in her contented round, week in and out. The only +recreation they ever enjoyed was the going once a week, in good weather, +to a prayer-meeting in a little old brown school-house, about a mile +from their dwelling; and making a weekly excursion every Sunday, in +their fishing craft, to the church opposite, on Harpswell Neck. + +To be sure, Zephaniah had read many wide leaves of God's great book of +Nature, for, like most Maine sea-captains, he had been wherever ship can +go,--to all usual and unusual ports. His hard, shrewd, weather-beaten +visage had been seen looking over the railings of his brig in the port +of Genoa, swept round by its splendid crescent of palaces and its +snow-crested Apennines. It had looked out in the Lagoons of Venice at +that wavy floor which in evening seems a sea of glass mingled with fire, +and out of which rise temples, and palaces, and churches, and distant +silvery Alps, like so many fabrics of dreamland. He had been through the +Skagerrack and Cattegat,--into the Baltic, and away round to Archangel, +and there chewed a bit of chip, and considered and calculated what +bargains it was best to make. He had walked the streets of Calcutta in +his shirt-sleeves, with his best Sunday vest, backed with black glazed +cambric, which six months before came from the hands of Miss Roxy, and +was pronounced by her to be as good as any tailor could make; and in all +these places he was just Zephaniah Pennel,--a chip of old +Maine,--thrifty, careful, shrewd, honest, God-fearing, and carrying an +instinctive knowledge of men and things under a face of rustic +simplicity. + +It was once, returning from one of his voyages, that he found his wife +with a black-eyed, curly-headed little creature, who called him papa, +and climbed on his knee, nestled under his coat, rifled his pockets, and +woke him every morning by pulling open his eyes with little fingers, and +jabbering unintelligible dialects in his ears. + +"We will call this child Naomi, wife," he said, after consulting his old +Bible; "for that means pleasant, and I'm sure I never see anything beat +her for pleasantness. I never knew as children was so engagin'!" + +It was to be remarked that Zephaniah after this made shorter and shorter +voyages, being somehow conscious of a string around his heart which +pulled him harder and harder, till one Sunday, when the little Naomi was +five years old, he said to his wife,-- + +"I hope I ain't a-pervertin' Scriptur' nor nuthin', but I can't help +thinkin' of one passage, 'The kingdom of heaven is like a merchantman +seeking goodly pearls, and when he hath found one pearl of great price, +for joy thereof he goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that +pearl.' Well, Mary, I've been and sold my brig last week," he said, +folding his daughter's little quiet head under his coat, "'cause it +seems to me the Lord's given us this pearl of great price, and it's +enough for us. I don't want to be rambling round the world after riches. +We'll have a little farm down on Orr's Island, and I'll have a little +fishing-smack, and we'll live and be happy together." + +And so Mary, who in those days was a pretty young married woman, felt +herself rich and happy,--no duchess richer or happier. The two +contentedly delved and toiled, and the little Naomi was their princess. +The wise men of the East at the feet of an infant, offering gifts, gold, +frankincense, and myrrh, is just a parable of what goes on in every +house where there is a young child. All the hard and the harsh, and the +common and the disagreeable, is for the parents,--all the bright and +beautiful for their child. + +When the fishing-smack went to Portland to sell mackerel, there came +home in Zephaniah's fishy coat pocket strings of coral beads, tiny +gaiter boots, brilliant silks and ribbons for the little fairy +princess,--his Pearl of the Island; and sometimes, when a stray party +from the neighboring town of Brunswick came down to explore the romantic +scenery of the solitary island, they would be startled by the apparition +of this still, graceful, dark-eyed child exquisitely dressed in the best +and brightest that the shops of a neighboring city could +afford,--sitting like some tropical bird on a lonely rock, where the sea +came dashing up into the edges of arbor vitæ, or tripping along the wet +sands for shells and seaweed. + +Many children would have been spoiled by such unlimited indulgence; but +there are natures sent down into this harsh world so timorous, and +sensitive, and helpless in themselves, that the utmost stretch of +indulgence and kindness is needed for their development,--like plants +which the warmest shelf of the green-house and the most careful watch of +the gardener alone can bring into flower. The pale child, with her +large, lustrous, dark eyes, and sensitive organization, was nursed and +brooded into a beautiful womanhood, and then found a protector in a +high-spirited, manly young ship-master, and she became his wife. + +And now we see in the best room--the walls lined with serious +faces--men, women, and children, that have come to pay the last tribute +of sympathy to the living and the dead. The house looked so utterly +alone and solitary in that wild, sea-girt island, that one would have as +soon expected the sea-waves to rise and walk in, as so many neighbors; +but they had come from neighboring points, crossing the glassy sea in +their little crafts, whose white sails looked like millers' wings, or +walking miles from distant parts of the island. + +Some writer calls a funeral one of the amusements of a New England +population. Must we call it an amusement to go and see the acted despair +of Medea? or the dying agonies of poor Adrienne Lecouvreur? It is +something of the same awful interest in life's tragedy, which makes an +untaught and primitive people gather to a funeral,--a tragedy where +there is no acting,--and one which each one feels must come at some time +to his own dwelling. + +Be that as it may, here was a roomful. Not only Aunt Roxy and Aunt Ruey, +who by a prescriptive right presided over all the births, deaths, and +marriages of the neighborhood, but there was Captain Kittridge, a long, +dry, weather-beaten old sea-captain, who sat as if tied in a double +bow-knot, with his little fussy old wife, with a great Leghorn bonnet, +and eyes like black glass beads shining through in the bows of her horn +spectacles, and her hymn-book in her hand ready to lead the psalm. There +were aunts, uncles, cousins, and brethren of the deceased; and in the +midst stood two coffins, where the two united in death lay sleeping +tenderly, as those to whom rest is good. All was still as death, except +a chance whisper from some busy neighbor, or a creak of an old lady's +great black fan, or the fizz of a fly down the window-pane, and then a +stifled sound of deep-drawn breath and weeping from under a cloud of +heavy black crape veils, that were together in the group which +country-people call the mourners. + +A gleam of autumn sunlight streamed through the white curtains, and fell +on a silver baptismal vase that stood on the mother's coffin, as the +minister rose and said, "The ordinance of baptism will now be +administered." A few moments more, and on a baby brow had fallen a few +drops of water, and the little pilgrim of a new life had been called +Mara in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,--the minister +slowly repeating thereafter those beautiful words of Holy Writ, "A +father of the fatherless is God in his holy habitation,"--as if the +baptism of that bereaved one had been a solemn adoption into the +infinite heart of the Lord. + +With something of the quaint pathos which distinguishes the primitive +and Biblical people of that lonely shore, the minister read the passage +in Ruth from which the name of the little stranger was drawn, and which +describes the return of the bereaved Naomi to her native land. His voice +trembled, and there were tears in many eyes as he read, "And it came to +pass as she came to Bethlehem, all the city was moved about them; and +they said, Is this Naomi? And she said unto them, Call me not Naomi; +call me Mara; for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me. I went +out full, and the Lord hath brought me home again empty: why then call +ye me Naomi, seeing the Lord hath testified against me, and the Almighty +hath afflicted me?" + +Deep, heavy sobs from the mourners were for a few moments the only +answer to these sad words, till the minister raised the old funeral +psalm of New England,-- + + "Why do we mourn departing friends, + Or shake at Death's alarms? + 'Tis but the voice that Jesus sends + To call them to his arms. + + "Are we not tending upward too, + As fast as time can move? + And should we wish the hours more slow + That bear us to our love?" + +The words rose in old "China,"--that strange, wild warble, whose +quaintly blended harmonies might have been learned of moaning seas or +wailing winds, so strange and grand they rose, full of that intense +pathos which rises over every defect of execution; and as they sung, +Zephaniah Pennel straightened his tall form, before bowed on his hands, +and looked heavenward, his cheeks wet with tears, but something sublime +and immortal shining upward through his blue eyes; and at the last verse +he came forward involuntarily, and stood by his dead, and his voice rose +over all the others as he sung,-- + + "Then let the last loud trumpet sound, + And bid the dead arise! + Awake, ye nations under ground! + Ye saints, ascend the skies!" + +The sunbeam through the window-curtain fell on his silver hair, and they +that looked beheld his face as it were the face of an angel; he had +gotten a sight of the city whose foundation is jasper, and whose every +gate is a separate pearl. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +AUNT ROXY AND AUNT RUEY + + +The sea lay like an unbroken mirror all around the pine-girt, lonely +shores of Orr's Island. Tall, kingly spruces wore their regal crowns of +cones high in air, sparkling with diamonds of clear exuded gum; vast old +hemlocks of primeval growth stood darkling in their forest shadows, +their branches hung with long hoary moss; while feathery larches, turned +to brilliant gold by autumn frosts, lighted up the darker shadows of the +evergreens. It was one of those hazy, calm, dissolving days of Indian +summer, when everything is so quiet that the faintest kiss of the wave +on the beach can be heard, and white clouds seem to faint into the blue +of the sky, and soft swathing bands of violet vapor make all earth look +dreamy, and give to the sharp, clear-cut outlines of the northern +landscape all those mysteries of light and shade which impart such +tenderness to Italian scenery. + +The funeral was over; the tread of many feet, bearing the heavy burden +of two broken lives, had been to the lonely graveyard, and had come back +again,--each footstep lighter and more unconstrained as each one went +his way from the great old tragedy of Death to the common cheerful walks +of Life. + +The solemn black clock stood swaying with its eternal "tick-tock, +tick-tock," in the kitchen of the brown house on Orr's Island. There was +there that sense of a stillness that can be felt,--such as settles down +on a dwelling when any of its inmates have passed through its doors for +the last time, to go whence they shall not return. The best room was +shut up and darkened, with only so much light as could fall through a +little heart-shaped hole in the window-shutter,--for except on solemn +visits, or prayer meetings, or weddings, or funerals, that room formed +no part of the daily family scenery. + +The kitchen was clean and ample, with a great open fireplace and wide +stone hearth, and oven on one side, and rows of old-fashioned +splint-bottomed chairs against the wall. A table scoured to snowy +whiteness, and a little work-stand whereon lay the Bible, the +"Missionary Herald" and the "Weekly Christian Mirror," before named, +formed the principal furniture. One feature, however, must not be +forgotten,--a great sea-chest, which had been the companion of Zephaniah +through all the countries of the earth. Old, and battered, and unsightly +it looked, yet report said that there was good store within of that +which men for the most part respect more than anything else; and, +indeed, it proved often when a deed of grace was to be done,--when a +woman was suddenly made a widow in a coast gale, or a fishing-smack was +run down in the fogs off the banks, leaving in some neighboring cottage +a family of orphans,--in all such cases, the opening of this sea-chest +was an event of good omen to the bereaved; for Zephaniah had a large +heart and a large hand, and was apt to take it out full of silver +dollars when once it went in. So the ark of the covenant could not have +been looked on with more reverence than the neighbors usually showed to +Captain Pennel's sea-chest. + +The afternoon sun is shining in a square of light through the open +kitchen-door, whence one dreamily disposed might look far out to sea, +and behold ships coming and going in every variety of shape and size. + +But Aunt Roxy and Aunt Ruey, who for the present were sole occupants of +the premises, were not people of the dreamy kind, and consequently were +not gazing off to sea, but attending to very terrestrial matters that in +all cases somebody must attend to. The afternoon was warm and balmy, but +a few smouldering sticks were kept in the great chimney, and thrust deep +into the embers was a mongrel species of snub-nosed tea-pot, which fumed +strongly of catnip-tea, a little of which gracious beverage Miss Roxy +was preparing in an old-fashioned cracked India china tea-cup, tasting +it as she did so with the air of a connoisseur. + +Apparently this was for the benefit of a small something in long white +clothes, that lay face downward under a little blanket of very blue new +flannel, and which something Aunt Roxy, when not otherwise engaged, +constantly patted with a gentle tattoo, in tune to the steady trot of +her knee. All babies knew Miss Roxy's tattoo on their backs, and never +thought of taking it in ill part. On the contrary, it had a vital and +mesmeric effect of sovereign force against colic, and all other +disturbers of the nursery; and never was infant known so pressed with +those internal troubles which infants cry about, as not speedily to give +over and sink to slumber at this soothing appliance. + +At a little distance sat Aunt Ruey, with a quantity of black crape +strewed on two chairs about her, very busily employed in getting up a +mourning-bonnet, at which she snipped, and clipped, and worked, +zealously singing, in a high cracked voice, from time to time, certain +verses of a funeral psalm. + +Miss Roxy and Miss Ruey Toothacre were two brisk old bodies of the +feminine gender and singular number, well known in all the region of +Harpswell Neck and Middle Bay, and such was their fame that it had even +reached the town of Brunswick, eighteen miles away. + +They were of that class of females who might be denominated, in the Old +Testament language, "cunning women,"--that is, gifted with an infinite +diversity of practical "faculty," which made them an essential +requisite in every family for miles and miles around. It was impossible +to say what they could not do: they could make dresses, and make shirts +and vests and pantaloons, and cut out boys' jackets, and braid straw, +and bleach and trim bonnets, and cook and wash, and iron and mend, could +upholster and quilt, could nurse all kinds of sicknesses, and in default +of a doctor, who was often miles away, were supposed to be infallible +medical oracles. Many a human being had been ushered into life under +their auspices,--trotted, chirruped in babyhood on their knees, clothed +by their handiwork in garments gradually enlarging from year to year, +watched by them in the last sickness, and finally arrayed for the long +repose by their hands. + +These universally useful persons receive among us the title of "aunt" by +a sort of general consent, showing the strong ties of relationship which +bind them to the whole human family. They are nobody's aunts in +particular, but aunts to human nature generally. The idea of restricting +their usefulness to any one family, would strike dismay through a whole +community. Nobody would be so unprincipled as to think of such a thing +as having their services more than a week or two at most. Your country +factotum knows better than anybody else how absurd it would be + + "To give to a part what was meant for mankind." + +Nobody knew very well the ages of these useful sisters. In that cold, +clear, severe climate of the North, the roots of human existence are +hard to strike; but, if once people do take to living, they come in time +to a place where they seem never to grow any older, but can always be +found, like last year's mullein stalks, upright, dry, and seedy, +warranted to last for any length of time. + +Miss Roxy Toothacre, who sits trotting the baby, is a tall, thin, +angular woman, with sharp black eyes, and hair once black, but now well +streaked with gray. These ravages of time, however, were concealed by an +ample mohair frisette of glossy blackness woven on each side into a heap +of stiff little curls, which pushed up her cap border in rather a +bristling and decisive way. In all her movements and personal habits, +even to her tone of voice and manner of speaking, Miss Roxy was +vigorous, spicy, and decided. Her mind on all subjects was made up, and +she spoke generally as one having authority; and who should, if she +should not? Was she not a sort of priestess and sibyl in all the most +awful straits and mysteries of life? How many births, and weddings, and +deaths had come and gone under her jurisdiction! And amid weeping or +rejoicing, was not Miss Roxy still the master-spirit,--consulted, +referred to by all?--was not her word law and precedent? Her younger +sister, Miss Ruey, a pliant, cozy, easy-to-be-entreated personage, plump +and cushiony, revolved around her as a humble satellite. Miss Roxy +looked on Miss Ruey as quite a frisky young thing, though under her +ample frisette of carroty hair her head might be seen white with the +same snow that had powdered that of her sister. Aunt Ruey had a face +much resembling the kind of one you may see, reader, by looking at +yourself in the convex side of a silver milk-pitcher. If you try the +experiment, this description will need no further amplification. + +The two almost always went together, for the variety of talent comprised +in their stock could always find employment in the varying wants of a +family. While one nursed the sick, the other made clothes for the well; +and thus they were always chippering and chatting to each other, like a +pair of antiquated house-sparrows, retailing over harmless gossips, and +moralizing in that gentle jogtrot which befits serious old women. In +fact, they had talked over everything in Nature, and said everything +they could think of to each other so often, that the opinions of one +were as like those of the other as two sides of a pea-pod. But as often +happens in cases of the sort, this was not because the two were in all +respects exactly alike, but because the stronger one had mesmerized the +weaker into consent. + +Miss Roxy was the master-spirit of the two, and, like the great coining +machine of a mint, came down with her own sharp, heavy stamp on every +opinion her sister put out. She was matter-of-fact, positive, and +declarative to the highest degree, while her sister was naturally +inclined to the elegiac and the pathetic, indulging herself in +sentimental poetry, and keeping a store thereof in her thread-case, +which she had cut from the "Christian Mirror." Miss Roxy sometimes, in +her brusque way, popped out observations on life and things, with a +droll, hard quaintness that took one's breath a little, yet never failed +to have a sharp crystallization of truth,--frosty though it were. She +was one of those sensible, practical creatures who tear every veil, and +lay their fingers on every spot in pure business-like good-will; and if +we shiver at them at times, as at the first plunge of a cold bath, we +confess to an invigorating power in them after all. + +"Well, now," said Miss Roxy, giving a decisive push to the tea-pot, +which buried it yet deeper in the embers, "ain't it all a strange kind +o' providence that this 'ere little thing is left behind so; and then +their callin' on her by such a strange, mournful kind of name,--Mara. I +thought sure as could be 'twas Mary, till the minister read the passage +from Scriptur'. Seems to me it's kind o' odd. I'd call it Maria, or I'd +put an Ann on to it. Mara-ann, now, wouldn't sound so strange." + +"It's a Scriptur' name, sister," said Aunt Ruey, "and that ought to be +enough for us." + +"Well, I don't know," said Aunt Roxy. "Now there was Miss Jones down on +Mure P'int called her twins Tiglath-Pileser and Shalmaneser,--Scriptur' +names both, but I never liked 'em. The boys used to call 'em, Tiggy and +Shally, so no mortal could guess they was Scriptur'." + +"Well," said Aunt Ruey, drawing a sigh which caused her plump +proportions to be agitated in gentle waves, "'tain't much matter, after +all, _what_ they call the little thing, for 'tain't 'tall likely it's +goin' to live,--cried and worried all night, and kep' a-suckin' my cheek +and my night-gown, poor little thing! This 'ere's a baby that won't get +along without its mother. What Mis' Pennel's a-goin' to do with it when +we is gone, I'm sure I don't know. It comes kind o' hard on old people +to be broke o' their rest. If it's goin' to be called home, it's a pity, +as I said, it didn't go with its mother"-- + +"And save the expense of another funeral," said Aunt Roxy. "Now when +Mis' Pennel's sister asked her what she was going to do with Naomi's +clothes, I couldn't help wonderin' when she said she should keep 'em for +the child." + +"She had a sight of things, Naomi did," said Aunt Ruey. "Nothin' was +never too much for her. I don't believe that Cap'n Pennel ever went to +Bath or Portland without havin' it in his mind to bring Naomi +somethin'." + +"Yes, and she had a faculty of puttin' of 'em on," said Miss Roxy, with +a decisive shake of the head. "Naomi was a still girl, but her faculty +was uncommon; and I tell you, Ruey, 'tain't everybody hes faculty as hes +things." + +"The poor Cap'n," said Miss Ruey, "he seemed greatly supported at the +funeral, but he's dreadful broke down since. I went into Naomi's room +this morning, and there the old man was a-sittin' by her bed, and he had +a pair of her shoes in his hand,--you know what a leetle bit of a foot +she had. I never saw nothin' look so kind o' solitary as that poor old +man did!" + +"Well," said Miss Roxy, "she was a master-hand for keepin' things, +Naomi was; her drawers is just a sight; she's got all the little +presents and things they ever give her since she was a baby, in one +drawer. There's a little pair of red shoes there that she had when she +wa'n't more'n five year old. You 'member, Ruey, the Cap'n brought 'em +over from Portland when we was to the house a-makin' Mis' Pennel's +figured black silk that he brought from Calcutty. You 'member they cost +just five and sixpence; but, law! the Cap'n he never grudged the money +when 'twas for Naomi. And so she's got all her husband's keepsakes and +things just as nice as when he give 'em to her." + +"It's real affectin'," said Miss Ruey, "I can't all the while help +a-thinkin' of the Psalm,-- + + "'So fades the lovely blooming flower,-- + Frail, smiling solace of an hour; + So quick our transient comforts fly, + And pleasure only blooms to die.'" + +"Yes," said Miss Roxy; "and, Ruey, I was a-thinkin' whether or no it +wa'n't best to pack away them things, 'cause Naomi hadn't fixed no baby +drawers, and we seem to want some." + +"I was kind o' hintin' that to Mis' Pennel this morning," said Ruey, +"but she can't seem to want to have 'em touched." + +"Well, we may just as well come to such things first as last," said Aunt +Roxy; "'cause if the Lord takes our friends, he does take 'em; and we +can't lose 'em and have 'em too, and we may as well give right up at +first, and done with it, that they are gone, and we've got to do without +'em, and not to be hangin' on to keep things just as they was." + +"So I was a-tellin' Mis' Pennel," said Miss Ruey, "but she'll come to it +by and by. I wish the baby might live, and kind o' grow up into her +mother's place." + +"Well," said Miss Roxy, "I wish it might, but there'd be a sight o' +trouble fetchin' on it up. Folks can do pretty well with children when +they're young and spry, if they do get 'em up nights; but come to +grandchildren, it's pretty tough." + +"I'm a-thinkin', sister," said Miss Ruey, taking off her spectacles and +rubbing her nose thoughtfully, "whether or no cow's milk ain't goin' to +be too hearty for it, it's such a pindlin' little thing. Now, Mis' +Badger she brought up a seven-months' child, and she told me she gave it +nothin' but these 'ere little seed cookies, wet in water, and it throve +nicely,--and the seed is good for wind." + +"Oh, don't tell me none of Mis' Badger's stories," said Miss Roxy, "I +don't believe in 'em. Cows is the Lord's ordinances for bringing up +babies that's lost their mothers; it stands to reason they should +be,--and babies that can't eat milk, why they can't be fetched up; but +babies can eat milk, and this un will if it lives, and if it can't it +won't live." So saying, Miss Roxy drummed away on the little back of the +party in question, authoritatively, as if to pound in a wholesome +conviction at the outset. + +"I hope," said Miss Ruey, holding up a strip of black crape, and looking +through it from end to end so as to test its capabilities, "I hope the +Cap'n and Mis' Pennel'll get some support at the prayer-meetin' this +afternoon." + +"It's the right place to go to," said Miss Roxy, with decision. + +"Mis' Pennel said this mornin' that she was just beat out tryin' to +submit; and the more she said, 'Thy will be done,' the more she didn't +seem to feel it." + +"Them's common feelin's among mourners, Ruey. These 'ere forty years +that I've been round nussin', and layin'-out, and tendin' funerals, I've +watched people's exercises. People's sometimes supported wonderfully +just at the time, and maybe at the funeral; but the three or four weeks +after, most everybody, if they's to say what they feel, is +unreconciled." + +"The Cap'n, he don't say nothin'," said Miss Ruey. + +"No, he don't, but he looks it in his eyes," said Miss Roxy; "he's one +of the kind o' mourners as takes it deep; that kind don't cry; it's a +kind o' dry, deep pain; them's the worst to get over it,--sometimes they +just says nothin', and in about six months they send for you to nuss 'em +in consumption or somethin'. Now, Mis' Pennel, she can cry and she can +talk,--well, she'll get over it; but _he_ won't get no support unless +the Lord reaches right down and lifts him up over the world. I've seen +that happen sometimes, and I tell you, Ruey, that sort makes powerful +Christians." + +At that moment the old pair entered the door. Zephaniah Pennel came and +stood quietly by the pillow where the little form was laid, and lifted a +corner of the blanket. The tiny head was turned to one side, showing the +soft, warm cheek, and the little hand was holding tightly a morsel of +the flannel blanket. He stood swallowing hard for a few moments. At last +he said, with deep humility, to the wise and mighty woman who held her, +"I'll tell you what it is, Miss Roxy, I'll give all there is in my old +chest yonder if you'll only make her--live." + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE KITTRIDGES + + +It did live. The little life, so frail, so unprofitable in every mere +material view, so precious in the eyes of love, expanded and flowered at +last into fair childhood. Not without much watching and weariness. Many +a night the old fisherman walked the floor with the little thing in his +arms, talking to it that jargon of tender nonsense which fairies bring +as love-gifts to all who tend a cradle. Many a day the good little old +grandmother called the aid of gossips about her, trying various +experiments of catnip, and sweet fern, and bayberry, and other teas of +rustic reputation for baby frailties. + +At the end of three years, the two graves in the lonely graveyard were +sodded and cemented down by smooth velvet turf, and playing round the +door of the brown houses was a slender child, with ways and manners so +still and singular as often to remind the neighbors that she was not +like other children,--a bud of hope and joy,--but the outcome of a great +sorrow,--a pearl washed ashore by a mighty, uprooting tempest. They that +looked at her remembered that her father's eye had never beheld her, and +her baptismal cup had rested on her mother's coffin. + +She was small of stature, beyond the wont of children of her age, and +moulded with a fine waxen delicacy that won admiration from all eyes. +Her hair was curly and golden, but her eyes were dark like her mother's, +and the lids drooped over them in that manner which gives a peculiar +expression of dreamy wistfulness. Every one of us must remember eyes +that have a strange, peculiar expression of pathos and desire, as if the +spirit that looked out of them were pressed with vague remembrances of a +past, or but dimly comprehended the mystery of its present life. Even +when the baby lay in its cradle, and its dark, inquiring eyes would +follow now one object and now another, the gossips would say the child +was longing for something, and Miss Roxy would still further venture to +predict that that child always would long and never would know exactly +what she was after. + +That dignitary sits at this minute enthroned in the kitchen corner, +looking majestically over the press-board on her knee, where she is +pressing the next year's Sunday vest of Zephaniah Pennel. As she makes +her heavy tailor's goose squeak on the work, her eyes follow the little +delicate fairy form which trips about the kitchen, busily and silently +arranging a little grotto of gold and silver shells and seaweed. The +child sings to herself as she works in a low chant, like the prattle of +a brook, but ever and anon she rests her little arms on a chair and +looks through the open kitchen-door far, far off where the horizon line +of the blue sea dissolves in the blue sky. + +"See that child now, Roxy," said Miss Ruey, who sat stitching beside +her; "do look at her eyes. She's as handsome as a pictur', but 't ain't +an ordinary look she has neither; she seems a contented little thing; +but what makes her eyes always look so kind o' wishful?" + +"Wa'n't her mother always a-longin' and a-lookin' to sea, and watchin' +the ships, afore she was born?" said Miss Roxy; "and didn't her heart +break afore she was born? Babies like that is marked always. They don't +know what ails 'em, nor nobody." + +"It's her mother she's after," said Miss Ruey. + +"The Lord only knows," said Miss Roxy; "but them kind o' children always +seem homesick to go back where they come from. They're mostly grave and +old-fashioned like this 'un. If they gets past seven years, why they +live; but it's always in 'em to long; they don't seem to be really +unhappy neither, but if anything's ever the matter with 'em, it seems a +great deal easier for 'em to die than to live. Some say it's the mothers +longin' after 'em makes 'em feel so, and some say it's them longin' +after their mothers; but dear knows, Ruey, what anything is or what +makes anything. Children's mysterious, that's my mind." + +"Mara, dear," said Miss Ruey, interrupting the child's steady lookout, +"what you thinking of?" + +"Me want somefin'," said the little one. + +"That's what she's always sayin'," said Miss Roxy. + +"Me want somebody to pay wis'," continued the little one. + +"Want somebody to play with," said old Dame Pennel, as she came in from +the back-room with her hands yet floury with kneading bread; "sure +enough, she does. Our house stands in such a lonesome place, and there +ain't any children. But I never saw such a quiet little thing--always +still and always busy." + +"I'll take her down with me to Cap'n Kittridge's," said Miss Roxy, "and +let her play with their little girl; she'll chirk her up, I'll warrant. +She's a regular little witch, Sally is, but she'll chirk her up. It +ain't good for children to be so still and old-fashioned; children ought +to be children. Sally takes to Mara just 'cause she's so different." + +"Well, now, you may," said Dame Pennel; "to be sure _he_ can't bear her +out of his sight a minute after he comes in; but after all, old folks +can't be company for children." + +Accordingly, that afternoon, the little Mara was arrayed in a little +blue flounced dress, which stood out like a balloon, made by Miss Roxy +in first-rate style, from a French fashion-plate; her golden hair was +twined in manifold curls by Dame Pennel, who, restricted in her ideas +of ornamentation, spared, nevertheless, neither time nor money to +enhance the charms of this single ornament to her dwelling. Mara was her +picture-gallery, who gave her in the twenty-four hours as many Murillos +or Greuzes as a lover of art could desire; and as she tied over the +child's golden curls a little flat hat, and saw her go dancing off along +the sea-sands, holding to Miss Roxy's bony finger, she felt she had in +her what galleries of pictures could not buy. + +It was a good mile to the one story, gambrel-roofed cottage where lived +Captain Kittridge,--the long, lean, brown man, with his good wife of the +great Leghorn bonnet, round, black bead eyes, and psalm-book, whom we +told you of at the funeral. The Captain, too, had followed the sea in +his early life, but being not, as he expressed it, "very rugged," in +time changed his ship for a tight little cottage on the seashore, and +devoted himself to boat-building, which he found sufficiently lucrative +to furnish his brown cottage with all that his wife's heart desired, +besides extra money for knick-knacks when she chose to go up to +Brunswick or over to Portland to shop. + +The Captain himself was a welcome guest at all the firesides round, +being a chatty body, and disposed to make the most of his foreign +experiences, in which he took the usual advantages of a traveler. In +fact, it was said, whether slanderously or not, that the Captain's yarns +were spun to order; and as, when pressed to relate his foreign +adventures, he always responded with, "What would you like to hear?" it +was thought that he fabricated his article to suit his market. In short, +there was no species of experience, finny, fishy, or aquatic,--no legend +of strange and unaccountable incident of fire or flood,--no romance of +foreign scenery and productions, to which his tongue was not competent, +when he had once seated himself in a double bow-knot at a neighbor's +evening fireside. + +His good wife, a sharp-eyed, literal body, and a vigorous church-member, +felt some concern of conscience on the score of these narrations; for, +being their constant auditor, she, better than any one else, could +perceive the variations and discrepancies of text which showed their +mythical character, and oftentimes her black eyes would snap and her +knitting-needles rattle with an admonitory vigor as he went on, and +sometimes she would unmercifully come in at the end of a narrative +with,-- + +"Well, now, the Cap'n's told them ar stories till he begins to b'lieve +'em himself, I think." + +But works of fiction, as we all know, if only well gotten up, have +always their advantages in the hearts of listeners over plain, homely +truth; and so Captain Kittridge's yarns were marketable fireside +commodities still, despite the skepticisms which attended them. + +The afternoon sunbeams at this moment are painting the gambrel-roof with +a golden brown. It is September again, as it was three years ago when +our story commenced, and the sea and sky are purple and amethystine with +its Italian haziness of atmosphere. + +The brown house stands on a little knoll, about a hundred yards from the +open ocean. Behind it rises a ledge of rocks, where cedars and hemlocks +make deep shadows into which the sun shoots golden shafts of light, +illuminating the scarlet feathers of the sumach, which throw themselves +jauntily forth from the crevices; while down below, in deep, damp, mossy +recesses, rise ferns which autumn has just begun to tinge with yellow +and brown. The little knoll where the cottage stood had on its right +hand a tiny bay, where the ocean water made up amid picturesque +rocks--shaggy and solemn. Here trees of the primeval forest, grand and +lordly, looked down silently into the waters which ebbed and flowed +daily into this little pool. Every variety of those beautiful evergreens +which feather the coast of Maine, and dip their wings in the very spray +of its ocean foam, found here a representative. There were aspiring +black spruces, crowned on the very top with heavy coronets of cones; +there were balsamic firs, whose young buds breathe the scent of +strawberries; there were cedars, black as midnight clouds, and white +pines with their swaying plumage of needle-like leaves, strewing the +ground beneath with a golden, fragrant matting; and there were the +gigantic, wide-winged hemlocks, hundreds of years old, and with long, +swaying, gray beards of moss, looking white and ghostly under the deep +shadows of their boughs. And beneath, creeping round trunk and matting +over stones, were many and many of those wild, beautiful things which +embellish the shadows of these northern forests. Long, feathery wreaths +of what are called ground-pines ran here and there in little ruffles of +green, and the prince's pine raised its oriental feather, with a mimic +cone on the top, as if it conceived itself to be a grown-up tree. Whole +patches of partridge-berry wove their evergreen matting, dotted +plentifully with brilliant scarlet berries. Here and there, the rocks +were covered with a curiously inwoven tapestry of moss, overshot with +the exquisite vine of the Linnea borealis, which in early spring rings +its two fairy bells on the end of every spray; while elsewhere the +wrinkled leaves of the mayflower wove themselves through and through +deep beds of moss, meditating silently thoughts of the thousand little +cups of pink shell which they had it in hand to make when the time of +miracles should come round next spring. + +Nothing, in short, could be more quaintly fresh, wild, and beautiful +than the surroundings of this little cove which Captain Kittridge had +thought fit to dedicate to his boat-building operations,--where he had +set up his tar-kettle between two great rocks above the highest +tide-mark, and where, at the present moment, he had a boat upon the +stocks. + +Mrs. Kittridge, at this hour, was sitting in her clean kitchen, very +busily engaged in ripping up a silk dress, which Miss Roxy had engaged +to come and make into a new one; and, as she ripped, she cast now and +then an eye at the face of a tall, black clock, whose solemn tick-tock +was the only sound that could be heard in the kitchen. + +By her side, on a low stool, sat a vigorous, healthy girl of six years, +whose employment evidently did not please her, for her well-marked black +eyebrows were bent in a frown, and her large black eyes looked surly and +wrathful, and one versed in children's grievances could easily see what +the matter was,--she was turning a sheet! Perhaps, happy young female +reader, you don't know what that is,--most likely not; for in these +degenerate days the strait and narrow ways of self-denial, formerly +thought so wholesome for little feet, are quite grass-grown with +neglect. Childhood nowadays is unceasingly fêted and caressed, the +principal difficulty of the grown people seeming to be to discover what +the little dears want,--a thing not always clear to the little dears +themselves. But in old times, turning sheets was thought a most especial +and wholesome discipline for young girls; in the first place, because it +took off the hands of their betters a very uninteresting and monotonous +labor; and in the second place, because it was such a long, straight, +unending turnpike, that the youthful travelers, once started thereupon, +could go on indefinitely, without requiring guidance and direction of +their elders. For these reasons, also, the task was held in special +detestation by children in direct proportion to their amount of life, +and their ingenuity and love of variety. A dull child took it tolerably +well; but to a lively, energetic one, it was a perfect torture. + +"I don't see the use of sewing up sheets one side, and ripping up the +other," at last said Sally, breaking the monotonous tick-tock of the +clock by an observation which has probably occurred to every child in +similar circumstances. + +"Sally Kittridge, if you say another word about that ar sheet, I'll whip +you," was the very explicit rejoinder; and there was a snap of Mrs. +Kittridge's black eyes, that seemed to make it likely that she would +keep her word. It was answered by another snap from the six-year-old +eyes, as Sally comforted herself with thinking that when she was a woman +she'd speak her mind out in pay for all this. + +At this moment a burst of silvery child-laughter rang out, and there +appeared in the doorway, illuminated by the afternoon sunbeams, the +vision of Miss Roxy's tall, lank figure, with the little golden-haired, +blue-robed fairy, hanging like a gay butterfly upon the tip of a +thorn-bush. Sally dropped the sheet and clapped her hands, unnoticed by +her mother, who rose to pay her respects to the "cunning woman" of the +neighborhood. + +"Well, now, Miss Roxy, I was 'mazin' afraid you wer'n't a-comin'. I'd +just been an' got my silk ripped up, and didn't know how to get a step +farther without you." + +"Well, I was finishin' up Cap'n Pennel's best pantaloons," said Miss +Roxy; "and I've got 'em along so, Ruey can go on with 'em; and I told +Mis' Pennel I must come to you, if 'twas only for a day; and I fetched +the little girl down, 'cause the little thing's so kind o' lonesome +like. I thought Sally could play with her, and chirk her up a little." + +"Well, Sally," said Mrs. Kittridge, "stick in your needle, fold up your +sheet, put your thimble in your work-pocket, and then you may take the +little Mara down to the cove to play; but be sure you don't let her go +near the tar, nor wet her shoes. D'ye hear?" + +"Yes, ma'am," said Sally, who had sprung up in light and radiance, like +a translated creature, at this unexpected turn of fortune, and +performed the welcome orders with a celerity which showed how agreeable +they were; and then, stooping and catching the little one in her arms, +disappeared through the door, with the golden curls fluttering over her +own crow-black hair. + +The fact was, that Sally, at that moment, was as happy as human creature +could be, with a keenness of happiness that children who have never been +made to turn sheets of a bright afternoon can never realize. The sun was +yet an hour high, as she saw, by the flash of her shrewd, time-keeping +eye, and she could bear her little prize down to the cove, and collect +unknown quantities of gold and silver shells, and starfish, and +salad-dish shells, and white pebbles for her, besides quantities of well +turned shavings, brown and white, from the pile which constantly was +falling under her father's joiner's bench, and with which she would make +long extemporaneous tresses, so that they might play at being mermaids, +like those that she had heard her father tell about in some of his +sea-stories. + +"Now, railly, Sally, what you got there?" said Captain Kittridge, as he +stood in his shirt-sleeves peering over his joiner's bench, to watch the +little one whom Sally had dumped down into a nest of clean white +shavings. "Wal', wal', I should think you'd a-stolen the big doll I see +in a shop-window the last time I was to Portland. So this is Pennel's +little girl?--poor child!" + +"Yes, father, and we want some nice shavings." + +"Stay a bit, I'll make ye a few a-purpose," said the old man, reaching +his long, bony arm, with the greatest ease, to the farther part of his +bench, and bringing up a board, from which he proceeded to roll off +shavings in fine satin rings, which perfectly delighted the hearts of +the children, and made them dance with glee; and, truth to say, reader, +there are coarser and homelier things in the world than a well turned +shaving. + +"There, go now," he said, when both of them stood with both hands full; +"go now and play; and mind you don't let the baby wet her feet, Sally; +them shoes o' hern must have cost five-and-sixpence at the very least." + +That sunny hour before sundown seemed as long to Sally as the whole seam +of the sheet; for childhood's joys are all pure gold; and as she ran up +and down the white sands, shouting at every shell she found, or darted +up into the overhanging forest for checkerberries and ground-pine, all +the sorrows of the morning came no more into her remembrance. + +The little Mara had one of those sensitive, excitable natures, on which +every external influence acts with immediate power. Stimulated by the +society of her energetic, buoyant little neighbor, she no longer seemed +wishful or pensive, but kindled into a perfect flame of wild delight, +and gamboled about the shore like a blue and gold-winged fly; while her +bursts of laughter made the squirrels and blue jays look out +inquisitively from their fastnesses in the old evergreens. Gradually the +sunbeams faded from the pines, and the waves of the tide in the little +cove came in, solemnly tinted with purple, flaked with orange and +crimson, borne in from a great rippling sea of fire, into which the sun +had just sunk. + +"Mercy on us--them children!" said Miss Roxy. + +"_He's_ bringin' 'em along," said Mrs. Kittridge, as she looked out of +the window and saw the tall, lank form of the Captain, with one child +seated on either shoulder, and holding on by his head. + +The two children were both in the highest state of excitement, but never +was there a more marked contrast of nature. The one seemed a perfect +type of well-developed childish health and vigor, good solid flesh and +bones, with glowing skin, brilliant eyes, shining teeth, well-knit, +supple limbs,--vigorously and healthily beautiful; while the other +appeared one of those aerial mixtures of cloud and fire, whose radiance +seems scarcely earthly. A physiologist, looking at the child, would +shake his head, seeing one of those perilous organizations, all nerve +and brain, which come to life under the clear, stimulating skies of +America, and, burning with the intensity of lighted phosphorus, waste +themselves too early. + +The little Mara seemed like a fairy sprite, possessed with a wild spirit +of glee. She laughed and clapped her hands incessantly, and when set +down on the kitchen-floor spun round like a little elf; and that night +it was late and long before her wide, wakeful eyes could be veiled in +sleep. + +"Company jist sets this 'ere child crazy," said Miss Roxy; "it's jist +her lonely way of livin'; a pity Mis' Pennel hadn't another child to +keep company along with her." + +"Mis' Pennel oughter be trainin' of her up to work," said Mrs. +Kittridge. "Sally could oversew and hem when she wa'n't more'n three +years old; nothin' straightens out children like work. Mis' Pennel she +just keeps that ar child to look at." + +"All children ain't alike, Mis' Kittridge," said Miss Roxy, +sententiously. "This 'un ain't like your Sally. 'A hen and a bumble-bee +can't be fetched up alike, fix it how you will!'" + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +GRANDPARENTS + + +Zephaniah Pennel came back to his house in the evening, after Miss Roxy +had taken the little Mara away. He looked for the flowery face and +golden hair as he came towards the door, and put his hand in his +vest-pocket, where he had deposited a small store of very choice shells +and sea curiosities, thinking of the widening of those dark, soft eyes +when he should present them. + +"Where's Mara?" was the first inquiry after he had crossed the +threshold. + +"Why, Roxy's been an' taken her down to Cap'n Kittridge's to spend the +night," said Miss Ruey. "Roxy's gone to help Mis' Kittridge to turn her +spotted gray and black silk. We was talking this mornin' whether 'no 't +would turn, 'cause _I_ thought the spot was overshot, and wouldn't make +up on the wrong side; but Roxy she says it's one of them ar Calcutty +silks that has two sides to 'em, like the one you bought Miss Pennel, +that we made up for her, you know;" and Miss Ruey arose and gave a +finishing snap to the Sunday pantaloons, which she had been left to +"finish off,"--which snap said, as plainly as words could say that there +was a good job disposed of. + +Zephaniah stood looking as helpless as animals of the male kind +generally do when appealed to with such prolixity on feminine details; +in reply to it all, only he asked meekly,-- + +"Where's Mary?" + +"Mis' Pennel? Why, she's up chamber. She'll be down in a minute, she +said; she thought she'd have time afore supper to get to the bottom of +the big chist, and see if that 'ere vest pattern ain't there, and them +sticks o' twist for the button-holes, 'cause Roxy she says she never see +nothin' so rotten as that 'ere twist we've been a-workin' with, that +Mis' Pennel got over to Portland; it's a clear cheat, and Mis' Pennel +she give more'n half a cent a stick more for 't than what Roxy got for +her up to Brunswick; so you see these 'ere Portland stores charge up, +and their things want lookin' after." + +Here Mrs. Pennel entered the room, "the Captain" addressing her +eagerly,-- + +"How came you to let Aunt Roxy take Mara off so far, and be gone so +long?" + +"Why, law me, Captain Pennel! the little thing seems kind o' lonesome. +Chil'en want chil'en; Miss Roxy says she's altogether too sort o' still +and old-fashioned, and must have child's company to chirk her up, and so +she took her down to play with Sally Kittridge; there's no manner of +danger or harm in it, and she'll be back to-morrow afternoon, and Mara +will have a real good time." + +"Wal', now, really," said the good man, "but it's 'mazin' lonesome." + +"Cap'n Pennel, you're gettin' to make an idol of that 'ere child," said +Miss Ruey. "We have to watch our hearts. It minds me of the hymn,-- + + "'The fondness of a creature's love, + How strong it strikes the sense,-- + Thither the warm affections move, + Nor can we call them hence.'" + +Miss Ruey's mode of getting off poetry, in a sort of high-pitched +canter, with a strong thump on every accented syllable, might have +provoked a smile in more sophisticated society, but Zephaniah listened +to her with deep gravity, and answered,-- + +"I'm 'fraid there's truth in what you say, Aunt Ruey. When her mother +was called away, I thought that was a warning I never should forget; but +now I seem to be like Jonah,--I'm restin' in the shadow of my gourd, and +my heart is glad because of it. I kind o' trembled at the prayer meetin' +when we was a-singin',-- + + "'The dearest idol I have known, + Whate'er that idol be, + Help me to tear it from Thy throne, + And worship only Thee.'" + +"Yes," said Miss Ruey, "Roxy says if the Lord should take us up short on +our prayers, it would make sad work with us sometimes." + +"Somehow," said Mrs. Pennel, "it seems to me just her mother over again. +She don't look like her. I think her hair and complexion comes from the +Badger blood; my mother had that sort o' hair and skin,--but then she +has ways like Naomi,--and it seems as if the Lord had kind o' given +Naomi back to us; so I hope she's goin' to be spared to us." + +Mrs. Pennel had one of those natures--gentle, trustful, and hopeful, +because not very deep; she was one of the little children of the world +whose faith rests on child-like ignorance, and who know not the deeper +needs of deeper natures; such see only the sunshine and forget the +storm. + +This conversation had been going on to the accompaniment of a clatter of +plates and spoons and dishes, and the fizzling of sausages, prefacing +the evening meal, to which all now sat down after a lengthened grace +from Zephaniah. + +"There's a tremendous gale a-brewin'," he said, as they sat at table. "I +noticed the clouds to-night as I was comin' home, and somehow I felt +kind o' as if I wanted all our folks snug in-doors." + +"Why, law, husband, Cap'n Kittridge's house is as good as ours, if it +does blow. You never can seem to remember that houses don't run aground +or strike on rocks in storms." + +"The Cap'n puts me in mind of old Cap'n Jeduth Scranton," said Miss +Ruey, "that built that queer house down by Middle Bay. The Cap'n he +would insist on havin' on't jist like a ship, and the closet-shelves had +holes for the tumblers and dishes, and he had all his tables and chairs +battened down, and so when it came a gale, they say the old Cap'n used +to sit in his chair and hold on to hear the wind blow." + +"Well, I tell you," said Captain, "those that has followed the seas +hears the wind with different ears from lands-people. When you lie with +only a plank between you and eternity, and hear the voice of the Lord on +the waters, it don't sound as it does on shore." + +And in truth, as they were speaking, a fitful gust swept by the house, +wailing and screaming and rattling the windows, and after it came the +heavy, hollow moan of the surf on the beach, like the wild, angry howl +of some savage animal just beginning to be lashed into fury. + +"Sure enough, the wind is rising," said Miss Ruey, getting up from the +table, and flattening her snub nose against the window-pane. "Dear me, +how dark it is! Mercy on us, how the waves come in!--all of a sheet of +foam. I pity the ships that's comin' on coast such a night." + +The storm seemed to have burst out with a sudden fury, as if myriads of +howling demons had all at once been loosened in the air. Now they piped +and whistled with eldritch screech round the corners of the house--now +they thundered down the chimney--and now they shook the door and rattled +the casement--and anon mustering their forces with wild ado, seemed to +career over the house, and sail high up into the murky air. The dash of +the rising tide came with successive crash upon crash like the discharge +of heavy artillery, seeming to shake the very house, and the spray +borne by the wind dashed whizzing against the window-panes. + +Zephaniah, rising from supper, drew up the little stand that had the +family Bible on it, and the three old time-worn people sat themselves as +seriously down to evening worship as if they had been an extensive +congregation. They raised the old psalm-tune which our fathers called +"Complaint," and the cracked, wavering voices of the women, with the +deep, rough bass of the old sea-captain, rose in the uproar of the storm +with a ghostly, strange wildness, like the scream of the curlew or the +wailing of the wind:-- + + "Spare us, O Lord, aloud we pray, + Nor let our sun go down at noon: + Thy years are an eternal day, + And must thy children die so soon!" + +Miss Ruey valued herself on singing a certain weird and exalted part +which in ancient days used to be called counter, and which wailed and +gyrated in unimaginable heights of the scale, much as you may hear a +shrill, fine-voiced wind over a chimney-top; but altogether, the deep +and earnest gravity with which the three filled up the pauses in the +storm with their quaint minor key, had something singularly impressive. +When the singing was over, Zephaniah read to the accompaniment of wind +and sea, the words of poetry made on old Hebrew shores, in the dim, gray +dawn of the world:-- + +"The voice of the Lord is upon the waters; the God of glory thundereth; +the Lord is upon many waters. The voice of the Lord shaketh the +wilderness; the Lord shaketh the wilderness of Kadesh. The Lord sitteth +upon the floods, yea, the Lord sitteth King forever. The Lord will give +strength to his people; yea, the Lord will bless his people with peace." + +How natural and home-born sounded this old piece of Oriental poetry in +the ears of the three! The wilderness of Kadesh, with its great cedars, +was doubtless Orr's Island, where even now the goodly fellowship of +black-winged trees were groaning and swaying, and creaking as the breath +of the Lord passed over them. + +And the three old people kneeling by their smouldering fireside, amid +the general uproar, Zephaniah began in the words of a prayer which Moses +the man of God made long ago under the shadows of Egyptian pyramids: +"Lord, thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations. Before the +mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and +the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God." + +We hear sometimes in these days that the Bible is no more inspired of +God than many other books of historic and poetic merit. It is a fact, +however, that the Bible answers a strange and wholly exceptional purpose +by thousands of firesides on all shores of the earth; and, till some +other book can be found to do the same thing, it will not be surprising +if a belief of its Divine origin be one of the ineffaceable ideas of the +popular mind. It will be a long while before a translation from Homer or +a chapter in the Koran, or any of the beauties of Shakespeare, will be +read in a stormy night on Orr's Island with the same sense of a Divine +presence as the Psalms of David, or the prayer of Moses, the man of God. + +Boom! boom! "What's that?" said Zephaniah, starting, as they rose up +from prayer. "Hark! again, that's a gun,--there's a ship in distress." + +"Poor souls," said Miss Ruey; "it's an awful night!" + +The captain began to put on his sea-coat. + +"You ain't a-goin' out?" said his wife. + +"I must go out along the beach a spell, and see if I can hear any more +of that ship." + +"Mercy on us; the wind'll blow you over!" said Aunt Ruey. + +"I rayther think I've stood wind before in my day," said Zephaniah, a +grim smile stealing over his weather-beaten cheeks. In fact, the man +felt a sort of secret relationship to the storm, as if it were in some +manner a family connection--a wild, roystering cousin, who drew him out +by a rough attraction of comradeship. + +"Well, at any rate," said Mrs. Pennel, producing a large tin lantern +perforated with many holes, in which she placed a tallow candle, "take +this with you, and don't stay out long." + +The kitchen door opened, and the first gust of wind took off the old +man's hat and nearly blew him prostrate. He came back and shut the +door. "I ought to have known better," he said, knotting his +pocket-handkerchief over his head, after which he waited for a momentary +lull, and went out into the storm. + +Miss Ruey looked through the window-pane, and saw the light go twinkling +far down into the gloom, and ever and anon came the mournful boom of +distant guns. + +"Certainly there is a ship in trouble somewhere," she said. + +"He never can be easy when he hears these guns," said Mrs. Pennel; "but +what can he do, or anybody, in such a storm, the wind blowing right on +to shore?" + +"I shouldn't wonder if Cap'n Kittridge should be out on the beach, too," +said Miss Ruey; "but laws, he ain't much more than one of these 'ere old +grasshoppers you see after frost comes. Well, any way, there _ain't_ +much help in man if a ship comes ashore in such a gale as this, such a +dark night too." + +"It's kind o' lonesome to have poor little Mara away such a night as +this is," said Mrs. Pennel; "but who would a-thought it this afternoon, +when Aunt Roxy took her?" + +"I 'member my grandmother had a silver cream-pitcher that come ashore +in a storm on Mare P'int," said Miss Ruey, as she sat trotting her +knitting-needles. "Grand'ther found it, half full of sand, under a knot +of seaweed way up on the beach. It had a coat of arms on it,--might have +belonged to some grand family, that pitcher; in the Toothacre family +yet." + +"I remember when I was a girl," said Mrs. Pennel, "seeing the hull of a +ship that went on Eagle Island; it run way up in a sort of gully between +two rocks, and lay there years. They split pieces off it sometimes to +make fires, when they wanted to make a chowder down on the beach." + +"My aunt, Lois Toothacre, that lives down by Middle Bay," said Miss +Ruey, "used to tell about a dreadful blow they had once in time of the +equinoctial storm; and what was remarkable, she insisted that she heard +a baby cryin' out in the storm,--she heard it just as plain as could +be." + +"Laws a-mercy," said Mrs. Pennel, nervously, "it was nothing but the +wind,--it always screeches like a child crying; or maybe it was the +seals; seals will cry just like babes." + +"So they told her; but no,--she insisted she knew the difference,--it +_was_ a baby. Well, what do you think, when the storm cleared off, they +found a baby's cradle washed ashore sure enough!" + +"But they didn't find any baby," said Mrs. Pennel, nervously. + +"No; they searched the beach far and near, and that cradle was all they +found. Aunt Lois took it in--it was a very good cradle, and she took it +to use, but every time there came up a gale, that ar cradle would rock, +rock, jist as if somebody was a-sittin' by it; and you could stand +across the room and see there wa'n't nobody there." + +"You make me all of a shiver," said Mrs. Pennel. + +This, of course, was just what Miss Ruey intended, and she went on:-- + +"Wal', you see they kind o' got used to it; they found there wa'n't no +harm come of its rockin', and so they didn't mind; but Aunt Lois had a +sister Cerinthy that was a weakly girl, and had the janders. Cerinthy +was one of the sort that's born with veils over their faces, and can see +sperits; and one time Cerinthy was a-visitin' Lois after her second baby +was born, and there came up a blow, and Cerinthy comes out of the +keepin'-room, where the cradle was a-standin', and says, 'Sister,' says +she, 'who's that woman sittin' rockin' the cradle?' and Aunt Lois says +she, 'Why, there ain't nobody. That ar cradle always will rock in a +gale, but I've got used to it, and don't mind it.' 'Well,' says +Cerinthy, 'jist as true as you live, I just saw a woman with a silk gown +on, and long black hair a-hangin' down, and her face was pale as a +sheet, sittin' rockin' that ar cradle, and she looked round at me with +her great black eyes kind o' mournful and wishful, and then she stooped +down over the cradle.' 'Well,' says Lois, 'I ain't goin' to have no such +doin's in my house,' and she went right in and took up the baby, and the +very next day she jist had the cradle split up for kindlin'; and that +night, if you'll believe, when they was a-burnin' of it, they heard, +jist as plain as could be, a baby scream, scream, screamin' round the +house; but after that they never heard it no more." + +"I don't like such stories," said Dame Pennel, "'specially to-night, +when Mara's away. I shall get to hearing all sorts of noises in the +wind. I wonder when Cap'n Pennel will be back." + +And the good woman put more wood on the fire, and as the tongues of +flame streamed up high and clear, she approached her face to the +window-pane and started back with half a scream, as a pale, anxious +visage with sad dark eyes seemed to approach her. It took a moment or +two for her to discover that she had seen only the reflection of her own +anxious, excited face, the pitchy blackness without having converted the +window into a sort of dark mirror. + +Miss Ruey meanwhile began solacing herself by singing, in her +chimney-corner, a very favorite sacred melody, which contrasted oddly +enough with the driving storm and howling sea:-- + + "Haste, my beloved, haste away, + Cut short the hours of thy delay; + Fly like the bounding hart or roe, + Over the hills where spices grow." + +The tune was called "Invitation,"--one of those profusely florid in +runs, and trills, and quavers, which delighted the ears of a former +generation; and Miss Ruey, innocently unconscious of the effect of old +age on her voice, ran them up and down, and out and in, in a way that +would have made a laugh, had there been anybody there to notice or to +laugh. + +"I remember singin' that ar to Mary Jane Wilson the very night she +died," said Aunt Ruey, stopping. "She wanted me to sing to her, and it +was jist between two and three in the mornin'; there was jist the least +red streak of daylight, and I opened the window and sat there and sung, +and when I come to 'over the hills where spices grow,' I looked round +and there was a change in Mary Jane, and I went to the bed, and says she +very bright, 'Aunt Ruey, the Beloved has come,' and she was gone afore I +could raise her up on her pillow. I always think of Mary Jane at them +words; if ever there was a broken-hearted crittur took home, it was +her." + +At this moment Mrs. Pennel caught sight through the window of the gleam +of the returning lantern, and in a moment Captain Pennel entered, +dripping with rain and spray. + +"Why, Cap'n! you're e'en a'most drowned," said Aunt Ruey. + +"How long have you been gone? You must have been a great ways," said +Mrs. Pennel. + +"Yes, I have been down to Cap'n Kittridge's. I met Kittridge out on the +beach. We heard the guns plain enough, but couldn't see anything. I went +on down to Kittridge's to get a look at little Mara." + +"Well, she's all well enough?" said Mrs. Pennel, anxiously. + +"Oh, yes, well enough. Miss Roxy showed her to me in the trundle-bed, +'long with Sally. The little thing was lying smiling in her sleep, with +her cheek right up against Sally's. I took comfort looking at her. I +couldn't help thinking: 'So he giveth his beloved sleep!'" + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +FROM THE SEA + + +During the night and storm, the little Mara had lain sleeping as quietly +as if the cruel sea, that had made her an orphan from her birth, were +her kind-tempered old grandfather singing her to sleep, as he often +did,--with a somewhat hoarse voice truly, but with ever an undertone of +protecting love. But toward daybreak, there came very clear and bright +into her childish mind a dream, having that vivid distinctness which +often characterizes the dreams of early childhood. + +She thought she saw before her the little cove where she and Sally had +been playing the day before, with its broad sparkling white beach of +sand curving round its blue sea-mirror, and studded thickly with gold +and silver shells. She saw the boat of Captain Kittridge upon the +stocks, and his tar-kettle with the smouldering fires flickering under +it; but, as often happens in dreams, a certain rainbow vividness and +clearness invested everything, and she and Sally were jumping for joy at +the beautiful things they found on the beach. + +Suddenly, there stood before them a woman, dressed in a long white +garment. She was very pale, with sweet, serious dark eyes, and she led +by the hand a black-eyed boy, who seemed to be crying and looking about +as for something lost. She dreamed that she stood still, and the woman +came toward her, looking at her with sweet, sad eyes, till the child +seemed to feel them in every fibre of her frame. The woman laid her hand +on her head as if in blessing, and then put the boy's hand in hers, and +said, "Take him, Mara, he is a playmate for you;" and with that the +little boy's face flashed out into a merry laugh. The woman faded away, +and the three children remained playing together, gathering shells and +pebbles of a wonderful brightness. So vivid was this vision, that the +little one awoke laughing with pleasure, and searched under her pillows +for the strange and beautiful things that she had been gathering in +dreamland. + +"What's Mara looking after?" said Sally, sitting up in her trundle-bed, +and speaking in the patronizing motherly tone she commonly used to her +little playmate. + +"All gone, pitty boy--all gone!" said the child, looking round +regretfully, and shaking her golden head; "pitty lady all gone!" + +"How queer she talks!" said Sally, who had awakened with the project of +building a sheet-house with her fairy neighbor, and was beginning to +loosen the upper sheet and dispose the pillows with a view to this +species of architecture. "Come, Mara, let's make a pretty house!" she +said. + +"Pitty boy out dere--out dere!" said the little one, pointing to the +window, with a deeper expression than ever of wishfulness in her eyes. + +"Come, Sally Kittridge, get up this minute!" said the voice of her +mother, entering the door at this moment; "and here, put these clothes +on to Mara, the child mustn't run round in her best; it's strange, now, +Mary Pennel never thinks of such things." + +Sally, who was of an efficient temperament, was preparing energetically +to second these commands of her mother, and endue her little neighbor +with a coarse brown stuff dress, somewhat faded and patched, which she +herself had outgrown when of Mara's age; with shoes, which had been +coarsely made to begin with, and very much battered by time; but, quite +to her surprise, the child, generally so passive and tractable, opposed +a most unexpected and desperate resistance to this operation. She began +to cry and to sob and shake her curly head, throwing her tiny hands out +in a wild species of freakish opposition, which had, notwithstanding, a +quaint and singular grace about it, while she stated her objections in +all the little English at her command. + +"Mara don't want--Mara want pitty boo des--and _pitty_ shoes." + +"Why, was ever anything like it?" said Mrs. Kittridge to Miss Roxy, as +they both were drawn to the door by the outcry; "here's this child won't +have decent every-day clothes put on her,--she must be kept dressed up +like a princess. Now, that ar's French calico!" said Mrs. Kittridge, +holding up the controverted blue dress, "and that ar never cost a cent +under five-and-sixpence a yard; it takes a yard and a half to make it, +and it must have been a good day's work to make it up; call that +three-and-sixpence more, and with them pearl buttons and thread and all, +that ar dress never cost less than a dollar and seventy-five, and here +she's goin' to run out every day in it!" + +"Well, well!" said Miss Roxy, who had taken the sobbing fair one in her +lap, "you know, Mis' Kittridge, this 'ere's a kind o' pet lamb, an +old-folks' darling, and things be with her as they be, and we can't make +her over, and she's such a nervous little thing we mustn't cross her." +Saying which, she proceeded to dress the child in her own clothes. + +"If you had a good large checked apron, I wouldn't mind putting that on +her!" added Miss Roxy, after she had arrayed the child. + +"Here's one," said Mrs. Kittridge; "that may save her clothes some." + +Miss Roxy began to put on the wholesome garment; but, rather to her +mortification, the little fairy began to weep again in a most +heart-broken manner. + +"Don't want che't apon." + +"Why don't Mara want nice checked apron?" said Miss Roxy, in that extra +cheerful tone by which children are to be made to believe they have +mistaken their own mind. + +"Don't want it!" with a decided wave of the little hand; "I's too pitty +to wear che't apon." + +"Well! well!" said Mrs. Kittridge, rolling up her eyes, "did I ever! no, +I never did. If there ain't depraved natur' a-comin' out early. Well, if +she says she's pretty now, what'll it be when she's fifteen?" + +"She'll learn to tell a lie about it by that time," said Miss Roxy, "and +say she thinks she's horrid. The child _is_ pretty, and the truth comes +uppermost with her now." + +"Haw! haw! haw!" burst with a great crash from Captain Kittridge, who +had come in behind, and stood silently listening during this +conversation; "that's musical now; come here, my little maid, you _are_ +too pretty for checked aprons, and no mistake;" and seizing the child in +his long arms, he tossed her up like a butterfly, while her sunny curls +shone in the morning light. + +"There's one comfort about the child, Miss Kittridge," said Aunt Roxy: +"she's one of them that dirt won't stick to. I never knew her to stain +or tear her clothes,--she always come in jist so nice." + +"She ain't much like Sally, then!" said Mrs. Kittridge. "That girl'll +run through more clothes! Only last week she walked the crown out of my +old black straw bonnet, and left it hanging on the top of a +blackberry-bush." + +"Wal', wal'," said Captain Kittridge, "as to dressin' this 'ere +child,--why, ef Pennel's a mind to dress her in cloth of gold, it's none +of our business! He's rich enough for all he wants to do, and so let's +eat our breakfast and mind our own business." + +After breakfast Captain Kittridge took the two children down to the +cove, to investigate the state of his boat and tar-kettle, set high +above the highest tide-mark. The sun had risen gloriously, the sky was +of an intense, vivid blue, and only great snowy islands of clouds, lying +in silver banks on the horizon, showed vestiges of last night's storm. +The whole wide sea was one glorious scene of forming and dissolving +mountains of blue and purple, breaking at the crest into brilliant +silver. All round the island the waves were constantly leaping and +springing into jets and columns of brilliant foam, throwing themselves +high up, in silvery cataracts, into the very arms of the solemn +evergreen forests which overhung the shore. + +The sands of the little cove seemed harder and whiter than ever, and +were thickly bestrewn with the shells and seaweed which the upturnings +of the night had brought in. There lay what might have been fringes and +fragments of sea-gods' vestures,--blue, crimson, purple, and orange +seaweeds, wreathed in tangled ropes of kelp and sea-grass, or lying +separately scattered on the sands. The children ran wildly, shouting as +they began gathering sea-treasures; and Sally, with the air of an +experienced hand in the business, untwisted the coils of rosy seaweed, +from which every moment she disengaged some new treasure, in some rarer +shell or smoother pebble. + +Suddenly, the child shook out something from a knotted mass of +sea-grass, which she held up with a perfect shriek of delight. It was a +bracelet of hair, fastened by a brilliant clasp of green, sparkling +stones, such as she had never seen before. She redoubled her cries of +delight, as she saw it sparkle between her and the sun, calling upon her +father. + +"Father! father! do come here, and see what I've found!" + +He came quickly, and took the bracelet from the child's hand; but, at +the same moment, looking over her head, he caught sight of an object +partially concealed behind a projecting rock. He took a step forward, +and uttered an exclamation,-- + +"Well, well! sure enough! poor things!" + +There lay, bedded in sand and seaweed, a woman with a little boy clasped +in her arms! Both had been carefully lashed to a spar, but the child was +held to the bosom of the woman, with a pressure closer than any knot +that mortal hands could tie. Both were deep sunk in the sand, into which +had streamed the woman's long, dark hair, which sparkled with glittering +morsels of sand and pebbles, and with those tiny, brilliant, yellow +shells which are so numerous on that shore. + +The woman was both young and beautiful. The forehead, damp with +ocean-spray, was like sculptured marble,--the eyebrows dark and decided +in their outline; but the long, heavy, black fringes had shut down, as a +solemn curtain, over all the history of mortal joy or sorrow that those +eyes had looked upon. A wedding-ring gleamed on the marble hand; but the +sea had divorced all human ties, and taken her as a bride to itself. +And, in truth, it seemed to have made to her a worthy bed, for she was +all folded and inwreathed in sand and shells and seaweeds, and a great, +weird-looking leaf of kelp, some yards in length, lay twined around her +like a shroud. The child that lay in her bosom had hair, and face, and +eyelashes like her own, and his little hands were holding tightly a +portion of the black dress which she wore. + +"Cold,--cold,--stone dead!" was the muttered exclamation of the old +seaman, as he bent over the woman. + +"She must have struck her head there," he mused, as he laid his finger +on a dark, bruised spot on her temple. He laid his hand on the child's +heart, and put one finger under the arm to see if there was any +lingering vital heat, and then hastily cut the lashings that bound the +pair to the spar, and with difficulty disengaged the child from the cold +clasp in which dying love had bound him to a heart which should beat no +more with mortal joy or sorrow. + +Sally, after the first moment, had run screaming toward the house, with +all a child's forward eagerness, to be the bearer of news; but the +little Mara stood, looking anxiously, with a wishful earnestness of +face. + +"Pitty boy,--pitty boy,--come!" she said often; but the old man was so +busy, he scarcely regarded her. + +"Now, Cap'n Kittridge, do tell!" said Miss Roxy, meeting him in all +haste, with a cap-border stiff in air, while Dame Kittridge exclaimed,-- + +"Now, you don't! Well, well! didn't I say that was a ship last night? +And what a solemnizing thought it was that souls might be goin' into +eternity!" + +"We must have blankets and hot bottles, right away," said Miss Roxy, who +always took the earthly view of matters, and who was, in her own person, +a personified humane society. "Miss Kittridge, you jist dip out your +dishwater into the smallest tub, and we'll put him in. Stand away, Mara! +Sally, you take her out of the way! We'll fetch this child to, perhaps. +I've fetched 'em to, when they's seemed to be dead as door-nails!" + +"Cap'n Kittridge, you're sure the woman's dead?" + +"Laws, yes; she had a blow right on her temple here. There's no bringing +her to till the resurrection." + +"Well, then, you jist go and get Cap'n Pennel to come down and help you, +and get the body into the house, and we'll attend to layin' it out by +and by. Tell Ruey to come down." + +Aunt Roxy issued her orders with all the military vigor and precision of +a general in case of a sudden attack. It was her habit. Sickness and +death were her opportunities; where they were, she felt herself at home, +and she addressed herself to the task before her with undoubting faith. + +Before many hours a pair of large, dark eyes slowly emerged from under +the black-fringed lids of the little drowned boy,--they rolled dreamily +round for a moment, and dropped again in heavy languor. + +The little Mara had, with the quiet persistence which formed a trait in +her baby character, dragged stools and chairs to the back of the bed, +which she at last succeeded in scaling, and sat opposite to where the +child lay, grave and still, watching with intense earnestness the +process that was going on. At the moment when the eyes had opened, she +stretched forth her little arms, and said, eagerly, "Pitty boy, +come,"--and then, as they closed again, she dropped her hands with a +sigh of disappointment. Yet, before night, the little stranger sat up in +bed, and laughed with pleasure at the treasures of shells and pebbles +which the children spread out on the bed before him. + +He was a vigorous, well-made, handsome child, with brilliant eyes and +teeth, but the few words that he spoke were in a language unknown to +most present. Captain Kittridge declared it to be Spanish, and that a +call which he most passionately and often repeated was for his mother. +But he was of that happy age when sorrow can be easily effaced, and the +efforts of the children called forth joyous smiles. When his playthings +did not go to his liking, he showed sparkles of a fiery, irascible +spirit. + +The little Mara seemed to appropriate him in feminine fashion, as a +chosen idol and graven image. She gave him at once all her slender stock +of infantine treasures, and seemed to watch with an ecstatic devotion +his every movement,--often repeating, as she looked delightedly around, +"Pitty boy, come." + +She had no words to explain the strange dream of the morning; it lay in +her, struggling for expression, and giving her an interest in the +new-comer as in something belonging to herself. Whence it came,--whence +come multitudes like it, which spring up as strange, enchanted flowers, +every now and then in the dull, material pathway of life,--who knows? It +may be that our present faculties have among them a rudimentary one, +like the germs of wings in the chrysalis, by which the spiritual world +becomes sometimes an object of perception; there may be natures in which +the walls of the material are so fine and translucent that the spiritual +is seen through them as through a glass darkly. It may be, too, that the +love which is stronger than death has a power sometimes to make itself +heard and felt through the walls of our mortality, when it would plead +for the defenseless ones it has left behind. All these things _may_ +be,--who knows? + + * * * * * + +"There," said Miss Roxy, coming out of the keeping-room at sunset; "I +wouldn't ask to see a better-lookin' corpse. That ar woman was a sight +to behold this morning. I guess I shook a double handful of stones and +them little shells out of her hair,--now she reely looks beautiful. +Captain Kittridge has made a coffin out o' some cedar-boards he happened +to have, and I lined it with bleached cotton, and stuffed the pillow +nice and full, and when we come to get her in, she reely will look +lovely." + +"I s'pose, Mis' Kittridge, you'll have the funeral to-morrow,--it's +Sunday." + +"Why, yes, Aunt Roxy,--I think everybody must want to improve such a +dispensation. Have you took little Mara in to look at the corpse?" + +"Well, no," said Miss Roxy; "Mis' Pennel's gettin' ready to take her +home." + +"I think it's an opportunity we ought to improve," said Mrs. Kittridge, +"to learn children what death is. I think we can't begin to solemnize +their minds too young." + +At this moment Sally and the little Mara entered the room. + +"Come here, children," said Mrs. Kittridge, taking a hand of either one, +and leading them to the closed door of the keeping-room; "I've got +somethin' to show you." + +The room looked ghostly and dim,--the rays of light fell through the +closed shutter on an object mysteriously muffled in a white sheet. + +Sally's bright face expressed only the vague curiosity of a child to see +something new; but the little Mara resisted and hung back with all her +force, so that Mrs. Kittridge was obliged to take her up and hold her. + +She folded back the sheet from the chill and wintry form which lay so +icily, lonely, and cold. Sally walked around it, and gratified her +curiosity by seeing it from every point of view, and laying her warm, +busy hand on the lifeless and cold one; but Mara clung to Mrs. +Kittridge, with eyes that expressed a distressed astonishment. The good +woman stooped over and placed the child's little hand for a moment on +the icy forehead. The little one gave a piercing scream, and struggled +to get away; and as soon as she was put down, she ran and hid her face +in Aunt Roxy's dress, sobbing bitterly. + +"That child'll grow up to follow vanity," said Mrs. Kittridge; "her +little head is full of dress now, and she hates anything serious,--it's +easy to see that." + +The little Mara had no words to tell what a strange, distressful chill +had passed up her arm and through her brain, as she felt that icy cold +of death,--that cold so different from all others. It was an impression +of fear and pain that lasted weeks and months, so that she would start +out of sleep and cry with a terror which she had not yet a sufficiency +of language to describe. + +"You seem to forget, Mis' Kittridge, that this 'ere child ain't rugged +like our Sally," said Aunt Roxy, as she raised the little Mara in her +arms. "She was a seven-months' baby, and hard to raise at all, and a +shivery, scary little creature." + +"Well, then, she ought to be hardened," said Dame Kittridge. "But Mary +Pennel never had no sort of idea of bringin' up children; 'twas jist so +with Naomi,--the girl never had no sort o' resolution, and she just died +for want o' resolution,--that's what came of it. I tell ye, children's +got to learn to take the world as it is; and 'tain't no use bringin' on +'em up too tender. Teach 'em to begin as they've got to go out,--that's +my maxim." + +"Mis' Kittridge," said Aunt Roxy, "there's reason in all things, and +there's difference in children. 'What's one's meat's another's pison.' +You couldn't fetch up Mis' Pennel's children, and she couldn't fetch up +your'n,--so let's say no more 'bout it." + +"I'm always a-tellin' my wife that ar," said Captain Kittridge; "she's +always wantin' to make everybody over after her pattern." + +"Cap'n Kittridge, I don't think _you_ need to speak," resumed his wife. +"When such a loud providence is a-knockin' at _your_ door, I think you'd +better be a-searchin' your own heart,--here it is the eleventh hour, and +you hain't come into the Lord's vineyard yet." + +"Oh! come, come, Mis' Kittridge, don't twit a feller afore folks," said +the Captain. "I'm goin' over to Harpswell Neck this blessed minute after +the minister to 'tend the funeral,--so we'll let _him_ preach." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN + + +Life on any shore is a dull affair,--ever degenerating into commonplace; +and this may account for the eagerness with which even a great calamity +is sometimes accepted in a neighborhood, as affording wherewithal to +stir the deeper feelings of our nature. Thus, though Mrs. Kittridge was +by no means a hard-hearted woman, and would not for the world have had a +ship wrecked on her particular account, yet since a ship had been +wrecked and a body floated ashore at her very door, as it were, it +afforded her no inconsiderable satisfaction to dwell on the details and +to arrange for the funeral. + +It was something to talk about and to think of, and likely to furnish +subject-matter for talk for years to come when she should go out to tea +with any of her acquaintances who lived at Middle Bay, or Maquoit, or +Harpswell Neck. For although in those days,--the number of light-houses +being much smaller than it is now,--it was no uncommon thing for ships +to be driven on shore in storms, yet this incident had undeniably more +that was stirring and romantic in it than any within the memory of any +tea-table gossip in the vicinity. Mrs. Kittridge, therefore, looked +forward to the funeral services on Sunday afternoon as to a species of +solemn fête, which imparted a sort of consequence to her dwelling and +herself. Notice of it was to be given out in "meeting" after service, +and she might expect both keeping-room and kitchen to be full. Mrs. +Pennel had offered to do her share of Christian and neighborly +kindness, in taking home to her own dwelling the little boy. In fact, it +became necessary to do so in order to appease the feelings of the little +Mara, who clung to the new acquisition with most devoted fondness, and +wept bitterly when he was separated from her even for a few moments. +Therefore, in the afternoon of the day when the body was found, Mrs. +Pennel, who had come down to assist, went back in company with Aunt Ruey +and the two children. + +The September evening set in brisk and chill, and the cheerful fire that +snapped and roared up the ample chimney of Captain Kittridge's kitchen +was a pleasing feature. The days of our story were before the advent of +those sullen gnomes, the "air-tights," or even those more sociable and +cheery domestic genii, the cooking-stoves. They were the days of the +genial open kitchen-fire, with the crane, the pot-hooks, and +trammels,--where hissed and boiled the social tea-kettle, where steamed +the huge dinner-pot, in whose ample depths beets, carrots, potatoes, and +turnips boiled in jolly sociability with the pork or corned beef which +they were destined to flank at the coming meal. + +On the present evening, Miss Roxy sat bolt upright, as was her wont, in +one corner of the fireplace, with her spectacles on her nose, and an +unwonted show of candles on the little stand beside her, having resumed +the task of the silk dress which had been for a season interrupted. Mrs. +Kittridge, with her spectacles also mounted, was carefully and warily +"running-up breadths," stopping every few minutes to examine her work, +and to inquire submissively of Miss Roxy if "it will do?" + +Captain Kittridge sat in the other corner busily whittling on a little +boat which he was shaping to please Sally, who sat on a low stool by his +side with her knitting, evidently more intent on what her father was +producing than on the evening task of "ten bouts," which her mother +exacted before she could freely give her mind to anything on her own +account. As Sally was rigorously sent to bed exactly at eight o'clock, +it became her to be diligent if she wished to do anything for her own +amusement before that hour. + +And in the next room, cold and still, was lying that faded image of +youth and beauty which the sea had so strangely given up. Without a +name, without a history, without a single accompaniment from which her +past could even be surmised,--there she lay, sealed in eternal silence. + +"It's strange," said Captain Kittridge, as he whittled away,--"it's very +strange we don't find anything more of that ar ship. I've been all up +and down the beach a-lookin'. There was a spar and some broken bits of +boards and timbers come ashore down on the beach, but nothin' to speak +of." + +"It won't be known till the sea gives up its dead," said Miss Roxy, +shaking her head solemnly, "and there'll be a great givin' up then, I'm +a-thinkin'." + +"Yes, indeed," said Mrs. Kittridge, with an emphatic nod. + +"Father," said Sally, "how many, many things there must be at the bottom +of the sea,--so many ships are sunk with all their fine things on board. +Why don't people contrive some way to go down and get them?" + +"They do, child," said Captain Kittridge; "they have diving-bells, and +men go down in 'em with caps over their faces, and long tubes to get the +air through, and they walk about on the bottom of the ocean." + +"Did you ever go down in one, father?" + +"Why, yes, child, to be sure; and strange enough it was, to be sure. +There you could see great big sea critters, with ever so many eyes and +long arms, swimming right up to catch you, and all you could do would be +to muddy the water on the bottom, so they couldn't see you." + +"I never heard of that, Cap'n Kittridge," said his wife, drawing herself +up with a reproving coolness. + +"Wal', Mis' Kittridge, you hain't heard of everything that ever +happened," said the Captain, imperturbably, "though you _do_ know a +sight." + +"And how does the bottom of the ocean look, father?" said Sally. + +"Laws, child, why trees and bushes grow there, just as they do on land; +and great plants,--blue and purple and green and yellow, and lots of +great pearls lie round. I've seen 'em big as chippin'-birds' eggs." + +"Cap'n Kittridge!" said his wife. + +"I have, and big as robins' eggs, too, but them was off the coast of +Ceylon and Malabar, and way round the Equator," said the Captain, +prudently resolved to throw his romance to a sufficient distance. + +"It's a pity you didn't get a few of them pearls," said his wife, with +an indignant appearance of scorn. + +"I did get lots on 'em, and traded 'em off to the Nabobs in the interior +for Cashmere shawls and India silks and sich," said the Captain, +composedly; "and brought 'em home and sold 'em at a good figure, too." + +"Oh, father!" said Sally, earnestly, "I wish you had saved just one or +two for us." + +"Laws, child, I wish now I had," said the Captain, good-naturedly. "Why, +when I was in India, I went up to Lucknow, and Benares, and round, and +saw all the Nabobs and Biggums,--why, they don't make no more of gold +and silver and precious stones than we do of the shells we find on the +beach. Why, I've seen one of them fellers with a diamond in his turban +as big as my fist." + +"Cap'n Kittridge, what are you telling?" said his wife once more. + +"Fact,--as big as my fist," said the Captain, obdurately; "and all the +clothes he wore was jist a stiff crust of pearls and precious stones. I +tell you, he looked like something in the Revelations,--a real New +Jerusalem look he had." + +"I call that ar talk wicked, Cap'n Kittridge, usin' Scriptur' that ar +way," said his wife. + +"Why, don't it tell about all sorts of gold and precious stones in the +Revelations?" said the Captain; "that's all I meant. Them ar countries +off in Asia ain't like our'n,--stands to reason they shouldn't be; +them's Scripture countries, and everything is different there." + +"Father, didn't you ever get any of those splendid things?" said Sally. + +"Laws, yes, child. Why, I had a great green ring, an emerald, that one +of the princes giv' me, and ever so many pearls and diamonds. I used to +go with 'em rattlin' loose in my vest pocket. I was young and gay in +them days, and thought of bringin' of 'em home for the gals, but somehow +I always got opportunities for swappin' of 'em off for goods and sich. +That ar shawl your mother keeps in her camfire chist was what I got for +one on 'em." + +"Well, well," said Mrs. Kittridge, "there's never any catchin' you, +'cause you've been where we haven't." + +"You've caught me once, and that ought'r do," said the Captain, with +unruffled good-nature. "I tell you, Sally, your mother was the +handsomest gal in Harpswell in them days." + +"I should think you was too old for such nonsense, Cap'n," said Mrs. +Kittridge, with a toss of her head, and a voice that sounded far less +inexorable than her former admonition. In fact, though the old Captain +was as unmanageable under his wife's fireside _régime_ as any brisk old +cricket that skipped and sang around the hearth, and though he hopped +over all moral boundaries with a cheerful alertness of conscience that +was quite discouraging, still there was no resisting the spell of his +inexhaustible good-nature. + +By this time he had finished the little boat, and to Sally's great +delight, began sailing it for her in a pail of water. + +"I wonder," said Mrs. Kittridge, "what's to be done with that ar child. +I suppose the selectmen will take care on't; it'll be brought up by the +town." + +"I shouldn't wonder," said Miss Roxy, "if Cap'n Pennel should adopt it." + +"You don't think so," said Mrs. Kittridge. "'Twould be taking a great +care and expense on their hands at their time of life." + +"I wouldn't want no better fun than to bring up that little shaver," +said Captain Kittridge; "he's a bright un, I promise you." + +"You, Cap'n Kittridge! I wonder you can talk so," said his wife. "It's +an awful responsibility, and I wonder you don't think whether or no +you're fit for it." + +"Why, down here on the shore, I'd as lives undertake a boy as a +Newfoundland pup," said the Captain. "Plenty in the sea to eat, drink, +and wear. That ar young un may be the staff of their old age yet." + +"You see," said Miss Roxy, "I think they'll adopt it to be company for +little Mara; they're bound up in her, and the little thing pines bein' +alone." + +"Well, they make a real graven image of that ar child," said Mrs. +Kittridge, "and fairly bow down to her and worship her." + +"Well, it's natural," said Miss Roxy. "Besides, the little thing is +cunnin'; she's about the cunnin'est little crittur that I ever saw, and +has such enticin' ways." + +The fact was, as the reader may perceive, that Miss Roxy had been thawed +into an unusual attachment for the little Mara, and this affection was +beginning to spread a warming element though her whole being. It was as +if a rough granite rock had suddenly awakened to a passionate +consciousness of the beauty of some fluttering white anemone that +nestled in its cleft, and felt warm thrills running through all its +veins at every tender motion and shadow. A word spoken against the +little one seemed to rouse her combativeness. Nor did Dame Kittridge +bear the child the slightest ill-will, but she was one of those +naturally care-taking people whom Providence seems to design to perform +the picket duties for the rest of society, and who, therefore, challenge +everybody and everything to stand and give an account of themselves. +Miss Roxy herself belonged to this class, but sometimes found herself so +stoutly overhauled by the guns of Mrs. Kittridge's battery, that she +could only stand modestly on the defensive. + +One of Mrs. Kittridge's favorite hobbies was education, or, as she +phrased it, the "fetchin' up" of children, which she held should be +performed to the letter of the old stiff rule. In this manner she had +already trained up six sons, who were all following their fortunes upon +the seas, and, on this account, she had no small conceit of her +abilities; and when she thought she discerned a lamb being left to frisk +heedlessly out of bounds, her zeal was stirred to bring it under proper +sheepfold regulations. + +"Come, Sally, it's eight o'clock," said the good woman. + +Sally's dark brows lowered over her large, black eyes, and she gave an +appealing look to her father. + +"Law, mother, let the child sit up a quarter of an hour later, jist for +once." + +"Cap'n Kittridge, if I was to hear to you, there'd never be no rule in +this house. Sally, you go 'long this minute, and be sure you put your +knittin' away in its place." + +The Captain gave a humorous nod of submissive good-nature to his +daughter as she went out. In fact, putting Sally to bed was taking away +his plaything, and leaving him nothing to do but study faces in the +coals, or watch the fleeting sparks which chased each other in flocks +up the sooty back of the chimney. + +It was Saturday night, and the morrow was Sunday,--never a very pleasant +prospect to the poor Captain, who, having, unfortunately, no spiritual +tastes, found it very difficult to get through the day in compliance +with his wife's views of propriety, for he, alas! soared no higher in +his aims. + +"I b'lieve, on the hull, Polly, I'll go to bed, too," said he, suddenly +starting up. + +"Well, father, your clean shirt is in the right-hand corner of the upper +drawer, and your Sunday clothes on the back of the chair by the bed." + +The fact was that the Captain promised himself the pleasure of a long +conversation with Sally, who nestled in the trundle-bed under the +paternal couch, to whom he could relate long, many-colored yarns, +without the danger of interruption from her mother's sharp, +truth-seeking voice. + +A moralist might, perhaps, be puzzled exactly what account to make of +the Captain's disposition to romancing and embroidery. In all real, +matter-of-fact transactions, as between man and man, his word was as +good as another's, and he was held to be honest and just in his +dealings. It was only when he mounted the stilts of foreign travel that +his paces became so enormous. Perhaps, after all, a rude poetic and +artistic faculty possessed the man. He might have been a humbler phase +of the "mute, inglorious Milton." Perhaps his narrations required the +privileges and allowances due to the inventive arts generally. Certain +it was that, in common with other artists, he required an atmosphere of +sympathy and confidence in which to develop himself fully; and, when +left alone with children, his mind ran such riot, that the bounds +between the real and unreal became foggier than the banks of +Newfoundland. + +The two women sat up, and the night wore on apace, while they kept +together that customary vigil which it was thought necessary to hold +over the lifeless casket from which an immortal jewel had recently been +withdrawn. + +"I re'lly did hope," said Mrs. Kittridge, mournfully, "that this 'ere +solemn Providence would have been sent home to the Cap'n's mind; but he +seems jist as light and triflin' as ever." + +"There don't nobody see these 'ere things unless they's effectually +called," said Miss Roxy, "and the Cap'n's time ain't come." + +"It's gettin' to be t'ward the eleventh hour," said Mrs. Kittridge, "as +I was a-tellin' him this afternoon." + +"Well," said Miss Roxy, "you know + + "'While the lamp holds out to burn, + The vilest sinner may return.'" + +"Yes, I know that," said Mrs. Kittridge, rising and taking up the +candle. "Don't you think, Aunt Roxy, we may as well give a look in there +at the corpse?" + +It was past midnight as they went together into the keeping-room. All +was so still that the clash of the rising tide and the ticking of the +clock assumed that solemn and mournful distinctness which even tones +less impressive take on in the night-watches. Miss Roxy went +mechanically through with certain arrangements of the white drapery +around the cold sleeper, and uncovering the face and bust for a moment, +looked critically at the still, unconscious countenance. + +"Not one thing to let us know who or what she is," she said; "that boy, +if he lives, would give a good deal to know, some day." + +"What is it one's duty to do about this bracelet?" said Mrs. Kittridge, +taking from a drawer the article in question, which had been found on +the beach in the morning. + +"Well, I s'pose it belongs to the child, whatever it's worth," said Miss +Roxy. + +"Then if the Pennels conclude to take him, I may as well give it to +them," said Mrs. Kittridge, laying it back in the drawer. + +Miss Roxy folded the cloth back over the face, and the two went out into +the kitchen. The fire had sunk low--the crickets were chirruping +gleefully. Mrs. Kittridge added more wood, and put on the tea-kettle +that their watching might be refreshed by the aid of its talkative and +inspiring beverage. The two solemn, hard-visaged women drew up to each +other by the fire, and insensibly their very voices assumed a tone of +drowsy and confidential mystery. + +"If this 'ere poor woman was hopefully pious, and could see what was +goin' on here," said Mrs. Kittridge, "it would seem to be a comfort to +her that her child has fallen into such good hands. It seems a'most a +pity she couldn't know it." + +"How do you know she don't?" said Miss Roxy, brusquely. + +"Why, you know the hymn," said Mrs. Kittridge, quoting those somewhat +saddusaical lines from the popular psalm-book:-- + + "'The living know that they must die, + But all the dead forgotten lie-- + _Their memory and their senses gone, + Alike unknowing and unknown_.'" + +"Well, I don't know 'bout that," said Miss Roxy, flavoring her cup of +tea; "hymn-book ain't Scriptur', and I'm pretty sure that ar ain't true +always;" and she nodded her head as if she could say more if she chose. + +Now Miss Roxy's reputation of vast experience in all the facts relating +to those last fateful hours, which are the only certain event in every +human existence, caused her to be regarded as a sort of Delphic oracle +in such matters, and therefore Mrs. Kittridge, not without a share of +the latent superstition to which each human heart must confess at some +hours, drew confidentially near to Miss Roxy, and asked if she had +anything particular on her mind. + +"Well, Mis' Kittridge," said Miss Roxy, "I ain't one of the sort as +likes to make a talk of what I've seen, but mebbe if I was, I've seen +some things _as_ remarkable as anybody. I tell you, Mis' Kittridge, +folks don't tend the sick and dyin' bed year in and out, at all hours, +day and night, and not see some remarkable things; that's my opinion." + +"Well, Miss Roxy, did you ever see a sperit?" + +"I won't say as I have, and I won't say as I haven't," said Miss Roxy; +"only as I have seen some remarkable things." + +There was a pause, in which Mrs. Kittridge stirred her tea, looking +intensely curious, while the old kitchen-clock seemed to tick with one +of those fits of loud insistence which seem to take clocks at times when +all is still, as if they had something that they were getting ready to +say pretty soon, if nobody else spoke. + +But Miss Roxy evidently had something to say, and so she began:-- + +"Mis' Kittridge, this 'ere's a very particular subject to be talkin' +of. I've had opportunities to observe that most haven't, and I don't +care if I jist say to you, that I'm pretty sure spirits that has left +the body do come to their friends sometimes." + +The clock ticked with still more _empressement_, and Mrs. Kittridge +glared through the horn bows of her glasses with eyes of eager +curiosity. + +"Now, you remember Cap'n Titcomb's wife, that died fifteen years ago +when her husband had gone to Archangel; and you remember that he took +her son John out with him--and of all her boys, John was the one she +was particular sot on." + +"Yes, and John died at Archangel; I remember that." + +"Jes' so," said Miss Roxy, laying her hand on Mrs. Kittridge's; "he died +at Archangel the very day his mother died, and jist the hour, for the +Cap'n had it down in his log-book." + +"You don't say so!" + +"Yes, I do. Well, now," said Miss Roxy, sinking her voice, "this 'ere +was remarkable. Mis' Titcomb was one of the fearful sort, tho' one of +the best women that ever lived. Our minister used to call her 'Mis' +Muchafraid'--you know, in the 'Pilgrim's Progress'--but he was satisfied +with her evidences, and told her so; she used to say she was 'afraid of +the dark valley,' and she told our minister so when he went out, that ar +last day he called; and his last words, as he stood with his hand on the +knob of the door, was 'Mis' Titcomb, the Lord will find ways to bring +you thro' the dark valley.' Well, she sunk away about three o'clock in +the morning. I remember the time, 'cause the Cap'n's chronometer watch +that he left with her lay on the stand for her to take her drops by. I +heard her kind o' restless, and I went up, and I saw she was struck with +death, and she looked sort o' anxious and distressed. + +"'Oh, Aunt Roxy,' says she, 'it's so dark, who will go with me?' and in +a minute her whole face brightened up, and says she, 'John is going with +me,' and she jist gave the least little sigh and never breathed no +more--she jist died as easy as a bird. I told our minister of it next +morning, and he asked if I'd made a note of the hour, and I told him I +had, and says he, 'You did right, Aunt Roxy.'" + +"What did he seem to think of it?" + +"Well, he didn't seem inclined to speak freely. 'Miss Roxy,' says he, +'all natur's in the Lord's hands, and there's no saying why he uses this +or that; them that's strong enough to go by faith, he lets 'em, but +there's no saying what he won't do for the weak ones.'" + +"Wa'n't the Cap'n overcome when you told him?" said Mrs. Kittridge. + +"Indeed he was; he was jist as white as a sheet." + +Miss Roxy now proceeded to pour out another cup of tea, and having mixed +and flavored it, she looked in a weird and sibylline manner across it, +and inquired,-- + +"Mis' Kittridge, do you remember that ar Mr. Wadkins that come to +Brunswick twenty years ago, in President Averill's days?" + +"Yes, I remember the pale, thin, long-nosed gentleman that used to sit +in President Averill's pew at church. Nobody knew who he was, or where +he came from. The college students used to call him Thaddeus of Warsaw. +Nobody knew who he was but the President, 'cause he could speak all the +foreign tongues--one about as well as another; but the President he knew +his story, and said he was a good man, and he used to stay to the +sacrament regular, I remember." + +"Yes," said Miss Roxy, "he used to live in a room all alone, and keep +himself. Folks said he was quite a gentleman, too, and fond of reading." + +"I heard Cap'n Atkins tell," said Mrs. Kittridge, "how they came to take +him up on the shores of Holland. You see, when he was somewhere in a +port in Denmark, some men come to him and offered him a pretty good sum +of money if he'd be at such a place on the coast of Holland on such a +day, and take whoever should come. So the Cap'n he went, and sure enough +on that day there come a troop of men on horseback down to the beach +with this man, and they all bid him good-by, and seemed to make much of +him, but he never told 'em nothin' on board ship, only he seemed kind o' +sad and pinin'." + +"Well," said Miss Roxy; "Ruey and I we took care o' that man in his +last sickness, and we watched with him the night he died, and there was +something quite remarkable." + +"Do tell now," said Mrs. Kittridge. + +"Well, you see," said Miss Roxy, "he'd been low and poorly all day, kind +o' tossin' and restless, and a little light-headed, and the Doctor said +he thought he wouldn't last till morning, and so Ruey and I we set up +with him, and between twelve and one Ruey said she thought she'd jist +lop down a few minutes on the old sofa at the foot of the bed, and I +made me a cup of tea like as I'm a-doin' now, and set with my back to +him." + +"Well?" said Mrs. Kittridge, eagerly. + +"Well, you see he kept a-tossin' and throwin' off the clothes, and I +kept a-gettin' up to straighten 'em; and once he threw out his arms, and +something bright fell out on to the pillow, and I went and looked, and +it was a likeness that he wore by a ribbon round his neck. It was a +woman--a real handsome one--and she had on a low-necked black dress, of +the cut they used to call Marie Louise, and she had a string of pearls +round her neck, and her hair curled with pearls in it, and very wide +blue eyes. Well, you see, I didn't look but a minute before he seemed to +wake up, and he caught at it and hid it in his clothes. Well, I went and +sat down, and I grew kind o' sleepy over the fire; but pretty soon I +heard him speak out very clear, and kind o' surprised, in a tongue I +didn't understand, and I looked round." + +Miss Roxy here made a pause, and put another lump of sugar into her tea. + +"Well?" said Mrs. Kittridge, ready to burst with curiosity. + +"Well, now, I don't like to tell about these 'ere things, and you +mustn't never speak about it; but as sure as you live, Polly Kittridge, +I see that ar very woman standin' at the back of the bed, right in the +partin' of the curtains, jist as she looked in the pictur'--blue eyes +and curly hair and pearls on her neck, and black dress." + +"What did you do?" said Mrs. Kittridge. + +"Do? Why, I jist held my breath and looked, and in a minute it kind o' +faded away, and I got up and went to the bed, but the man was gone. He +lay there with the pleasantest smile on his face that ever you see; and +I woke up Ruey, and told her about it." + +Mrs. Kittridge drew a long breath. "What do you think it was?" + +"Well," said Miss Roxy, "I know what I think, but I don't think best to +tell. I told Doctor Meritts, and he said there were more things in +heaven and earth than folks knew about--and so I think." + + * * * * * + +Meanwhile, on this same evening, the little Mara frisked like a +household fairy round the hearth of Zephaniah Pennel. + +The boy was a strong-limbed, merry-hearted little urchin, and did full +justice to the abundant hospitalities of Mrs. Pennel's tea-table; and +after supper little Mara employed herself in bringing apronful after +apronful of her choicest treasures, and laying them down at his feet. +His great black eyes flashed with pleasure, and he gamboled about the +hearth with his new playmate in perfect forgetfulness, apparently, of +all the past night of fear and anguish. + +When the great family Bible was brought out for prayers, and little Mara +composed herself on a low stool by her grandmother's side, he, however, +did not conduct himself as a babe of grace. He resisted all Miss Ruey's +efforts to make him sit down beside her, and stood staring with his +great, black, irreverent eyes during the Bible-reading, and laughed out +in the most inappropriate manner when the psalm-singing began, and +seemed disposed to mingle incoherent remarks of his own even in the +prayers. + +"This is a pretty self-willed youngster," said Miss Ruey, as they rose +from the exercises, "and I shouldn't think he'd been used to religious +privileges." + +"Perhaps not," said Zephaniah Pennel; "but who can say but what this +providence is a message of the Lord to us--such as Pharaoh's daughter +sent about Moses, 'Take this child, and bring him up for me'?" + +"I'd like to take him, if I thought I was capable," said Mrs. Pennel, +timidly. "It seems a real providence to give Mara some company; the poor +child pines so for want of it." + +"Well, then, Mary, if you say so, we will bring him up with our little +Mara," said Zephaniah, drawing the child toward him. "May the Lord bless +him!" he added, laying his great brown hands on the shining black curls +of the child. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +MOSES + + +Sunday morning rose clear and bright on Harpswell Bay. The whole sea was +a waveless, blue looking-glass, streaked with bands of white, and +flecked with sailing cloud-shadows from the skies above. Orr's Island, +with its blue-black spruces, its silver firs, its golden larches, its +scarlet sumachs, lay on the bosom of the deep like a great many-colored +gem on an enchanted mirror. A vague, dreamlike sense of rest and Sabbath +stillness seemed to brood in the air. The very spruce-trees seemed to +know that it was Sunday, and to point solemnly upward with their dusky +fingers; and the small tide-waves that chased each other up on the +shelly beach, or broke against projecting rocks, seemed to do it with a +chastened decorum, as if each blue-haired wave whispered to his brother, +"Be still--be still." + +Yes, Sunday it was along all the beautiful shores of Maine--netted in +green and azure by its thousand islands, all glorious with their +majestic pines, all musical and silvery with the caresses of the +sea-waves, that loved to wander and lose themselves in their numberless +shelly coves and tiny beaches among their cedar shadows. + +Not merely as a burdensome restraint, or a weary endurance, came the +shadow of that Puritan Sabbath. It brought with it all the sweetness +that belongs to rest, all the sacredness that hallows home, all the +memories of patient thrift, of sober order, of chastened yet intense +family feeling, of calmness, purity, and self-respecting dignity which +distinguish the Puritan household. It seemed a solemn pause in all the +sights and sounds of earth. And he whose moral nature was not yet enough +developed to fill the blank with visions of heaven was yet wholesomely +instructed by his weariness into the secret of his own spiritual +poverty. + +Zephaniah Pennel, in his best Sunday clothes, with his hard visage +glowing with a sort of interior tenderness, ministered this morning at +his family-altar--one of those thousand priests of God's ordaining that +tend the sacred fire in as many families of New England. He had risen +with the morning star and been forth to meditate, and came in with his +mind softened and glowing. The trance-like calm of earth and sea found a +solemn answer with him, as he read what a poet wrote by the sea-shores +of the Mediterranean, ages ago: "Bless the Lord, O my soul. O Lord my +God, thou art very great; thou art clothed with honor and majesty. Who +coverest thyself with light as with a garment: who stretchest out the +heavens like a curtain: who layeth the beams of his chambers in the +waters: who maketh the clouds his chariot: who walketh upon the wings of +the wind. The trees of the Lord are full of sap; the cedars of Lebanon, +which he hath planted; where the birds make their nests; as for the +stork, the fir-trees are her house. O Lord, how manifold are thy works! +in wisdom hast thou made them all." + +Ages ago the cedars that the poet saw have rotted into dust, and from +their cones have risen generations of others, wide-winged and grand. But +the words of that poet have been wafted like seed to our days, and +sprung up in flowers of trust and faith in a thousand households. + +"Well, now," said Miss Ruey, when the morning rite was over, "Mis' +Pennel, I s'pose you and the Cap'n will be wantin' to go to the meetin', +so don't you gin yourse'ves a mite of trouble about the children, for +I'll stay at home with 'em. The little feller was starty and fretful in +his sleep last night, and didn't seem to be quite well." + +"No wonder, poor dear," said Mrs. Pennel; "it's a wonder children can +forget as they do." + +"Yes," said Miss Ruey; "you know them lines in the 'English Reader,'-- + + 'Gay hope is theirs by fancy led, + Least pleasing when possessed; + The tear forgot as soon as shed, + The sunshine of the breast.' + +Them lines all'ys seemed to me affectin'." + +Miss Ruey's sentiment was here interrupted by a loud cry from the +bedroom, and something between a sneeze and a howl. + +"Massy! what is that ar young un up to!" she exclaimed, rushing into the +adjoining bedroom. + +There stood the young Master Hopeful of our story, with streaming eyes +and much-bedaubed face, having just, after much labor, succeeded in +making Miss Ruey's snuff-box fly open, which he did with such force as +to send the contents in a perfect cloud into eyes, nose, and mouth. The +scene of struggling and confusion that ensued cannot be described. The +washings, and wipings, and sobbings, and exhortings, and the sympathetic +sobs of the little Mara, formed a small tempest for the time being that +was rather appalling. + +"Well, this 'ere's a youngster that's a-goin' to make work," said Miss +Ruey, when all things were tolerably restored. "Seems to make himself at +home first thing." + +"Poor little dear," said Mrs. Pennel, in the excess of loving-kindness, +"I hope he will; he's welcome, I'm sure." + +"Not to my snuff-box," said Miss Ruey, who had felt herself attacked in +a very tender point. + +"He's got the notion of lookin' into things pretty early," said Captain +Pennel, with an indulgent smile. + +"Well, Aunt Ruey," said Mrs. Pennel, when this disturbance was somewhat +abated, "I feel kind o' sorry to deprive you of your privileges to-day." + +"Oh! never mind me," said Miss Ruey, briskly. "I've got the big Bible, +and I can sing a hymn or two by myself. My voice ain't quite what it +used to be, but then I get a good deal of pleasure out of it." Aunt +Ruey, it must be known, had in her youth been one of the foremost +leaders in the "singers' seats," and now was in the habit of speaking of +herself much as a retired _prima donna_ might, whose past successes were +yet in the minds of her generation. + +After giving a look out of the window, to see that the children were +within sight, she opened the big Bible at the story of the ten plagues +of Egypt, and adjusting her horn spectacles with a sort of sideway twist +on her little pug nose, she seemed intent on her Sunday duties. A moment +after she looked up and said, "I don't know but I must send a message by +you over to Mis' Deacon Badger, about a worldly matter, if 'tis Sunday; +but I've been thinkin', Mis' Pennel, that there'll have to be clothes +made up for this 'ere child next week, and so perhaps Roxy and I had +better stop here a day or two longer, and you tell Mis' Badger that +we'll come to her a Wednesday, and so she'll have time to have that new +press-board done,--the old one used to pester me so." + +"Well, I'll remember," said Mrs. Pennel. + +"It seems a'most impossible to prevent one's thoughts wanderin' +Sundays," said Aunt Ruey; "but I couldn't help a-thinkin' I could get +such a nice pair o' trousers out of them old Sunday ones of the Cap'n's +in the garret. I was a-lookin' at 'em last Thursday, and thinkin' what a +pity 'twas you hadn't nobody to cut down for; but this 'ere young un's +going to be such a tearer, he'll want somethin' real stout; but I'll try +and put it out of my mind till Monday. Mis' Pennel, you'll be sure to +ask Mis' Titcomb how Harriet's toothache is, and whether them drops +cured her that I gin her last Sunday; and ef you'll jist look in a +minute at Major Broad's, and tell 'em to use bayberry wax for his +blister, it's so healin'; and do jist ask if Sally's baby's eye-tooth +has come through yet." + +"Well, Aunt Ruey, I'll try to remember all," said Mrs. Pennel, as she +stood at the glass in her bedroom, carefully adjusting the respectable +black silk shawl over her shoulders, and tying her neat bonnet-strings. + +"I s'pose," said Aunt Ruey, "that the notice of the funeral'll be gin +out after sermon." + +"Yes, I think so," said Mrs. Pennel. + +"It's another loud call," said Miss Ruey, "and I hope it will turn the +young people from their thoughts of dress and vanity,--there's Mary Jane +Sanborn was all took up with gettin' feathers and velvet for her fall +bonnet. I don't think I shall get no bonnet this year till snow comes. +My bonnet's respectable enough,--don't you think so?" + +"Certainly, Aunt Ruey, it looks very well." + +"Well, I'll have the pork and beans and brown-bread all hot on table +agin you come back," said Miss Ruey, "and then after dinner we'll all go +down to the funeral together. Mis' Pennel, there's one thing on my +mind,--what you goin' to call this 'ere boy?" + +"Father and I've been thinkin' that over," said Mrs. Pennel. + +"Wouldn't think of giv'n him the Cap'n's name?" said Aunt Ruey. + +"He must have a name of his own," said Captain Pennel. "Come here, +sonny," he called to the child, who was playing just beside the door. + +The child lowered his head, shook down his long black curls, and looked +through them as elfishly as a Skye terrier, but showed no inclination to +come. + +"One thing he hasn't learned, evidently," said Captain Pennel, "and that +is to mind." + +"Here!" he said, turning to the boy with a little of the tone he had +used of old on the quarter-deck, and taking his small hand firmly. + +The child surrendered, and let the good man lift him on his knee and +stroke aside the clustering curls; the boy then looked fixedly at him +with his great gloomy black eyes, his little firm-set mouth and bridled +chin,--a perfect little miniature of proud manliness. + +"What's your name, little boy?" + +The great eyes continued looking in the same solemn quiet. + +"Law, he don't understand a word," said Zephaniah, putting his hand +kindly on the child's head; "our tongue is all strange to him. Kittridge +says he's a Spanish child; may be from the West Indies; but nobody +knows,--we never shall know his name." + +"Well, I dare say it was some Popish nonsense or other," said Aunt Ruey; +"and now he's come to a land of Christian privileges, we ought to give +him a good Scripture name, and start him well in the world." + +"Let's call him Moses," said Zephaniah, "because we drew him out of the +water." + +"Now, did I ever!" said Miss Ruey; "there's something in the Bible to +fit everything, ain't there?" + +"I like Moses, because I had a brother of that name," said Mrs. Pennel. + +The child had slid down from his protector's knee, and stood looking +from one to the other gravely while this discussion was going on. What +change of destiny was then going on for him in this simple formula of +adoption, none could tell; but, surely, never orphan stranded on a +foreign shore found home with hearts more true and loving. + +"Well, wife, I suppose we must be goin'," said Zephaniah. + +About a stone's throw from the open door, the little fishing-craft lay +courtesying daintily on the small tide-waves that came licking up the +white pebbly shore. Mrs. Pennel seated herself in the end of the boat, +and a pretty placid picture she was, with her smooth, parted hair, her +modest, cool, drab bonnet, and her bright hazel eyes, in which was the +Sabbath calm of a loving and tender heart. Zephaniah loosed the sail, +and the two children stood on the beach and saw them go off. A pleasant +little wind carried them away, and back on the breeze came the sound of +Zephaniah's Sunday-morning psalm:-- + + "Lord, in the morning thou shalt hear + My voice ascending high; + To thee will I direct my prayer, + To thee lift up mine eye. + + "Unto thy house will I resort. + To taste thy mercies there; + I will frequent thy holy court, + And worship in thy fear." + +The surface of the glassy bay was dotted here and there with the white +sails of other little craft bound for the same point and for the same +purpose. It was as pleasant a sight as one might wish to see. + +Left in charge of the house, Miss Ruey drew a long breath, took a +consoling pinch of snuff, sang "Bridgewater" in an uncommonly high key, +and then began reading in the prophecies. With her good head full of the +"daughter of Zion" and the house of Israel and Judah, she was recalled +to terrestrial things by loud screams from the barn, accompanied by a +general flutter and cackling among the hens. + +Away plodded the good soul, and opening the barn-door saw the little boy +perched on the top of the hay-mow, screaming and shrieking,--his face +the picture of dismay,--while poor little Mara's cries came in a more +muffled manner from some unexplored lower region. In fact, she was found +to have slipped through a hole in the hay-mow into the nest of a very +domestic sitting-hen, whose clamors at the invasion of her family +privacy added no little to the general confusion. + +The little princess, whose nicety as to her dress and sensitiveness as +to anything unpleasant about her pretty person we have seen, was lifted +up streaming with tears and broken eggs, but otherwise not seriously +injured, having fallen on the very substantial substratum of hay which +Dame Poulet had selected as the foundation of her domestic hopes. + +"Well, now, did I ever!" said Miss Ruey, when she had ascertained that +no bones were broken; "if that ar young un isn't a limb! I declare for't +I pity Mis' Pennel,--she don't know what she's undertook. How upon 'arth +the critter managed to get Mara on to the hay, I'm sure I can't +tell,--that ar little thing never got into no such scrapes before." + +Far from seeming impressed with any wholesome remorse of conscience, the +little culprit frowned fierce defiance at Miss Ruey, when, after having +repaired the damages of little Mara's toilet, she essayed the good old +plan of shutting him into the closet. He fought and struggled so +fiercely that Aunt Ruey's carroty frisette came off in the skirmish, and +her head-gear, always rather original, assumed an aspect verging on the +supernatural. Miss Ruey thought of Philistines and Moabites, and all the +other terrible people she had been reading about that morning, and came +as near getting into a passion with the little elf as so good-humored +and Christian an old body could possibly do. Human virtue is frail, and +every one has some vulnerable point. The old Roman senator could not +control himself when his beard was invaded, and the like sensitiveness +resides in an old woman's cap; and when young master irreverently clawed +off her Sunday best, Aunt Ruey, in her confusion of mind, administered a +sound cuff on either ear. + +Little Mara, who had screamed loudly through the whole scene, now +conceiving that her precious new-found treasure was endangered, flew at +poor Miss Ruey with both little hands; and throwing her arms round her +"boy," as she constantly called him, she drew him backward, and looked +defiance at the common enemy. Miss Ruey was dumb-struck. + +"I declare for't, I b'lieve he's bewitched her," she said, stupefied, +having never seen anything like the martial expression which now gleamed +from those soft brown eyes. "Why, Mara dear,--putty little Mara." + +But Mara was busy wiping away the angry tears that stood on the hot, +glowing cheeks of the boy, and offering her little rosebud of a mouth to +kiss him, as she stood on tiptoe. + +"Poor boy,--no kie,--Mara's boy," she said; "Mara love boy;" and then +giving an angry glance at Aunt Ruey, who sat much disheartened and +confused, she struck out her little pearly hand, and cried, "Go way,--go +way, naughty!" + +The child jabbered unintelligibly and earnestly to Mara, and she seemed +to have the air of being perfectly satisfied with his view of the case, +and both regarded Miss Ruey with frowning looks. Under these peculiar +circumstances, the good soul began to bethink her of some mode of +compromise, and going to the closet took out a couple of slices of cake, +which she offered to the little rebels with pacificatory words. + +Mara was appeased at once, and ran to Aunt Ruey; but the boy struck the +cake out of her hand, and looked at her with steady defiance. The little +one picked it up, and with much chippering and many little feminine +manoeuvres, at last succeeded in making him taste it, after which +appetite got the better of his valorous resolutions,--he ate and was +comforted; and after a little time, the three were on the best possible +footing. And Miss Ruey having smoothed her hair, and arranged her +frisette and cap, began to reflect upon herself as the cause of the +whole disturbance. If she had not let them run while she indulged in +reading and singing, this would not have happened. So the toilful good +soul kept them at her knee for the next hour or two, while they looked +through all the pictures in the old family Bible. + + * * * * * + +The evening of that day witnessed a crowded funeral in the small rooms +of Captain Kittridge. Mrs. Kittridge was in her glory. Solemn and +lugubrious to the last degree, she supplied in her own proper person the +want of the whole corps of mourners, who generally attract sympathy on +such occasions. But what drew artless pity from all was the unconscious +orphan, who came in, led by Mrs. Pennel by the one hand, and with the +little Mara by the other. + +The simple rite of baptism administered to the wondering little creature +so strongly recalled that other scene three years before, that Mrs. +Pennel hid her face in her handkerchief, and Zephaniah's firm hand shook +a little as he took the boy to offer him to the rite. The child received +the ceremony with a look of grave surprise, put up his hand quickly and +wiped the holy drops from his brow, as if they annoyed him; and +shrinking back, seized hold of the gown of Mrs. Pennel. His great +beauty, and, still more, the air of haughty, defiant firmness with which +he regarded the company, drew all eyes, and many were the whispered +comments. + +"Pennel'll have his hands full with that ar chap," said Captain +Kittridge to Miss Roxy. + +Mrs. Kittridge darted an admonitory glance at her husband, to remind him +that she was looking at him, and immediately he collapsed into +solemnity. + +The evening sunbeams slanted over the blackberry bushes and mullein +stalks of the graveyard, when the lonely voyager was lowered to the rest +from which she should not rise till the heavens be no more. As the +purple sea at that hour retained no trace of the ships that had furrowed +its waves, so of this mortal traveler no trace remained, not even in +that infant soul that was to her so passionately dear. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE MINISTER + + +Mrs. Kittridge's advantages and immunities resulting from the shipwreck +were not yet at an end. Not only had one of the most "solemn +providences" known within the memory of the neighborhood fallen out at +her door,--not only had the most interesting funeral that had occurred +for three or four years taken place in her parlor, but she was still +further to be distinguished in having the minister to tea after the +performances were all over. To this end she had risen early, and taken +down her best china tea-cups, which had been marked with her and her +husband's joint initials in Canton, and which only came forth on high +and solemn occasions. In view of this probable distinction, on Saturday, +immediately after the discovery of the calamity, Mrs. Kittridge had +found time to rush to her kitchen, and make up a loaf of pound-cake and +some doughnuts, that the great occasion which she foresaw might not find +her below her reputation as a forehanded housewife. + +It was a fine golden hour when the minister and funeral train turned +away from the grave. Unlike other funerals, there was no draught on the +sympathies in favor of mourners--no wife, or husband, or parent, left a +heart in that grave; and so when the rites were all over, they turned +with the more cheerfulness back into life, from the contrast of its +freshness with those shadows into which, for the hour, they had been +gazing. + +The Rev. Theophilus Sewell was one of the few ministers who preserved +the costume of a former generation, with something of that imposing +dignity with which, in earlier times, the habits of the clergy were +invested. He was tall and majestic in stature, and carried to advantage +the powdered wig and three-cornered hat, the broad-skirted coat, +knee-breeches, high shoes, and plated buckles of the ancient costume. +There was just a sufficient degree of the formality of olden times to +give a certain quaintness to all he said and did. He was a man of a +considerable degree of talent, force, and originality, and in fact had +been held in his day to be one of the most promising graduates of +Harvard University. But, being a good man, he had proposed to himself no +higher ambition than to succeed to the pulpit of his father in +Harpswell. + +His parish included not only a somewhat scattered seafaring population +on the mainland, but also the care of several islands. Like many other +of the New England clergy of those times, he united in himself numerous +different offices for the benefit of the people whom he served. As there +was neither lawyer nor physician in the town, he had acquired by his +reading, and still more by his experience, enough knowledge in both +these departments to enable him to administer to the ordinary wants of a +very healthy and peaceable people. + +It was said that most of the deeds and legal conveyances in his parish +were in his handwriting, and in the medical line his authority was only +rivaled by that of Miss Roxy, who claimed a very obvious advantage over +him in a certain class of cases, from the fact of her being a woman, +which was still further increased by the circumstance that the good man +had retained steadfastly his bachelor estate. "So, of course," Miss Roxy +used to say, "poor man! what could he know about a woman, you know?" + +This state of bachelorhood gave occasion to much surmising; but when +spoken to about it, he was accustomed to remark with gallantry, that he +should have too much regard for any lady whom he could think of as a +wife, to ask her to share his straitened circumstances. His income, +indeed, consisted of only about two hundred dollars a year; but upon +this he and a very brisk, cheerful maiden sister contrived to keep up a +thrifty and comfortable establishment, in which everything appeared to +be pervaded by a spirit of quaint cheerfulness. + +In fact, the man might be seen to be an original in his way, and all the +springs of his life were kept oiled by a quiet humor, which sometimes +broke out in playful sparkles, despite the gravity of the pulpit and the +awfulness of the cocked hat. He had a placid way of amusing himself with +the quaint and picturesque side of life, as it appeared in all his +visitings among a very primitive, yet very shrewd-minded people. + +There are those people who possess a peculiar faculty of mingling in the +affairs of this life as spectators as well as actors. It does not, of +course, suppose any coldness of nature or want of human interest or +sympathy--nay, it often exists most completely with people of the +tenderest human feeling. It rather seems to be a kind of distinct +faculty working harmoniously with all the others; but he who possesses +it needs never to be at a loss for interest or amusement; he is always a +spectator at a tragedy or comedy, and sees in real life a humor and a +pathos beyond anything he can find shadowed in books. + +Mr. Sewell sometimes, in his pastoral visitations, took a quiet pleasure +in playing upon these simple minds, and amusing himself with the odd +harmonies and singular resolutions of chords which started out under his +fingers. Surely he had a right to something in addition to his limited +salary, and this innocent, unsuspected entertainment helped to make up +the balance for his many labors. + +His sister was one of the best-hearted and most unsuspicious of the +class of female idolaters, and worshiped her brother with the most +undoubting faith and devotion--wholly ignorant of the constant amusement +she gave him by a thousand little feminine peculiarities, which struck +him with a continual sense of oddity. It was infinitely diverting to him +to see the solemnity of her interest in his shirts and stockings, and +Sunday clothes, and to listen to the subtle distinctions which she would +draw between best and second-best, and every-day; to receive her +somewhat prolix admonition how he was to demean himself in respect of +the wearing of each one; for Miss Emily Sewell was a gentlewoman, and +held rigidly to various traditions of gentility which had been handed +down in the Sewell family, and which afforded her brother too much quiet +amusement to be disturbed. He would not have overthrown one of her +quiddities for the world; it would be taking away a part of his capital +in existence. + +Miss Emily was a trim, genteel little person, with dancing black eyes, +and cheeks which had the roses of youth well dried into them. It was +easy to see that she had been quite pretty in her days; and her neat +figure, her brisk little vivacious ways, her unceasing good-nature and +kindness of heart, still made her an object both of admiration and +interest in the parish. She was great in drying herbs and preparing +recipes; in knitting and sewing, and cutting and contriving; in saving +every possible snip and chip either of food or clothing; and no less +liberal was she in bestowing advice and aid in the parish, where she +moved about with all the sense of consequence which her brother's +position warranted. + +The fact of his bachelorhood caused his relations to the female part of +his flock to be even more shrouded in sacredness and mystery than is +commonly the case with the great man of the parish; but Miss Emily +delighted to act as interpreter. She was charmed to serve out to the +willing ears of his parish from time to time such scraps of information +as regarded his life, habits, and opinions as might gratify their ever +new curiosity. Instructed by her, all the good wives knew the difference +between his very best long silk stocking and his second best, and how +carefully the first had to be kept under lock and key, where he could +not get at them; for he was understood, good as he was, to have +concealed in him all the thriftless and pernicious inconsiderateness of +the male nature, ready at any moment to break out into unheard-of +improprieties. But the good man submitted himself to Miss Emily's rule, +and suffered himself to be led about by her with an air of half +whimsical consciousness. + +Mrs. Kittridge that day had felt the full delicacy of the compliment +when she ascertained by a hasty glance, before the first prayer, that +the good man had been brought out to her funeral in all his very best +things, not excepting the long silk stockings, for she knew the +second-best pair by means of a certain skillful darn which Miss Emily +had once shown her, which commemorated the spot where a hole had been. +The absence of this darn struck to Mrs. Kittridge's heart at once as a +delicate attention. + +"Mis' Simpkins," said Mrs. Kittridge to her pastor, as they were seated +at the tea-table, "told me that she wished when you were going home that +you would call in to see Mary Jane; she couldn't come out to the funeral +on account of a dreffle sore throat. I was tellin' on her to gargle it +with blackberry-root tea--don't you think that is a good gargle, Mr. +Sewell?" + +"Yes, I think it a very good gargle," replied the minister, gravely. + +"Ma'sh rosemary is the gargle that I always use," said Miss Roxy; "it +cleans out your throat so." + +"Marsh rosemary is a very excellent gargle," said Mr. Sewell. + +"Why, brother, don't you think that rose leaves and vitriol is a good +gargle?" said little Miss Emily; "I always thought that you liked rose +leaves and vitriol for a gargle." + +"So I do," said the imperturbable Mr. Sewell, drinking his tea with the +air of a sphinx. + +"Well, now, you'll have to tell which on 'em will be most likely to cure +Mary Jane," said Captain Kittridge, "or there'll be a pullin' of caps, +I'm thinkin'; or else the poor girl will have to drink them all, which +is generally the way." + +"There won't any of them cure Mary Jane's throat," said the minister, +quietly. + +"Why, brother!" "Why, Mr. Sewell!" "Why, you don't!" burst in different +tones from each of the women. + +"I thought you said that blackberry-root tea was good," said Mrs. +Kittridge. + +"I understood that you 'proved of ma'sh rosemary," said Miss Roxy, +touched in her professional pride. + +"And I am sure, brother, that I have heard you say, often and often, +that there wasn't a better gargle than rose leaves and vitriol," said +Miss Emily. + +"You are quite right, ladies, all of you. I think these are all good +gargles--excellent ones." + +"But I thought you said that they didn't do any good?" said all the +ladies in a breath. + +"No, they don't--not the least in the world," said Mr. Sewell; "but they +are all excellent gargles, and as long as people must have gargles, I +think one is about as good as another." + +"Now you have got it," said Captain Kittridge. + +"Brother, you do say the strangest things," said Miss Emily. + +"Well, I must say," said Miss Roxy, "it is a new idea to me, long as +I've been nussin', and I nussed through one season of scarlet fever +when sometimes there was five died in one house; and if ma'sh rosemary +didn't do good then, I should like to know what did." + +"So would a good many others," said the minister. + +"Law, now, Miss Roxy, you mus'n't mind him. Do you know that I believe +he says these sort of things just to hear us talk? Of course he wouldn't +think of puttin' his experience against yours." + +"But, Mis' Kittridge," said Miss Emily, with a view of summoning a less +controverted subject, "what a beautiful little boy that was, and what a +striking providence that brought him into such a good family!" + +"Yes," said Mrs. Kittridge; "but I'm sure I don't see what Mary Pennel +is goin' to do with that boy, for she ain't got no more government than +a twisted tow-string." + +"Oh, the Cap'n, he'll lend a hand," said Miss Roxy, "it won't be easy +gettin' roun' him; Cap'n bears a pretty steady hand when he sets out to +drive." + +"Well," said Miss Emily, "I do think that bringin' up children is the +most awful responsibility, and I always wonder when I hear that any one +dares to undertake it." + +"It requires a great deal of resolution, certainly," said Mrs. +Kittridge; "I'm sure I used to get a'most discouraged when my boys was +young: they was a reg'lar set of wild ass's colts," she added, not +perceiving the reflection on their paternity. + +But the countenance of Mr. Sewell was all aglow with merriment, which +did not break into a smile. + +"Wal', Mis' Kittridge," said the Captain, "strikes me that you're +gettin' pussonal." + +"No, I ain't neither," said the literal Mrs. Kittridge, ignorant of the +cause of the amusement which she saw around her; "but you wa'n't no help +to me, you know; you was always off to sea, and the whole wear and tear +on't came on me." + +"Well, well, Polly, all's well that ends well; don't you think so, Mr. +Sewell?" + +"I haven't much experience in these matters," said Mr. Sewell, politely. + +"No, indeed, that's what he hasn't, for he never will have a child round +the house that he don't turn everything topsy-turvy for them," said Miss +Emily. + +"But I was going to remark," said Mr. Sewell, "that a friend of mine +said once, that the woman that had brought up six boys deserved a seat +among the martyrs; and that is rather my opinion." + +"Wal', Polly, if you git up there, I hope you'll keep a seat for me." + +"Cap'n Kittridge, what levity!" said his wife. + +"I didn't begin it, anyhow," said the Captain. + +Miss Emily interposed, and led the conversation back to the subject. +"What a pity it is," she said, "that this poor child's family can never +know anything about him. There may be those who would give all the world +to know what has become of him; and when he comes to grow up, how sad he +will feel to have no father and mother!" + +"Sister," said Mr. Sewell, "you cannot think that a child brought up by +Captain Pennel and his wife would ever feel as without father and +mother." + +"Why, no, brother, to be sure not. There's no doubt he will have +everything done for him that a child could. But then it's a loss to lose +one's real home." + +"It may be a gracious deliverance," said Mr. Sewell--"who knows? We may +as well take a cheerful view, and think that some kind wave has drifted +the child away from an unfortunate destiny to a family where we are +quite sure he will be brought up industriously and soberly, and in the +fear of God." + +"Well, I never thought of that," said Miss Roxy. + +Miss Emily, looking at her brother, saw that he was speaking with a +suppressed vehemence, as if some inner fountain of recollection at the +moment were disturbed. But Miss Emily knew no more of the deeper parts +of her brother's nature than a little bird that dips its beak into the +sunny waters of some spring knows of its depths of coldness and shadow. + +"Mis' Pennel was a-sayin' to me," said Mrs. Kittridge, "that I should +ask you what was to be done about the bracelet they found. We don't know +whether 'tis real gold and precious stones, or only glass and pinchbeck. +Cap'n Kittridge he thinks it's real; and if 'tis, why then the question +is, whether or no to try to sell it, or keep it for the boy agin he +grows up. It may help find out who and what he is." + +"And why should he want to find out?" said Mr. Sewell. "Why should he +not grow up and think himself the son of Captain and Mrs. Pennel? What +better lot could a boy be born to?" + +"That may be, brother, but it can't be kept from him. Everybody knows +how he was found, and you may be sure every bird of the air will tell +him, and he'll grow up restless and wanting to know. Mis' Kittridge, +have you got the bracelet handy?" + +The fact was, little Miss Emily was just dying with curiosity to set her +dancing black eyes upon it. + +"Here it is," said Mrs. Kittridge, taking it from a drawer. + +It was a bracelet of hair, of some curious foreign workmanship. A green +enameled serpent, studded thickly with emeralds and with eyes of ruby, +was curled around the clasp. A crystal plate covered a wide flat braid +of hair, on which the letters "D.M." were curiously embroidered in a +cipher of seed pearls. The whole was in style and workmanship quite +different from any jewelry which ordinarily meets one's eye. + +But what was remarkable was the expression in Mr. Sewell's face when +this bracelet was put into his hand. Miss Emily had risen from table and +brought it to him, leaning over him as she did so, and he turned his +head a little to hold it in the light from the window, so that only she +remarked the sudden expression of blank surprise and startled +recognition which fell upon it. He seemed like a man who chokes down an +exclamation; and rising hastily, he took the bracelet to the window, and +standing with his back to the company, seemed to examine it with the +minutest interest. After a few moments he turned and said, in a very +composed tone, as if the subject were of no particular interest,-- + +"It is a singular article, so far as workmanship is concerned. The value +of the gems in themselves is not great enough to make it worth while to +sell it. It will be worth more as a curiosity than anything else. It +will doubtless be an interesting relic to keep for the boy when he grows +up." + +"Well, Mr. Sewell, you keep it," said Mrs. Kittridge; "the Pennels told +me to give it into your care." + +"I shall commit it to Emily here; women have a native sympathy with +anything in the jewelry line. She'll be sure to lay it up so securely +that she won't even know where it is herself." + +"Brother!" + +"Come, Emily," said Mr. Sewell, "your hens will all go to roost on the +wrong perch if you are not at home to see to them; so, if the Captain +will set us across to Harpswell, I think we may as well be going." + +"Why, what's your hurry?" said Mrs. Kittridge. + +"Well," said Mr. Sewell, "firstly, there's the hens; secondly, the pigs; +and lastly, the cow. Besides I shouldn't wonder if some of Emily's +admirers should call on her this evening,--never any saying when Captain +Broad may come in." + +"Now, brother, you are too bad," said Miss Emily, as she bustled about +her bonnet and shawl. "Now, that's all made up out of whole cloth. +Captain Broad called last week a Monday, to talk to you about the pews, +and hardly spoke a word to me. You oughtn't to say such things, 'cause +it raises reports." + +"Ah, well, then, I won't again," said her brother. "I believe, after +all, it was Captain Badger that called twice." + +"Brother!" + +"And left you a basket of apples the second time." + +"Brother, you know he only called to get some of my hoarhound for +Mehitable's cough." + +"Oh, yes, I remember." + +"If you don't take care," said Miss Emily, "I'll tell where you call." + +"Come, Miss Emily, you must not mind him," said Miss Roxy; "we all know +his ways." + +And now took place the grand leave-taking, which consisted first of the +three women's standing in a knot and all talking at once, as if their +very lives depended upon saying everything they could possibly think of +before they separated, while Mr. Sewell and Captain Kittridge stood +patiently waiting with the resigned air which the male sex commonly +assume on such occasions; and when, after two or three "Come, Emily's," +the group broke up only to form again on the door-step, where they were +at it harder than ever, and a third occasion of the same sort took place +at the bottom of the steps, Mr. Sewell was at last obliged by main force +to drag his sister away in the middle of a sentence. + +Miss Emily watched her brother shrewdly all the way home, but all traces +of any uncommon feeling had passed away; and yet, with the restlessness +of female curiosity, she felt quite sure that she had laid hold of the +end of some skein of mystery, could she only find skill enough to unwind +it. + +She took up the bracelet, and held it in the fading evening light, and +broke into various observations with regard to the singularity of the +workmanship. Her brother seemed entirely absorbed in talking with +Captain Kittridge about the brig Anna Maria, which was going to be +launched from Pennel's wharf next Wednesday. But she, therefore, +internally resolved to lie in wait for the secret in that confidential +hour which usually preceded going to bed. Therefore, as soon as she had +arrived at their quiet dwelling, she put in operation the most seducing +little fire that ever crackled and snapped in a chimney, well knowing +that nothing was more calculated to throw light into any hidden or +concealed chamber of the soul than that enlivening blaze, which danced +so merrily on her well-polished andirons, and made the old chintz sofa +and the time-worn furniture so rich in remembrances of family comfort. + +She then proceeded to divest her brother of his wig and his dress-coat, +and to induct him into the flowing ease of a study-gown, crowning his +well-shaven head with a black cap, and placing his slippers before the +corner of a sofa nearest the fire. She observed him with satisfaction +sliding into his seat, and then she trotted to a closet with a glass +door in the corner of the room, and took down an old, quaintly-shaped +silver cup, which had been an heirloom in their family, and was the only +piece of plate which their modern domestic establishment could boast; +and with this, down cellar she tripped, her little heels tapping lightly +on each stair, and the hum of a song coming back after her as she sought +the cider-barrel. Up again she came, and set the silver cup, with its +clear amber contents, down by the fire, and then busied herself in +making just the crispest, nicest square of toast to be eaten with it; +for Miss Emily had conceived the idea that some little ceremony of this +sort was absolutely necessary to do away all possible ill effects from a +day's labor, and secure an uninterrupted night's repose. Having done +all this, she took her knitting-work, and stationed herself just +opposite to her brother. + +It was fortunate for Miss Emily that the era of daily journals had not +yet arisen upon the earth, because if it had, after all her care and +pains, her brother would probably have taken up the evening paper, and +holding it between his face and her, have read an hour or so in silence; +but Mr. Sewell had not this resort. He knew perfectly well that he had +excited his sister's curiosity on a subject where he could not gratify +it, and therefore he took refuge in a kind of mild, abstracted air of +quietude which bid defiance to all her little suggestions. + +After in vain trying every indirect form, Miss Emily approached the +subject more pointedly. "I thought that you looked very much interested +in that poor woman to-day." + +"She had an interesting face," said her brother, dryly. + +"Was it like anybody that you ever saw?" said Miss Emily. + +Her brother did not seem to hear her, but, taking the tongs, picked up +the two ends of a stick that had just fallen apart, and arranged them so +as to make a new blaze. + +Miss Emily was obliged to repeat her question, whereat he started as one +awakened out of a dream, and said,-- + +"Why, yes, he didn't know but she did; there were a good many women with +black eyes and black hair,--Mrs. Kittridge, for instance." + +"Why, I don't think that she looked like Mrs. Kittridge in the least," +said Miss Emily, warmly. + +"Oh, well! I didn't say she did," said her brother, looking drowsily at +his watch; "why, Emily, it's getting rather late." + +"What made you look so when I showed you that bracelet?" said Miss +Emily, determined now to push the war to the heart of the enemy's +country. + +"Look how?" said her brother, leisurely moistening a bit of toast in his +cider. + +"Why, I never saw anybody look more wild and astonished than you did for +a minute or two." + +"I did, did I?" said her brother, in the same indifferent tone. "My dear +child, what an active imagination you have. Did you ever look through a +prism, Emily?" + +"Why, no, Theophilus; what do you mean?" + +"Well, if you should, you would see everybody and everything with a nice +little bordering of rainbow around them; now the rainbow isn't on the +things, but in the prism." + +"Well, what's that to the purpose?" said Miss Emily, rather bewildered. + +"Why, just this: you women are so nervous and excitable, that you are +very apt to see your friends and the world in general with some coloring +just as unreal. I am sorry for you, childie, but really I can't help you +to get up a romance out of this bracelet. Well, good-night, Emily; take +good care of yourself and go to bed;" and Mr. Sewell went to his room, +leaving poor Miss Emily almost persuaded out of the sight of her own +eyes. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +LITTLE ADVENTURERS + + +The little boy who had been added to the family of Zephaniah Pennel and +his wife soon became a source of grave solicitude to that mild and +long-suffering woman. For, as the reader may have seen, he was a +resolute, self-willed little elf, and whatever his former life may have +been, it was quite evident that these traits had been developed without +any restraint. + +Mrs. Pennel, whose whole domestic experience had consisted in rearing +one very sensitive and timid daughter, who needed for her development +only an extreme of tenderness, and whose conscientiousness was a law +unto herself, stood utterly confounded before the turbulent little +spirit to which her loving-kindness had opened so ready an asylum, and +she soon discovered that it is one thing to take a human being to bring +up, and another to know what to do with it after it is taken. + +The child had the instinctive awe of Zephaniah which his manly nature +and habits of command were fitted to inspire, so that morning and +evening, when he was at home, he was demure enough; but while the good +man was away all day, and sometimes on fishing excursions which often +lasted a week, there was a chronic state of domestic warfare--a +succession of skirmishes, pitched battles, long treaties, with divers +articles of capitulation, ending, as treaties are apt to do, in open +rupture on the first convenient opportunity. + +Mrs. Pennel sometimes reflected with herself mournfully, and with many +self-disparaging sighs, what was the reason that young master somehow +contrived to keep her far more in awe of him than he was of her. Was she +not evidently, as yet at least, bigger and stronger than he, able to +hold his rebellious little hands, to lift and carry him, and to shut him +up, if so she willed, in a dark closet, and even to administer to him +that discipline of the birch which Mrs. Kittridge often and forcibly +recommended as the great secret of her family prosperity? Was it not her +duty, as everybody told her, to break his will while he was young?--a +duty which hung like a millstone round the peaceable creature's neck, +and weighed her down with a distressing sense of responsibility. + +Now, Mrs. Pennel was one of the people to whom self-sacrifice is +constitutionally so much a nature, that self-denial for her must have +consisted in standing up for her own rights, or having her own way when +it crossed the will and pleasure of any one around her. All she wanted +of a child, or in fact of any human creature, was something to love and +serve. We leave it entirely to theologians to reconcile such facts with +the theory of total depravity; but it is a fact that there are a +considerable number of women of this class. Their life would flow on +very naturally if it might consist only in giving, never in +withholding--only in praise, never in blame--only in acquiescence, never +in conflict; and the chief comfort of such women in religion is that it +gives them at last an object for love without criticism, and for whom +the utmost degree of self-abandonment is not idolatry, but worship. + +Mrs. Pennel would gladly have placed herself and all she possessed at +the disposition of the children; they might have broken her china, dug +in the garden with her silver spoons, made turf alleys in her best room, +drummed on her mahogany tea-table, filled her muslin drawer with their +choicest shells and seaweed; only Mrs. Pennel knew that such kindness +was no kindness, and that in the dreadful word responsibility, familiar +to every New England mother's ear, there lay an awful summons to deny +and to conflict where she could so much easier have conceded. + +She saw that the tyrant little will would reign without mercy, if it +reigned at all; and ever present with her was the uneasy sense that it +was her duty to bring this erratic little comet within the laws of a +well-ordered solar system,--a task to which she felt about as competent +as to make a new ring for Saturn. Then, too, there was a secret feeling, +if the truth must be told, of what Mrs. Kittridge would think about it; +for duty is never more formidable than when she gets on the cap and gown +of a neighbor; and Mrs. Kittridge, with her resolute voice and +declamatory family government, had always been a secret source of +uneasiness to poor Mrs. Pennel, who was one of those sensitive souls who +can feel for a mile or more the sphere of a stronger neighbor. During +all the years that they had lived side by side, there had been this +shadowy, unconfessed feeling on the part of poor Mrs. Pennel, that Mrs. +Kittridge thought her deficient in her favorite virtue of "resolution," +as, in fact, in her inmost soul she knew she was;--but who wants to have +one's weak places looked into by the sharp eyes of a neighbor who is +strong precisely where we are weak? The trouble that one neighbor may +give to another, simply by living within a mile of one, is incredible; +but until this new accession to her family, Mrs. Pennel had always been +able to comfort herself with the idea that the child under her +particular training was as well-behaved as any of those of her more +demonstrative friend. But now, all this consolation had been put to +flight; she could not meet Mrs. Kittridge without most humiliating +recollections. + +On Sundays, when those sharp black eyes gleamed upon her through the +rails of the neighboring pew, her very soul shrank within her, as she +recollected all the compromises and defeats of the week before. It +seemed to her that Mrs. Kittridge saw it all,--how she had ingloriously +bought peace with gingerbread, instead of maintaining it by rightful +authority,--how young master had sat up till nine o'clock on divers +occasions, and even kept little Mara up for his lordly pleasure. + +How she trembled at every movement of the child in the pew, dreading +some patent and open impropriety which should bring scandal on her +government! This was the more to be feared, as the first effort to +initiate the youthful neophyte in the decorums of the sanctuary had +proved anything but a success,--insomuch that Zephaniah Pennel had been +obliged to carry him out from the church; therefore, poor Mrs. Pennel +was thankful every Sunday when she got her little charge home without +any distinct scandal and breach of the peace. + +But, after all, he was such a handsome and engaging little wretch, +attracting all eyes wherever he went, and so full of saucy drolleries, +that it seemed to Mrs. Pennel that everything and everybody conspired to +help her spoil him. There are two classes of human beings in this world: +one class seem made to give love, and the other to take it. Now Mrs. +Pennel and Mara belonged to the first class, and little Master Moses to +the latter. + +It was, perhaps, of service to the little girl to give to her delicate, +shrinking, highly nervous organization the constant support of a +companion so courageous, so richly blooded, and highly vitalized as the +boy seemed to be. There was a fervid, tropical richness in his air that +gave one a sense of warmth in looking at him, and made his Oriental name +seem in good-keeping. He seemed an exotic that might have waked up under +fervid Egyptian suns, and been found cradled among the lotus blossoms of +old Nile; and the fair golden-haired girl seemed to be gladdened by his +companionship, as if he supplied an element of vital warmth to her +being. She seemed to incline toward him as naturally as a needle to a +magnet. + +The child's quickness of ear and the facility with which he picked up +English were marvelous to observe. Evidently, he had been somewhat +accustomed to the sound of it before, for there dropped out of his +vocabulary, after he began to speak, phrases which would seem to betoken +a longer familiarity with its idioms than could be equally accounted for +by his present experience. Though the English evidently was not his +native language, there had yet apparently been some effort to teach it +to him, although the terror and confusion of the shipwreck seemed at +first to have washed every former impression from his mind. + +But whenever any attempt was made to draw him to speak of the past, of +his mother, or of where he came from, his brow lowered gloomily, and he +assumed that kind of moody, impenetrable gravity, which children at +times will so strangely put on, and which baffle all attempts to look +within them. Zephaniah Pennel used to call it putting up his +dead-lights. Perhaps it was the dreadful association of agony and terror +connected with the shipwreck, that thus confused and darkened the mirror +of his mind the moment it was turned backward; but it was thought wisest +by his new friends to avoid that class of subjects altogether--indeed, +it was their wish that he might forget the past entirely, and remember +them as his only parents. + +Miss Roxy and Miss Ruey came duly, as appointed, to initiate the young +pilgrim into the habiliments of a Yankee boy, endeavoring, at the same +time, to drop into his mind such seeds of moral wisdom as might make the +internal economy in time correspond to the exterior. But Miss Roxy +declared that "of all the children that ever she see, he beat all for +finding out new mischief,--the moment you'd make him understand he +mustn't do one thing, he was right at another." + +One of his exploits, however, had very nearly been the means of cutting +short the materials of our story in the outset. + +It was a warm, sunny afternoon, and the three women, being busy together +with their stitching, had tied a sun-bonnet on little Mara, and turned +the two loose upon the beach to pick up shells. All was serene, and +quiet, and retired, and no possible danger could be apprehended. So up +and down they trotted, till the spirit of adventure which ever burned in +the breast of little Moses caught sight of a small canoe which had been +moored just under the shadow of a cedar-covered rock. Forthwith he +persuaded his little neighbor to go into it, and for a while they made +themselves very gay, rocking it from side to side. + +The tide was going out, and each retreating wave washed the boat up and +down, till it came into the boy's curly head how beautiful it would be +to sail out as he had seen men do,--and so, with much puffing and +earnest tugging of his little brown hands, the boat at last was loosed +from her moorings and pushed out on the tide, when both children laughed +gayly to find themselves swinging and balancing on the amber surface, +and watching the rings and sparkles of sunshine and the white pebbles +below. Little Moses was glorious,--his adventures had begun,--and with a +fairy-princess in his boat, he was going to stretch away to some of the +islands of dreamland. He persuaded Mara to give him her pink sun-bonnet, +which he placed for a pennon on a stick at the end of the boat, while he +made a vehement dashing with another, first on one side of the boat and +then on the other,--spattering the water in diamond showers, to the +infinite amusement of the little maiden. + +Meanwhile the tide waves danced them out and still outward, and as they +went farther and farther from shore, the more glorious felt the boy. He +had got Mara all to himself, and was going away with her from all grown +people, who wouldn't let children do as they pleased,--who made them sit +still in prayer-time, and took them to meeting, and kept so many things +which they must not touch, or open, or play with. Two white sea-gulls +came flying toward the children, and they stretched their little arms in +welcome, nothing doubting but these fair creatures were coming at once +to take passage with them for fairy-land. But the birds only dived and +shifted and veered, turning their silvery sides toward the sun, and +careering in circles round the children. A brisk little breeze, that +came hurrying down from the land, seemed disposed to favor their +unsubstantial enterprise,--for your winds, being a fanciful, uncertain +tribe of people, are always for falling in with anything that is +contrary to common sense. So the wind trolled them merrily along, +nothing doubting that there might be time, if they hurried, to land +their boat on the shore of some of the low-banked red clouds that lay in +the sunset, where they could pick up shells,--blue and pink and +purple,--enough to make them rich for life. The children were all +excitement at the rapidity with which their little bark danced and +rocked, as it floated outward to the broad, open ocean; at the blue, +freshening waves, at the silver-glancing gulls, at the floating, +white-winged ships, and at vague expectations of going rapidly +somewhere, to something more beautiful still. And what is the happiness +of the brightest hours of grown people more than this? + +"Roxy," said Aunt Ruey innocently, "seems to me I haven't heard nothin' +o' them children lately. They're so still, I'm 'fraid there's some +mischief." + +"Well, Ruey, you jist go and give a look at 'em," said Miss Roxy. "I +declare, that boy! I never know what he will do next; but there didn't +seem to be nothin' to get into out there but the sea, and the beach is +so shelving, a body can't well fall into that." + +Alas! good Miss Roxy, the children are at this moment tilting up and +down on the waves, half a mile out to sea, as airily happy as the +sea-gulls; and little Moses now thinks, with glorious scorn, of you and +your press-board, as of grim shadows of restraint and bondage that shall +never darken his free life more. + +Both Miss Roxy and Mrs. Pennel were, however, startled into a paroxysm +of alarm when poor Miss Ruey came screaming, as she entered the door,-- + +"As sure as you're alive, them chil'en are off in the boat,--they're out +to sea, sure as I'm alive! What shall we do? The boat'll upset, and the +sharks'll get 'em." + +Miss Roxy ran to the window, and saw dancing and courtesying on the blue +waves the little pinnace, with its fanciful pink pennon fluttered gayly +by the indiscreet and flattering wind. + +Poor Mrs. Pennel ran to the shore, and stretched her arms wildly, as if +she would have followed them across the treacherous blue floor that +heaved and sparkled between them. + +"Oh, Mara, Mara! Oh, my poor little girl! Oh, poor children!" + +"Well, if ever I see such a young un as that," soliloquized Miss Roxy +from the chamber-window; "there they be, dancin' and giggitin' about; +they'll have the boat upset in a minit, and the sharks are waitin' for +'em, no doubt. _I_ b'lieve that ar young un's helped by the Evil +One,--not a boat round, else I'd push off after 'em. Well, I don't see +but we must trust in the Lord,--there don't seem to be much else to +trust to," said the spinster, as she drew her head in grimly. + +To say the truth, there was some reason for the terror of these most +fearful suggestions; for not far from the place where the children +embarked was Zephaniah's fish-drying ground, and multitudes of sharks +came up with every rising tide, allured by the offal that was here +constantly thrown into the sea. Two of these prowlers, outward-bound +from their quest, were even now assiduously attending the little boat, +and the children derived no small amusement from watching their motions +in the pellucid water,--the boy occasionally almost upsetting the boat +by valorous plunges at them with his stick. It was the most exhilarating +and piquant entertainment he had found for many a day; and little Mara +laughed in chorus at every lunge that he made. + +What would have been the end of it all, it is difficult to say, had not +some mortal power interfered before they had sailed finally away into +the sunset. But it so happened, on this very afternoon, Rev. Mr. Sewell +was out in a boat, busy in the very apostolic employment of catching +fish, and looking up from one of the contemplative pauses which his +occupation induced, he rubbed his eyes at the apparition which presented +itself. A tiny little shell of a boat came drifting toward him, in which +was a black-eyed boy, with cheeks like a pomegranate and lustrous +tendrils of silky dark hair, and a little golden-haired girl, white as a +water-lily, and looking ethereal enough to have risen out of the +sea-foam. Both were in the very sparkle and effervescence of that +fanciful glee which bubbles up from the golden, untried fountains of +early childhood. Mr. Sewell, at a glance, comprehended the whole, and at +once overhauling the tiny craft, he broke the spell of fairy-land, and +constrained the little people to return to the confines, dull and +dreary, of real and actual life. + +Neither of them had known a doubt or a fear in that joyous trance of +forbidden pleasure which shadowed with so many fears the wiser and more +far-seeing heads and hearts of the grown people; nor was there enough +language yet in common between the two classes to make the little ones +comprehend the risk they had run. Perhaps so do our elder brothers, in +our Father's house, look anxiously out when we are sailing gayly over +life's sea,--over unknown depths,--amid threatening monsters,--but want +words to tell us why what seems so bright is so dangerous. + +Duty herself could not have worn a more rigid aspect than Miss Roxy, as +she stood on the beach, press-board in hand; for she had forgotten to +lay it down in the eagerness of her anxiety. She essayed to lay hold of +the little hand of Moses to pull him from the boat, but he drew back, +and, looking at her with a world of defiance in his great eyes, jumped +magnanimously upon the beach. The spirit of Sir Francis Drake and of +Christopher Columbus was swelling in his little body, and was he to be +brought under by a dry-visaged woman with a press-board? In fact, +nothing is more ludicrous about the escapades of children than the utter +insensibility they feel to the dangers they have run, and the light +esteem in which they hold the deep tragedy they create. + +That night, when Zephaniah, in his evening exercise, poured forth most +fervent thanksgivings for the deliverance, while Mrs. Pennel was sobbing +in her handkerchief, Miss Roxy was much scandalized by seeing the young +cause of all the disturbance sitting upon his heels, regarding the +emotion of the kneeling party with his wide bright eyes, without a wink +of compunction. + +"Well, for her part," she said, "she hoped Cap'n Pennel would be blessed +in takin' that ar boy; but she was sure she didn't see much that looked +like it now." + + * * * * * + +The Rev. Mr. Sewell fished no more that day, for the draught from +fairy-land with which he had filled his boat brought up many thoughts +into his mind, which he pondered anxiously. + +"Strange ways of God," he thought, "that should send to my door this +child, and should wash upon the beach the only sign by which he could be +identified. To what end or purpose? Hath the Lord a will in this +matter, and what is it?" + +So he thought as he slowly rowed homeward, and so did his thoughts work +upon him that half way across the bay to Harpswell he slackened his oar +without knowing it, and the boat lay drifting on the purple and +gold-tinted mirror, like a speck between two eternities. Under such +circumstances, even heads that have worn the clerical wig for years at +times get a little dizzy and dreamy. Perhaps it was because of the +impression made upon him by the sudden apparition of those great dark +eyes and sable curls, that he now thought of the boy that he had found +floating that afternoon, looking as if some tropical flower had been +washed landward by a monsoon; and as the boat rocked and tilted, and the +minister gazed dreamily downward into the wavering rings of purple, +orange, and gold which spread out and out from it, gradually it seemed +to him that a face much like the child's formed itself in the waters; +but it was the face of a girl, young and radiantly beautiful, yet with +those same eyes and curls,--he saw her distinctly, with her thousand +rings of silky hair, bound with strings of pearls and clasped with +strange gems, and she raised one arm imploringly to him, and on the +wrist he saw the bracelet embroidered with seed pearls, and the letters +D.M. "Ah, Dolores," he said, "well wert thou called so. Poor Dolores! I +cannot help thee." + +"What am I dreaming of?" said the Rev. Mr. Sewell. "It is my Thursday +evening lecture on Justification, and Emily has got tea ready, and here +I am catching cold out on the bay." + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +SEA TALES + + +Mr. Sewell, as the reader may perhaps have inferred, was of a nature +profoundly secretive. It was in most things quite as pleasant for him to +keep matters to himself, as it was to Miss Emily to tell them to +somebody else. She resembled more than anything one of those trotting, +chattering little brooks that enliven the "back lot" of many a New +England home, while he was like one of those wells you shall sometimes +see by a deserted homestead, so long unused that ferns and lichens +feather every stone down to the dark, cool water. + +Dear to him was the stillness and coolness of inner thoughts with which +no stranger intermeddles; dear to him every pendent fern-leaf of memory, +every dripping moss of old recollection; and though the waters of his +soul came up healthy and refreshing enough when one really must have +them, yet one had to go armed with bucket and line and draw them +up,--they never flowed. One of his favorite maxims was, that the only +way to keep a secret was never to let any one suspect that you have one. +And as he had one now, he had, as you have seen, done his best to baffle +and put to sleep the feminine curiosity of his sister. + +He rather wanted to tell her, too, for he was a good-natured brother, +and would have liked to have given her the amount of pleasure the +confidence would have produced; but then he reflected with dismay on the +number of women in his parish with whom Miss Emily was on tea-drinking +terms,--he thought of the wondrous solvent powers of that beverage in +whose amber depths so many resolutions yea, and solemn vows, of utter +silence have been dissolved like Cleopatra's pearls. He knew that an +infusion of his secret would steam up from every cup of tea Emily should +drink for six months to come, till gradually every particle would be +dissolved and float in the air of common fame. No; it would not do. + +You would have thought, however, that something was the matter with Mr. +Sewell, had you seen him after he retired for the night, after he had so +very indifferently dismissed the subject of Miss Emily's inquiries. For +instead of retiring quietly to bed, as had been his habit for years at +that hour, he locked his door, and then unlocked a desk of private +papers, and emptied certain pigeon-holes of their contents, and for an +hour or two sat unfolding and looking over old letters and papers; and +when all this was done, he pushed them from him, and sat for a long time +buried in thoughts which went down very, very deep into that dark and +mossy well of which we have spoken. + +Then he took a pen and wrote a letter, and addressed it to a direction +for which he had searched through many piles of paper, and having done +so, seemed to ponder, uncertainly, whether to send it or not. The +Harpswell post-office was kept in Mr. Silas Perrit's store, and the +letters were every one of them carefully and curiously investigated by +all the gossips of the village, and as this was addressed to St. +Augustine in Florida, he foresaw that before Sunday the news would be in +every mouth in the parish that the minister had written to so and so in +Florida, "and what do you s'pose it's about?" + +"No, no," he said to himself, "that will never do; but at all events +there is no hurry," and he put back the papers in order, put the letter +with them, and locking his desk, looked at his watch and found it to be +two o'clock, and so he went to bed to think the matter over. + +Now, there may be some reader so simple as to feel a portion of Miss +Emily's curiosity. But, my friend, restrain it, for Mr. Sewell will +certainly, as we foresee, become less rather than more communicative on +this subject, as he thinks upon it. Nevertheless, whatever it be that he +knows or suspects, it is something which leads him to contemplate with +more than usual interest this little mortal waif that has so strangely +come ashore in his parish. He mentally resolves to study the child as +minutely as possible, without betraying that he has any particular +reason for being interested in him. + +Therefore, in the latter part of this mild November afternoon, which he +has devoted to pastoral visiting, about two months after the funeral, he +steps into his little sail-boat, and stretches away for the shores of +Orr's Island. He knows the sun will be down before he reaches there; but +he sees, in the opposite horizon, the spectral, shadowy moon, only +waiting for daylight to be gone to come out, calm and radiant, like a +saintly friend neglected in the flush of prosperity, who waits patiently +to enliven our hours of darkness. + +As his boat-keel grazed the sands on the other side, a shout of laughter +came upon his oar from behind a cedar-covered rock, and soon emerged +Captain Kittridge, as long and lean and brown as the Ancient Mariner, +carrying little Mara on one shoulder, while Sally and little Moses +Pennel trotted on before. + +It was difficult to say who in this whole group was in the highest +spirits. The fact was that Mrs. Kittridge had gone to a tea-drinking +over at Maquoit, and left the Captain as housekeeper and general +overseer; and little Mara and Moses and Sally had been gloriously +keeping holiday with him down by the boat-cove, where, to say the truth, +few shavings were made, except those necessary to adorn the children's +heads with flowing suits of curls of a most extraordinary effect. The +aprons of all of them were full of these most unsubstantial specimens of +woody treasure, which hung out in long festoons, looking of a yellow +transparency in the evening light. But the delight of the children in +their acquisitions was only equaled by that of grown-up people in +possessions equally fanciful in value. + +The mirth of the little party, however, came to a sudden pause as they +met the minister. Mara clung tight to the Captain's neck, and looked out +slyly under her curls. But the little Moses made a step forward, and +fixed his bold, dark, inquisitive eyes upon him. The fact was, that the +minister had been impressed upon the boy, in his few visits to the +"meeting," as such a grand and mysterious reason for good behavior, that +he seemed resolved to embrace the first opportunity to study him close +at hand. + +"Well, my little man," said Mr. Sewell, with an affability which he +could readily assume with children, "you seem to like to look at me." + +"I do like to look at you," said the boy gravely, continuing to fix his +great black eyes upon him. + +"I see you do, my little fellow." + +"Are you the Lord?" said the child, solemnly. + +"Am I what?" + +"The Lord," said the boy. + +"No, indeed, my lad," said Mr. Sewell, smiling. "Why, what put that into +your little head?" + +"I thought you were," said the boy, still continuing to study the pastor +with attention. "Miss Roxy said so." + +"It's curious what notions chil'en will get in their heads," said +Captain Kittridge. "They put this and that together and think it over, +and come out with such queer things." + +"But," said the minister, "I have brought something for you all;" saying +which he drew from his pocket three little bright-cheeked apples, and +gave one to each child; and then taking the hand of the little Moses in +his own, he walked with him toward the house-door. + +Mrs. Pennel was sitting in her clean kitchen, busily spinning at the +little wheel, and rose flushed with pleasure at the honor that was done +her. + +"Pray, walk in, Mr. Sewell," she said, rising, and leading the way +toward the penetralia of the best room. + +"Now, Mrs. Pennel, I am come here for a good sit-down by your +kitchen-fire, this evening," said Mr. Sewell. "Emily has gone out to sit +with old Mrs. Broad, who is laid up with the rheumatism, and so I am +turned loose to pick up my living on the parish, and you must give me a +seat for a while in your kitchen corner. Best rooms are always cold." + +"The minister's right," said Captain Kittridge. "When rooms ain't much +set in, folks never feel so kind o' natural in 'em. So you jist let me +put on a good back-log and forestick, and build up a fire to tell +stories by this evening. My wife's gone out to tea, too," he said, with +an elastic skip. + +And in a few moments the Captain had produced in the great cavernous +chimney a foundation for a fire that promised breadth, solidity, and +continuance. A great back-log, embroidered here and there with tufts of +green or grayish moss, was first flung into the capacious arms of the +fireplace, and a smaller log placed above it. "Now, all you young uns go +out and bring in chips," said the Captain. "There's capital ones out to +the wood-pile." + +Mr. Sewell was pleased to see the flash that came from the eyes of +little Moses at this order, how energetically he ran before the others, +and came with glowing cheeks and distended arms, throwing down great +white chips with their green mossy bark, scattering tufts on the floor. +"Good," said he softly to himself, as he leaned on the top of his +gold-headed cane; "there's energy, ambition, muscle;" and he nodded his +head once or twice to some internal decision. + +"There!" said the Captain, rising out of a perfect whirlwind of chips +and pine kindlings with which in his zeal he had bestrown the wide, +black stone hearth, and pointing to the tongues of flame that were +leaping and blazing up through the crevices of the dry pine wood which +he had intermingled plentifully with the more substantial fuel,--"there, +Mis' Pennel, ain't I a master-hand at a fire? But I'm really sorry I've +dirtied your floor," he said, as he brushed down his pantaloons, which +were covered with bits of grizzly moss, and looked on the surrounding +desolations; "give me a broom, I can sweep up now as well as any woman." + +"Oh, never mind," said Mrs. Pennel, laughing, "I'll sweep up." + +"Well, now, Mis' Pennel, you're one of the women that don't get put out +easy; ain't ye?" said the Captain, still contemplating his fire with a +proud and watchful eye. + +"Law me!" he exclaimed, glancing through the window, "there's the Cap'n +a-comin'. I'm jist goin' to give a look at what he's brought in. Come, +chil'en," and the Captain disappeared with all three of the children at +his heels, to go down to examine the treasures of the fishing-smack. + +Mr. Sewell seated himself cozily in the chimney corner and sank into a +state of half-dreamy reverie; his eyes fixed on the fairest sight one +can see of a frosty autumn twilight--a crackling wood-fire. + +Mrs. Pennel moved soft-footed to and fro, arraying her tea-table in her +own finest and pure damask, and bringing from hidden stores her best +china and newest silver, her choicest sweetmeats and cake--whatever was +fairest and nicest in her house--to honor her unexpected guest. + +Mr. Sewell's eyes followed her occasionally about the room, with an +expression of pleased and curious satisfaction. He was taking it all in +as an artistic picture--that simple, kindly hearth, with its mossy logs, +yet steaming with the moisture of the wild woods; the table so neat, so +cheery with its many little delicacies, and refinements of appointment, +and its ample varieties to tempt the appetite; and then the Captain +coming in, yet fresh and hungry from his afternoon's toil, with the +children trotting before him. + +"And this is the inheritance he comes into," he murmured; +"healthy--wholesome--cheerful--secure: how much better than hot, +stifling luxury!" + +Here the minister's meditations were interrupted by the entrance of all +the children, joyful and loquacious. Little Moses held up a string of +mackerel, with their graceful bodies and elegantly cut fins. + +"Just a specimen of the best, Mary," said Captain Pennel. "I thought I'd +bring 'em for Miss Emily." + +"Miss Emily will be a thousand times obliged to you," said Mr. Sewell, +rising up. + +As to Mara and Sally, they were reveling in apronfuls of shells and +seaweed, which they bustled into the other room to bestow in their +spacious baby-house. + +And now, after due time for Zephaniah to assume a land toilet, all sat +down to the evening meal. + +After supper was over, the Captain was besieged by the children. Little +Mara mounted first into his lap, and nestled herself quietly under his +coat--Moses and Sally stood at each knee. + +"Come, now," said Moses, "you said you would tell us about the mermen +to-night." + +"Yes, and the mermaids," said Sally. "Tell them all you told me the +other night in the trundle-bed." + +Sally valued herself no little on the score of the Captain's talent as a +romancer. + +"You see, Moses," she said, volubly, "father saw mermen and mermaids a +plenty of them in the West Indies." + +"Oh, never mind about 'em now," said Captain Kittridge, looking at Mr. +Sewell's corner. + +"Why not, father? mother isn't here," said Sally, innocently. + +A smile passed round the faces of the company, and Mr. Sewell said, +"Come, Captain, no modesty; we all know you have as good a faculty for +telling a story as for making a fire." + +"Do tell me what mermen are," said Moses. + +"Wal'," said the Captain, sinking his voice confidentially, and hitching +his chair a little around, "mermen and maids is a kind o' people that +have their world jist like our'n, only it's down in the bottom of the +sea, 'cause the bottom of the sea has its mountains and its valleys, and +its trees and its bushes, and it stands to reason there should be people +there too." + +Moses opened his broad black eyes wider than usual, and looked absorbed +attention. + +"Tell 'em about how you saw 'em," said Sally. + +"Wal', yes," said Captain Kittridge; "once when I was to the +Bahamas,--it was one Sunday morning in June, the first Sunday in the +month,--we cast anchor pretty nigh a reef of coral, and I was jist +a-sittin' down to read my Bible, when up comes a merman over the side of +the ship, all dressed as fine as any old beau that ever ye see, with +cocked hat and silk stockings, and shoe-buckles, and his clothes were +sea-green, and his shoe-buckles shone like diamonds." + +"Do you suppose they were diamonds, really?" said Sally. + +"Wal', child, I didn't ask him, but I shouldn't be surprised, from all I +know of their ways, if they was," said the Captain, who had now got so +wholly into the spirit of his fiction that he no longer felt +embarrassed by the minister's presence, nor saw the look of amusement +with which he was listening to him in his chimney-corner. "But, as I was +sayin', he came up to me, and made the politest bow that ever ye see, +and says he, 'Cap'n Kittridge, I presume,' and says I, 'Yes, sir.' 'I'm +sorry to interrupt your reading,' says he; and says I, 'Oh, no matter, +sir.' 'But,' says he, 'if you would only be so good as to move your +anchor. You've cast anchor right before my front-door, and my wife and +family can't get out to go to meetin'.'" + +"Why, do they go to meeting in the bottom of the sea?" said Moses. + +"Law, bless you sonny, yes. Why, Sunday morning, when the sea was all +still, I used to hear the bass-viol a-soundin' down under the waters, +jist as plain as could be,--and psalms and preachin'. I've reason to +think there's as many hopefully pious mermaids as there be folks," said +the Captain. + +"But," said Moses, "you said the anchor was before the front-door, so +the family couldn't get out,--how did the merman get out?" + +"Oh! he got out of the scuttle on the roof," said the Captain, promptly. + +"And did you move your anchor?" said Moses. + +"Why, child, yes, to be sure I did; he was such a gentleman I wanted to +oblige him,--it shows you how important it is always to be polite," said +the Captain, by way of giving a moral turn to his narrative. + +Mr. Sewell, during the progress of this story, examined the Captain with +eyes of amused curiosity. His countenance was as fixed and steady, and +his whole manner of reciting as matter-of-fact and collected, as if he +were relating some of the every-day affairs of his boat-building. + +"Wal', Sally," said the Captain, rising, after his yarn had proceeded +for an indefinite length in this manner, "you and I must be goin'. I +promised your ma you shouldn't be up late, and we have a long walk +home,--besides it's time these little folks was in bed." + +The children all clung round the Captain, and could hardly be persuaded +to let him go. + +When he was gone, Mrs. Pennel took the little ones to their nest in an +adjoining room. + +Mr. Sewell approached his chair to that of Captain Pennel, and began +talking to him in a tone of voice so low, that we have never been able +to make out exactly what he was saying. Whatever it might be, however, +it seemed to give rise to an anxious consultation. "I did not think it +advisable to tell _any_ one this but yourself, Captain Pennel. It is for +you to decide, in view of the probabilities I have told you, what you +will do." + +"Well," said Zephaniah, "since you leave it to me, I say, let us keep +him. It certainly seems a marked providence that he has been thrown upon +us as he has, and the Lord seemed to prepare a way for him in our +hearts. I am well able to afford it, and Mis' Pennel, she agrees to it, +and on the whole I don't think we'd best go back on our steps; besides, +our little Mara has thrived since he came under our roof. He is, to be +sure, kind o' masterful, and I shall have to take him off Mis' Pennel's +hands before long, and put him into the sloop. But, after all, there +seems to be the makin' of a man in him, and when we are called away, why +he'll be as a brother to poor little Mara. Yes, I think it's best as 't +is." + +The minister, as he flitted across the bay by moonlight, felt relieved +of a burden. His secret was locked up as safe in the breast of Zephaniah +Pennel as it could be in his own. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +BOY AND GIRL + + +Zephaniah Pennel was what might be called a Hebrew of the Hebrews. + +New England, in her earlier days, founding her institutions on the +Hebrew Scriptures, bred better Jews than Moses could, because she read +Moses with the amendments of Christ. + +The state of society in some of the districts of Maine, in these days, +much resembled in its spirit that which Moses labored to produce in +ruder ages. It was entirely democratic, simple, grave, hearty, and +sincere,--solemn and religious in its daily tone, and yet, as to all +material good, full of wholesome thrift and prosperity. Perhaps, taking +the average mass of the people, a more healthful and desirable state of +society never existed. Its better specimens had a simple Doric grandeur +unsurpassed in any age. The bringing up a child in this state of society +was a far more simple enterprise than in our modern times, when the +factious wants and aspirations are so much more developed. + +Zephaniah Pennel was as high as anybody in the land. He owned not only +the neat little schooner, "Brilliant," with divers small fishing-boats, +but also a snug farm, adjoining the brown house, together with some +fresh, juicy pasture-lots on neighboring islands, where he raised +mutton, unsurpassed even by the English South-down, and wool, which +furnished homespun to clothe his family on all every-day occasions. + +Mrs. Pennel, to be sure, had silks and satins, and flowered India +chintz, and even a Cashmere shawl, the fruits of some of her husband's +earlier voyages, which were, however, carefully stowed away for +occasions so high and mighty, that they seldom saw the light. _Not to +wear best things every day_ was a maxim of New England thrift as little +disputed as any verse of the catechism; and so Mrs. Pennel found the +stuff gown of her own dyeing and spinning so respectable for most +purposes, that it figured even in the meeting-house itself, except on +the very finest of Sundays, when heaven and earth seemed alike +propitious. A person can well afford to wear homespun stuff to meeting, +who is buoyed up by a secret consciousness of an abundance of fine +things that could be worn, if one were so disposed, and everybody +respected Mrs. Pennel's homespun the more, because they thought of the +things she didn't wear. + +As to advantages of education, the island, like all other New England +districts, had its common school, where one got the key of +knowledge,--for having learned to read, write, and cipher, the young +fellow of those regions commonly regarded himself as in possession of +all that a man needs, to help himself to any further acquisitions he +might desire. The boys then made fishing voyages to the Banks, and those +who were so disposed took their books with them. If a boy did not wish +to be bored with study, there was nobody to force him; but if a bright +one saw visions of future success in life lying through the avenues of +knowledge, he found many a leisure hour to pore over his books, and work +out the problems of navigation directly over the element they were meant +to control. + +Four years having glided by since the commencement of our story, we find +in the brown house of Zephaniah Pennel a tall, well-knit, handsome boy +of ten years, who knows no fear of wind or sea; who can set you over +from Orr's Island to Harpswell, either in sail or row-boat, he thinks, +as well as any man living; who knows every rope of the schooner +Brilliant, and fancies he could command it as well as "father" himself; +and is supporting himself this spring, during the tamer drudgeries of +driving plough, and dropping potatoes, with the glorious vision of being +taken this year on the annual trip to "the Banks," which comes on after +planting. He reads fluently,--witness the "Robinson Crusoe," which never +departs from under his pillow, and Goldsmith's "History of Greece and +Rome," which good Mr. Sewell has lent him,--and he often brings shrewd +criticisms on the character and course of Romulus or Alexander into the +common current of every-day life, in a way that brings a smile over the +grave face of Zephaniah, and makes Mrs. Pennel think the boy certainly +ought to be sent to college. + +As for Mara, she is now a child of seven, still adorned with long golden +curls, still looking dreamily out of soft hazel eyes into some unknown +future not her own. She has no dreams for herself--they are all for +Moses. For his sake she has learned all the womanly little +accomplishments which Mrs. Kittridge has dragooned into Sally. She knits +his mittens and his stockings, and hems his pocket-handkerchiefs, and +aspires to make his shirts all herself. Whatever book Moses reads, +forthwith she aspires to read too, and though three years younger, reads +with a far more precocious insight. + +Her little form is slight and frail, and her cheek has a clear +transparent brilliancy quite different from the rounded one of the boy; +she looks not exactly in ill health, but has that sort of transparent +appearance which one fancies might be an attribute of fairies and +sylphs. All her outward senses are finer and more acute than his, and +finer and more delicate all the attributes of her mind. Those who +contend against giving woman the same education as man do it on the +ground that it would make the woman unfeminine, as if Nature had done +her work so slightly that it could be so easily raveled and knit over. +In fact, there is a masculine and a feminine element in all knowledge, +and a man and a woman put to the same study extract only what their +nature fits them to see, so that knowledge can be fully orbed only when +the two unite in the search and share the spoils. + +When Moses was full of Romulus and Numa, Mara pondered the story of the +nymph Egeria--sweet parable, in which lies all we have been saying. Her +trust in him was boundless. He was a constant hero in her eyes, and in +her he found a steadfast believer as to all possible feats and exploits +to which he felt himself competent, for the boy often had privately +assured her that he could command the Brilliant as well as father +himself. + +Spring had already come, loosing the chains of ice in all the bays and +coves round Harpswell, Orr's Island, Maquoit, and Middle Bay. The +magnificent spruces stood forth in their gala-dresses, tipped on every +point with vivid emerald; the silver firs exuded from their tender +shoots the fragrance of ripe pineapple; the white pines shot forth long +weird fingers at the end of their fringy boughs; and even every little +mimic evergreen in the shadows at their feet was made beautiful by the +addition of a vivid border of green on the sombre coloring of its last +year's leaves. Arbutus, fragrant with its clean, wholesome odors, gave +forth its thousand dewy pink blossoms, and the trailing Linnea borealis +hung its pendent twin bells round every mossy stump and old rock damp +with green forest mould. The green and vermilion matting of the +partridge-berry was impearled with white velvet blossoms, the +checkerberry hung forth a translucent bell under its varnished green +leaf, and a thousand more fairy bells, white or red, hung on blueberry +and huckleberry bushes. The little Pearl of Orr's Island had wandered +many an hour gathering bouquets of all these, to fill the brown house +with sweetness when her grandfather and Moses should come in from work. + +The love of flowers seemed to be one of her earliest characteristics, +and the young spring flowers of New England, in their airy delicacy and +fragility, were much like herself; and so strong seemed the affinity +between them, that not only Mrs. Pennel's best India china vases on the +keeping-room mantel were filled, but here stood a tumbler of scarlet +rock columbine, and there a bowl of blue and white violets, and in +another place a saucer of shell-tinted crowfoot, blue liverwort, and +white anemone, so that Zephaniah Pennel was wont to say there wasn't a +drink of water to be got, for Mara's flowers; but he always said it with +a smile that made his weather-beaten, hard features look like a rock lit +up by a sunbeam. Little Mara was the pearl of the old seaman's life, +every finer particle of his nature came out in her concentrated and +polished, and he often wondered at a creature so ethereal belonging to +him--as if down on some shaggy sea-green rock an old pearl oyster should +muse and marvel on the strange silvery mystery of beauty that was +growing in the silence of his heart. + +But May has passed; the arbutus and the Linnea are gone from the woods, +and the pine tips have grown into young shoots, which wilt at noon under +a direct reflection from sun and sea, and the blue sky has that metallic +clearness and brilliancy which distinguishes those regions, and the +planting is at last over, and this very morning Moses is to set off in +the Brilliant for his first voyage to the Banks. Glorious knight he! the +world all before him, and the blood of ten years racing and throbbing in +his veins as he talks knowingly of hooks, and sinkers, and bait, and +lines, and wears proudly the red flannel shirt which Mara had just +finished for him. + +"How I do wish I were going with you!" she says. "I could do something, +couldn't I--take care of your hooks, or something?" + +"Pooh!" said Moses, sublimely regarding her while he settled the collar +of his shirt, "you're a girl; and what can girls do at sea? you never +like to catch fish--it always makes you cry to see 'em flop." + +"Oh, yes, poor fish!" said Mara, perplexed between her sympathy for the +fish and her desire for the glory of her hero, which must be founded on +their pain; "I can't help feeling sorry when they gasp so." + +"Well, and what do you suppose you would do when the men are pulling up +twenty and forty pounder?" said Moses, striding sublimely. "Why, they +flop so, they'd knock you over in a minute." + +"Do they? Oh, Moses, do be careful. What if they should hurt you?" + +"Hurt me!" said Moses, laughing; "that's a good one. I'd like to see a +fish that could hurt me." + +"Do hear that boy talk!" said Mrs. Pennel to her husband, as they stood +within their chamber-door. + +"Yes, yes," said Captain Pennel, smiling; "he's full of the matter. I +believe he'd take the command of the schooner this morning, if I'd let +him." + +The Brilliant lay all this while courtesying on the waves, which kissed +and whispered to the little coquettish craft. A fairer June morning had +not risen on the shores that week; the blue mirror of the ocean was all +dotted over with the tiny white sails of fishing-craft bound on the same +errand, and the breeze that was just crisping the waters had the very +spirit of energy and adventure in it. + +Everything and everybody was now on board, and she began to spread her +fair wings, and slowly and gracefully to retreat from the shore. Little +Moses stood on the deck, his black curls blowing in the wind, and his +large eyes dancing with excitement,--his clear olive complexion and +glowing cheeks well set off by his red shirt. + +Mrs. Pennel stood with Mara on the shore to see them go. The fair little +golden-haired Ariadne shaded her eyes with one arm, and stretched the +other after her Theseus, till the vessel grew smaller, and finally +seemed to melt away into the eternal blue. Many be the wives and lovers +that have watched those little fishing-craft as they went gayly out like +this, but have waited long--too long--and seen them again no more. In +night and fog they have gone down under the keel of some ocean packet or +Indiaman, and sunk with brave hearts and hands, like a bubble in the +mighty waters. Yet Mrs. Pennel did not turn back to her house in +apprehension of this. Her husband had made so many voyages, and always +returned safely, that she confidently expected before long to see them +home again. + +The next Sunday the seat of Zephaniah Pennel was vacant in church. +According to custom, a note was put up asking prayers for his safe +return, and then everybody knew that he was gone to the Banks; and as +the roguish, handsome face of Moses was also missing, Miss Roxy +whispered to Miss Ruey, "There! Captain Pennel's took Moses on his first +voyage. We must contrive to call round on Mis' Pennel afore long. She'll +be lonesome." + +Sunday evening Mrs. Pennel was sitting pensively with little Mara by the +kitchen hearth, where they had been boiling the tea-kettle for their +solitary meal. They heard a brisk step without, and soon Captain and +Mrs. Kittridge made their appearance. + +"Good evening, Mis' Pennel," said the Captain; "I's a-tellin' my good +woman we must come down and see how you's a-getting along. It's raly a +work of necessity and mercy proper for the Lord's day. Rather lonesome, +now the Captain's gone, ain't ye? Took little Moses, too, I see. Wasn't +at meetin' to-day, so I says, Mis' Kittridge, we'll just step down and +chirk 'em up a little." + +"I didn't really know how to come," said Mrs. Kittridge, as she allowed +Mrs. Pennel to take her bonnet; "but Aunt Roxy's to our house now, and +she said she'd see to Sally. So you've let the boy go to the Banks? He's +young, ain't he, for that?" + +"Not a bit of it," said Captain Kittridge. "Why, I was off to the Banks +long afore I was his age, and a capital time we had of it, too. Golly! +how them fish did bite! We stood up to our knees in fish before we'd +fished half an hour." + +Mara, who had always a shy affinity for the Captain, now drew towards +him and climbed on his knee. "Did the wind blow very hard?" she said. + +"What, my little maid?" + +"Does the wind blow at the Banks?" + +"Why, yes, my little girl, that it does, sometimes; but then there ain't +the least danger. Our craft ride out storms like live creatures. I've +stood it out in gales that was tight enough, I'm sure. 'Member once I +turned in 'tween twelve and one, and hadn't more'n got asleep, afore I +came _clump_ out of my berth, and found everything upside down. And +'stead of goin' upstairs to get on deck, I had to go right down. Fact +was, that 'ere vessel jist turned clean over in the water, and come +right side up like a duck." + +"Well, now, Cap'n, I wouldn't be tellin' such a story as that," said his +helpmeet. + +"Why, Polly, what do you know about it? you never was to sea. We did +turn clear over, for I 'member I saw a bunch of seaweed big as a peck +measure stickin' top of the mast next day. Jist shows how safe them ar +little fishing craft is,--for all they look like an egg-shell on the +mighty deep, as Parson Sewell calls it." + +"I was very much pleased with Mr. Sewell's exercise in prayer this +morning," said Mrs. Kittridge; "it must have been a comfort to you, Mis' +Pennel." + +"It was, to be sure," said Mrs. Pennel. + +"Puts me in mind of poor Mary Jane Simpson. Her husband went out, you +know, last June, and hain't been heard of since. Mary Jane don't really +know whether to put on mourning or not." + +"Law! I don't think Mary Jane need give up yet," said the Captain. +"'Member one year I was out, we got blowed clear up to Baffin's Bay, and +got shut up in the ice, and had to go ashore and live jist as we could +among them Esquimaux. Didn't get home for a year. Old folks had clean +giv' us up. Don't need never despair of folks gone to sea, for they's +sure to turn up, first or last." + +"But I hope," said Mara, apprehensively, "that grandpapa won't get blown +up to Baffin's Bay. I've seen that on his chart,--it's a good ways." + +"And then there's them 'ere icebergs," said Mrs. Kittridge; "I'm always +'fraid of running into them in the fog." + +"Law!" said Captain Kittridge, "I've met 'em bigger than all the +colleges up to Brunswick,--great white bears on 'em,--hungry as Time in +the Primer. Once we came kersmash on to one of 'em, and if the Flying +Betsey hadn't been made of whalebone and injer-rubber, she'd a-been +stove all to pieces. Them white bears, they was so hungry, that they +stood there with the water jist runnin' out of their chops in a perfect +stream." + +"Oh, dear, dear," said Mara, with wide round eyes, "what will Moses do +if they get on the icebergs?" + +"Yes," said Mrs. Kittridge, looking solemnly at the child through the +black bows of her spectacles, "we can truly say:-- + + "'Dangers stand thick through all the ground, + To push us to the tomb,' + +as the hymn-book says." + +The kind-hearted Captain, feeling the fluttering heart of little Mara, +and seeing the tears start in her eyes, addressed himself forthwith to +consolation. "Oh, never you mind, Mara," he said, "there won't nothing +hurt 'em. Look at me. Why, I've been everywhere on the face of the +earth. I've been on icebergs, and among white bears and Indians, and +seen storms that would blow the very hair off your head, and here I am, +dry and tight as ever. You'll see 'em back before long." + +The cheerful laugh with which the Captain was wont to chorus his +sentences sounded like the crackling of dry pine wood on the social +hearth. One would hardly hear it without being lightened in heart; and +little Mara gazed at his long, dry, ropy figure, and wrinkled thin face, +as a sort of monument of hope; and his uproarious laugh, which Mrs. +Kittridge sometimes ungraciously compared to "the crackling of thorns +under a pot," seemed to her the most delightful thing in the world. + +"Mary Jane was a-tellin' me," resumed Mrs. Kittridge, "that when her +husband had been out a month, she dreamed she see him, and three other +men, a-floatin' on an iceberg." + +"Laws," said Captain Kittridge, "that's jist what my old mother dreamed +about me, and 'twas true enough, too, till we got off the ice on to the +shore up in the Esquimaux territory, as I was a-tellin'. So you tell +Mary Jane she needn't look out for a second husband _yet_, for that ar +dream's a sartin sign he'll be back." + +"Cap'n Kittridge!" said his helpmeet, drawing herself up, and giving him +an austere glance over her spectacles; "how often must I tell you that +there _is_ subjects which shouldn't be treated with levity?" + +"Who's been a-treatin' of 'em with levity?" said the Captain. "I'm sure +I ain't. Mary Jane's good-lookin', and there's plenty of young fellows +as sees it as well as me. I declare, she looked as pretty as any young +gal when she ris up in the singers' seats to-day. Put me in mind of you, +Polly, when I first come home from the Injies." + +"Oh, come now, Cap'n Kittridge! we're gettin' too old for that sort o' +talk." + +"We ain't too old, be we, Mara?" said the Captain, trotting the little +girl gayly on his knee; "and we ain't afraid of icebergs and no sich, be +we? I tell you they's a fine sight of a bright day; they has millions of +steeples, all white and glistering, like the New Jerusalem, and the +white bears have capital times trampin' round on 'em. Wouldn't little +Mara like a great, nice white bear to ride on, with his white fur, so +soft and warm, and a saddle made of pearls, and a gold bridle?" + +"You haven't seen any little girls ride so," said Mara, doubtfully. + +"I shouldn't wonder if I had; but you see, Mis' Kittridge there, she +won't let me tell all I know," said the Captain, sinking his voice to a +confidential tone; "you jist wait till we get alone." + +"But, you are sure," said Mara, confidingly, in return, "that white +bears will be kind to Moses?" + +"Lord bless you, yes, child, the kindest critturs in the world they be, +if you only get the right side of 'em," said the Captain. + +"Oh, yes! because," said Mara, "I know how good a wolf was to Romulus +and Remus once, and nursed them when they were cast out to die. I read +that in the Roman history." + +"Jist so," said the Captain, enchanted at this historic confirmation of +his apocrypha. + +"And so," said Mara, "if Moses should happen to get on an iceberg, a +bear might take care of him, you know." + +"Jist so, jist so," said the Captain; "so don't you worry your little +curly head one bit. Some time when you come down to see Sally, we'll go +down to the cove, and I'll tell you lots of stories about chil'en that +have been fetched up by white bears, jist like Romulus and what's his +name there." + +"Come, Mis' Kittridge," added the cheery Captain; "you and I mustn't be +keepin' the folks up till nine o'clock." + +"Well now," said Mrs. Kittridge, in a doleful tone, as she began to put +on her bonnet, "Mis' Pennel, you must keep up your spirits--it's one's +duty to take cheerful views of things. I'm sure many's the night, when +the Captain's been gone to sea, I've laid and shook in my bed, hearin' +the wind blow, and thinking what if I should be left a lone widow." + +"There'd a-been a dozen fellows a-wanting to get you in six months, +Polly," interposed the Captain. "Well, good-night, Mis' Pennel; there'll +be a splendid haul of fish at the Banks this year, or there's no truth +in signs. Come, my little Mara, got a kiss for the dry old daddy? That's +my good girl. Well, good night, and the Lord bless you." + +And so the cheery Captain took up his line of march homeward, leaving +little Mara's head full of dazzling visions of the land of romance to +which Moses had gone. She was yet on that shadowy boundary between the +dreamland of childhood and the real land of life; so all things looked +to her quite possible; and gentle white bears, with warm, soft fur and +pearl and gold saddles, walked through her dreams, and the victorious +curls of Moses appeared, with his bright eyes and cheeks, over +glittering pinnacles of frost in the ice-land. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +THE ENCHANTED ISLAND + + +June and July passed, and the lonely two lived a quiet life in the brown +house. Everything was so still and fair--no sound but the coming and +going tide, and the swaying wind among the pine-trees, and the tick of +the clock, and the whirr of the little wheel as Mrs. Pennel sat spinning +in her door in the mild weather. Mara read the Roman history through +again, and began it a third time, and read over and over again the +stories and prophecies that pleased her in the Bible, and pondered the +wood-cuts and texts in a very old edition of Æsop's Fables; and as she +wandered in the woods, picking fragrant bayberries and gathering +hemlock, checkerberry, and sassafras to put in the beer which her +grandmother brewed, she mused on the things that she read till her +little mind became a tabernacle of solemn, quaint, dreamy forms, where +old Judean kings and prophets, and Roman senators and warriors, marched +in and out in shadowy rounds. She invented long dramas and conversations +in which they performed imaginary parts, and it would not have appeared +to the child in the least degree surprising either to have met an angel +in the woods, or to have formed an intimacy with some talking wolf or +bear, such as she read of in Æsop's Fables. + +One day, as she was exploring the garret, she found in an old barrel of +cast-off rubbish a bit of reading which she begged of her grandmother +for her own. It was the play of the "Tempest," torn from an old edition +of Shakespeare, and was in that delightfully fragmentary condition +which most particularly pleases children, because they conceive a +mutilated treasure thus found to be more especially their own +property--something like a rare wild-flower or sea-shell. The pleasure +which thoughtful and imaginative children sometimes take in reading that +which they do not and cannot fully comprehend is one of the most common +and curious phenomena of childhood. + +And so little Mara would lie for hours stretched out on the pebbly +beach, with the broad open ocean before her and the whispering pines and +hemlocks behind her, and pore over this poem, from which she collected +dim, delightful images of a lonely island, an old enchanter, a beautiful +girl, and a spirit not quite like those in the Bible, but a very +probable one to her mode of thinking. As for old Caliban, she fancied +him with a face much like that of a huge skate-fish she had once seen +drawn ashore in one of her grandfather's nets; and then there was the +beautiful young Prince Ferdinand, much like what Moses would be when he +was grown up--and how glad she would be to pile up his wood for him, if +any old enchanter should set him to work! + +One attribute of the child was a peculiar shamefacedness and shyness +about her inner thoughts, and therefore the wonder that this new +treasure excited, the host of surmises and dreams to which it gave rise, +were never mentioned to anybody. That it was all of it as much authentic +fact as the Roman history, she did not doubt, but whether it had +happened on Orr's Island or some of the neighboring ones, she had not +exactly made up her mind. She resolved at her earliest leisure to +consult Captain Kittridge on the subject, wisely considering that it +much resembled some of his fishy and aquatic experiences. + +Some of the little songs fixed themselves in her memory, and she would +hum them as she wandered up and down the beach. + + "Come unto these yellow sands, + And then take hands; + Courtsied when you have and kissed + The wild waves whist, + Foot it featly here and there; + And, sweet sprites, the burthen bear." + +And another which pleased her still more:-- + + "Full fathom five thy father lies; + Of his bones are coral made, + Those are pearls that were his eyes: + Nothing of him that can fade + But doth suffer a sea-change + Into something rich and strange; + Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell: + Hark, now I hear them--ding-dong, bell." + +These words she pondered very long, gravely revolving in her little head +whether they described the usual course of things in the mysterious +under-world that lay beneath that blue spangled floor of the sea; +whether everybody's eyes changed to pearl, and their bones to coral, if +they sunk down there; and whether the sea-nymphs spoken of were the same +as the mermaids that Captain Kittridge had told of. Had he not said that +the bell rung for church of a Sunday morning down under the waters? + +Mara vividly remembered the scene on the sea-beach, the finding of +little Moses and his mother, the dream of the pale lady that seemed to +bring him to her; and not one of the conversations that had transpired +before her among different gossips had been lost on her quiet, listening +little ears. These pale, still children that play without making any +noise are deep wells into which drop many things which lie long and +quietly on the bottom, and come up in after years whole and new, when +everybody else has forgotten them. + +So she had heard surmises as to the remaining crew of that unfortunate +ship, where, perhaps, Moses had a father. And sometimes she wondered if +_he_ were lying fathoms deep with sea-nymphs ringing his knell, and +whether Moses ever thought about him; and yet she could no more have +asked him a question about it than if she had been born dumb. She +decided that she should never show him this poetry--it might make him +feel unhappy. + +One bright afternoon, when the sea lay all dead asleep, and the long, +steady respiration of its tides scarcely disturbed the glassy +tranquillity of its bosom, Mrs. Pennel sat at her kitchen-door spinning, +when Captain Kittridge appeared. + +"Good afternoon, Mis' Pennel; how ye gettin' along?" + +"Oh, pretty well, Captain; won't you walk in and have a glass of beer?" + +"Well, thank you," said the Captain, raising his hat and wiping his +forehead, "I be pretty dry, it's a fact." + +Mrs. Pennel hastened to a cask which was kept standing in a corner of +the kitchen, and drew from thence a mug of her own home-brewed, fragrant +with the smell of juniper, hemlock, and wintergreen, which she presented +to the Captain, who sat down in the doorway and discussed it in +leisurely sips. + +"Wal', s'pose it's most time to be lookin' for 'em home, ain't it?" he +said. + +"I _am_ lookin' every day," said Mrs. Pennel, involuntarily glancing +upward at the sea. + +At the word appeared the vision of little Mara, who rose up like a +spirit from a dusky corner, where she had been stooping over her +reading. + +"Why, little Mara," said the Captain, "you ris up like a ghost all of a +sudden. I thought you's out to play. I come down a-purpose arter you. +Mis' Kittridge has gone shoppin' up to Brunswick, and left Sally a +'stent' to do; and I promised her if she'd clap to and do it quick, I'd +go up and fetch you down, and we'd have a play in the cove." + +Mara's eyes brightened, as they always did at this prospect, and Mrs. +Pennel said, "Well, I'm glad to have the child go; she seems so kind o' +still and lonesome since Moses went away; really one feels as if that +boy took all the noise there was with him. I get tired myself sometimes +hearing the clock tick. Mara, when she's alone, takes to her book more +than's good for a child." + +"She does, does she? Well, we'll see about that. Come, little Mara, get +on your sun-bonnet. Sally's sewin' fast as ever she can, and we're goin' +to dig some clams, and make a fire, and have a chowder; that'll be nice, +won't it? Don't you want to come, too, Mis' Pennel?" + +"Oh, thank you, Captain, but I've got so many things on hand to do afore +they come home, I don't really think I can. I'll trust Mara to you any +day." + +Mara had run into her own little room and secured her precious fragment +of treasure, which she wrapped up carefully in her handkerchief, +resolving to enlighten Sally with the story, and to consult the Captain +on any nice points of criticism. Arrived at the cove, they found Sally +already there in advance of them, clapping her hands and dancing in a +manner which made her black elf-locks fly like those of a distracted +creature. + +"Now, Sally," said the Captain, imitating, in a humble way, his wife's +manner, "are you sure you've finished your work well?" + +"Yes, father, every stitch on't." + +"And stuck in your needle, and folded it up, and put it in the drawer, +and put away your thimble, and shet the drawer, and all the rest on't?" +said the Captain. + +"Yes, father," said Sally, gleefully, "I've done everything I could +think of." + +"'Cause you know your ma'll be arter ye, if you don't leave everything +straight." + +"Oh, never you fear, father, I've done it all half an hour ago, and I've +found the most capital bed of clams just round the point here; and you +take care of Mara there, and make up a fire while I dig 'em. If she +comes, she'll be sure to wet her shoes, or spoil her frock, or +something." + +"Wal', she likes no better fun now," said the Captain, watching Sally, +as she disappeared round the rock with a bright tin pan. + +He then proceeded to construct an extemporary fireplace of loose stones, +and to put together chips and shavings for the fire,--in which work +little Mara eagerly assisted; but the fire was crackling and burning +cheerily long before Sally appeared with her clams, and so the Captain, +with a pile of hemlock boughs by his side, sat on a stone feeding the +fire leisurely from time to time with crackling boughs. Now was the time +for Mara to make her inquiries; her heart beat, she knew not why, for +she was full of those little timidities and shames that so often +embarrass children in their attempts to get at the meanings of things in +this great world, where they are such ignorant spectators. + +"Captain Kittridge," she said at last, "do the mermaids toll any bells +for people when they are drowned?" + +Now the Captain had never been known to indicate the least ignorance on +any subject in heaven or earth, which any one wished his opinion on; he +therefore leisurely poked another great crackling bough of green hemlock +into the fire, and, Yankee-like, answered one question by asking +another. + +"What put that into your curly pate?" he said. + +"A book I've been reading says they do,--that is, sea-nymphs do. Ain't +sea-nymphs and mermaids the same thing?" + +"Wal', I guess they be, pretty much," said the Captain, rubbing down his +pantaloons; "yes, they be," he added, after reflection. + +"And when people are drowned, how long does it take for their bones to +turn into coral, and their eyes into pearl?" said little Mara. + +"Well, that depends upon circumstances," said the Captain, who wasn't +going to be posed; "but let me jist see your book you've been reading +these things out of." + +"I found it in a barrel up garret, and grandma gave it to me," said +Mara, unrolling her handkerchief; "it's a beautiful book,--it tells +about an island, and there was an old enchanter lived on it, and he had +one daughter, and there was a spirit they called Ariel, whom a wicked +old witch fastened in a split of a pine-tree, till the enchanter got him +out. He was a beautiful spirit, and rode in the curled clouds and hung +in flowers,--because he could make himself big or little, you see." + +"Ah, yes, I see, to be sure," said the Captain, nodding his head. + +"Well, that about sea-nymphs ringing his knell is here," Mara added, +beginning to read the passage with wide, dilated eyes and great +emphasis. "You see," she went on speaking very fast, "this enchanter had +been a prince, and a wicked brother had contrived to send him to sea +with his poor little daughter, in a ship so leaky that the very rats had +left it." + +"Bad business that!" said the Captain, attentively. + +"Well," said Mara, "they got cast ashore on this desolate island, where +they lived together. But once, when a ship was going by on the sea that +had his wicked brother and his son--a real good, handsome young +prince--in it, why then he made a storm by magic arts." + +"Jist so," said the Captain; "that's been often done, to my sartin +knowledge." + +"And he made the ship be wrecked, and all the people thrown ashore, but +there wasn't any of 'em drowned, and this handsome prince heard Ariel +singing this song about his father, and it made him think he was dead." + +"Well, what became of 'em?" interposed Sally, who had come up with her +pan of clams in time to hear this story, to which she had listened with +breathless interest. + +"Oh, the beautiful young prince married the beautiful young lady," said +Mara. + +"Wal'," said the Captain, who by this time had found his soundings; +"that you've been a-tellin' is what they call a play, and I've seen 'em +act it at a theatre, when I was to Liverpool once. I know all about it. +Shakespeare wrote it, and he's a great English poet." + +"But did it ever happen?" said Mara, trembling between hope and fear. +"Is it like the Bible and Roman history?" + +"Why, no," said Captain Kittridge, "not exactly; but things jist like +it, you know. Mermaids and sich is common in foreign parts, and they has +funerals for drowned sailors. 'Member once when we was sailing near the +Bermudas by a reef where the Lively Fanny went down, and I heard a kind +o' ding-dongin',--and the waters there is clear as the sky,--and I +looked down and see the coral all a-growin', and the sea-plants a-wavin' +as handsome as a pictur', and the mermaids they was a-singin'. It was +beautiful; they sung kind o' mournful; and Jack Hubbard, he would have +it they was a-singin' for the poor fellows that was a-lyin' there round +under the seaweed." + +"But," said Mara, "did you ever see an enchanter that could make +storms?" + +"Wal', there be witches and conjurers that make storms. 'Member once +when we was crossin' the line, about twelve o'clock at night, there was +an old man with a long white beard that shone like silver, came and +stood at the masthead, and he had a pitchfork in one hand, and a lantern +in the other, and there was great balls of fire as big as my fist came +out all round in the rigging. And I'll tell you if we didn't get a blow +that ar night! I thought to my soul we should all go to the bottom." + +"Why," said Mara, her eyes staring with excitement, "that was just like +this shipwreck; and 'twas Ariel made those balls of fire; he says so; he +said he 'flamed amazement' all over the ship." + +"I've heard Miss Roxy tell about witches that made storms," said Sally. + +The Captain leisurely proceeded to open the clams, separating from the +shells the contents, which he threw into a pan, meanwhile placing a +black pot over the fire in which he had previously arranged certain +slices of salt pork, which soon began frizzling in the heat. + +"Now, Sally, you peel them potatoes, and mind you slice 'em thin," he +said, and Sally soon was busy with her work. + +"Yes," said the Captain, going on with his part of the arrangement, +"there was old Polly Twitchell, that lived in that ar old tumble-down +house on Mure P'int; people used to say she brewed storms, and went to +sea in a sieve." + +"Went in a sieve!" said both children; "why a sieve wouldn't swim!" + +"No more it wouldn't, in any Christian way," said the Captain; "but that +was to show what a great witch she was." + +"But this was a good enchanter," said Mara, "and he did it all by a book +and a rod." + +"Yes, yes," said the Captain; "that ar's the gen'l way magicians do, +ever since Moses's time in Egypt. 'Member once I was to Alexandria, in +Egypt, and I saw a magician there that could jist see everything you +ever did in your life in a drop of ink that he held in his hand." + +"He could, father!" + +"To be sure he could! told me all about the old folks at home; and +described our house as natural as if he'd a-been there. He used to +carry snakes round with him,--a kind so p'ison that it was certain death +to have 'em bite you; but he played with 'em as if they was kittens." + +"Well," said Mara, "my enchanter was a king; and when he got through all +he wanted, and got his daughter married to the beautiful young prince, +he said he would break his staff, and deeper than plummet sounded he +would bury his book." + +"It was pretty much the best thing he could do," said the Captain, +"because the Bible is agin such things." + +"Is it?" said Mara; "why, he was a real good man." + +"Oh, well, you know, we all on us does what ain't quite right sometimes, +when we gets pushed up," said the Captain, who now began arranging the +clams and sliced potatoes in alternate layers with sea-biscuit, strewing +in salt and pepper as he went on; and, in a few moments, a smell, +fragrant to hungry senses, began to steam upward, and Sally began +washing and preparing some mammoth clam-shells, to serve as ladles and +plates for the future chowder. + +Mara, who sat with her morsel of a book in her lap, seemed deeply +pondering the past conversation. At last she said, "What did you mean by +saying you'd seen 'em act that at a theatre?" + +"Why, they make it all seem real; and they have a shipwreck, and you see +it all jist right afore your eyes." + +"And the Enchanter, and Ariel, and Caliban, and all?" said Mara. + +"Yes, all on't,--plain as printing." + +"Why, that is by magic, ain't it?" said Mara. + +"No; they hes ways to jist make it up; but,"--added the Captain, "Sally, +you needn't say nothin' to your ma 'bout the theatre, 'cause she +wouldn't think I's fit to go to meetin' for six months arter, if she +heard on't." + +"Why, ain't theatres good?" said Sally. + +"Wal', there's a middlin' sight o' bad things in 'em," said the +Captain, "that I must say; but as long as folks _is_ folks, why, they +will be _folksy_;--but there's never any makin' women folk understand +about them ar things." + +"I am sorry they are bad," said Mara; "I want to see them." + +"Wal', wal'," said the Captain, "on the hull I've seen real things a +good deal more wonderful than all their shows, and they hain't no +make-b'lieve to 'em; but theatres is takin' arter all. But, Sally, mind +you don't say nothin' to Mis' Kittridge." + +A few moments more and all discussion was lost in preparations for the +meal, and each one, receiving a portion of the savory stew in a large +shell, made a spoon of a small cockle, and with some slices of bread and +butter, the evening meal went off merrily. The sun was sloping toward +the ocean; the wide blue floor was bedropped here and there with rosy +shadows of sailing clouds. Suddenly the Captain sprang up, calling +out,-- + +"Sure as I'm alive, there they be!" + +"Who?" exclaimed the children. + +"Why, Captain Pennel and Moses; don't you see?" + +And, in fact, on the outer circle of the horizon came drifting a line of +small white-breasted vessels, looking like so many doves. + +"Them's 'em," said the Captain, while Mara danced for joy. + +"How soon will they be here?" + +"Afore long," said the Captain; "so, Mara, I guess you'll want to be +getting hum." + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +THE HOME COMING + + +Mrs. Pennel, too, had seen the white, dove-like cloud on the horizon, +and had hurried to make biscuits, and conduct other culinary +preparations which should welcome the wanderers home. + +The sun was just dipping into the great blue sea--a round ball of +fire--and sending long, slanting tracks of light across the top of each +wave, when a boat was moored at the beach, and the minister sprang +out,--not in his suit of ceremony, but attired in fisherman's garb. + +"Good afternoon, Mrs. Pennel," he said. "I was out fishing, and I +thought I saw your husband's schooner in the distance. I thought I'd +come and tell you." + +"Thank you, Mr. Sewell. I thought I saw it, but I was not certain. Do +come in; the Captain would be delighted to see you here." + +"We miss your husband in our meetings," said Mr. Sewell; "it will be +good news for us all when he comes home; he is one of those I depend on +to help me preach." + +"I'm sure you don't preach to anybody who enjoys it more," said Mrs. +Pennel. "He often tells me that the greatest trouble about his voyages +to the Banks is that he loses so many sanctuary privileges; though he +always keeps Sunday on his ship, and reads and sings his psalms; but, he +says, after all, there's nothing like going to Mount Zion." + +"And little Moses has gone on his first voyage?" said the minister. + +"Yes, indeed; the child has been teasing to go for more than a year. +Finally the Cap'n told him if he'd be faithful in the ploughing and +planting, he should go. You see, he's rather unsteady, and apt to be off +after other things,--very different from Mara. Whatever you give her to +do, she always keeps at it till it's done." + +"And pray, where is the little lady?" said the minister; "is she gone?" + +"Well, Cap'n Kittridge came in this afternoon to take her down to see +Sally. The Cap'n's always so fond of Mara, and she has always taken to +him ever since she was a baby." + +"The Captain is a curious creature," said the minister, smiling. + +Mrs. Pennel smiled also; and it is to be remarked that nobody ever +mentioned the poor Captain's name without the same curious smile. + +"The Cap'n is a good-hearted, obliging creature," said Mrs. Pennel, "and +a master-hand for telling stories to the children." + +"Yes, a perfect 'Arabian Nights' Entertainment,'" said Mr. Sewell. + +"Well, I really believe the Cap'n believes his own stories," said Mrs. +Pennel; "he always seems to, and certainly a more obliging man and a +kinder neighbor couldn't be. He has been in and out almost every day +since I've been alone, to see if I wanted anything. He would insist on +chopping wood and splitting kindlings for me, though I told him the +Cap'n and Moses had left a plenty to last till they came home." + +At this moment the subject of their conversation appeared striding along +the beach, with a large, red lobster in one hand, while with the other +he held little Mara upon his shoulder, she the while clapping her hands +and singing merrily, as she saw the Brilliant out on the open blue sea, +its white sails looking of a rosy purple in the evening light, careering +gayly homeward. + +"There is Captain Kittridge this very minute," said Mrs. Pennel, setting +down a tea-cup she had been wiping, and going to the door. + +"Good evening, Mis' Pennel," said the Captain. "I s'pose you see your +folks are comin'. I brought down one of these 'ere ready b'iled, 'cause +I thought it might make out your supper." + +"Thank you, Captain; you must stay and take some with us." + +"Wal', me and the children have pooty much done our supper," said the +Captain. "We made a real fust-rate chowder down there to the cove; but +I'll jist stay and see what the Cap'n's luck is. Massy!" he added, as he +looked in at the door, "if you hain't got the minister there! Wal', now, +I come jist as I be," he added, with a glance down at his clothes. + +"Never mind, Captain," said Mr. Sewell; "I'm in my fishing-clothes, so +we're even." + +As to little Mara, she had run down to the beach, and stood so near the +sea, that every dash of the tide-wave forced her little feet to tread an +inch backward, stretching out her hands eagerly toward the schooner, +which was standing straight toward the small wharf, not far from their +door. Already she could see on deck figures moving about, and her sharp +little eyes made out a small personage in a red shirt that was among the +most active. Soon all the figures grew distinct, and she could see her +grandfather's gray head, and alert, active form, and could see, by the +signs he made, that he had perceived the little blowy figure that stood, +with hair streaming in the wind, like some flower bent seaward. + +And now they are come nearer, and Moses shouts and dances on the deck, +and the Captain and Mrs. Pennel come running from the house down to the +shore, and a few minutes more, and all are landed safe and sound, and +little Mara is carried up to the house in her grandfather's arms, while +Captain Kittridge stops to have a few moments' gossip with Ben Halliday +and Tom Scranton before they go to their own resting-places. + +Meanwhile Moses loses not a moment in boasting of his heroic exploits to +Mara. + +"Oh, Mara! you've no idea what times we've had! I can fish equal to any +of 'em, and I can take in sail and tend the helm like anything, and I +know all the names of everything; and you ought to have seen us catch +fish! Why, they bit just as fast as we could throw; and it was just +throw and bite,--throw and bite,--throw and bite; and my hands got +blistered pulling in, but I didn't mind it,--I was determined no one +should beat me." + +"Oh! did you blister your hands?" said Mara, pitifully. + +"Oh, to be sure! Now, you girls think that's a dreadful thing, but we +men don't mind it. My hands are getting so hard, you've no idea. And, +Mara, we caught a great shark." + +"A shark!--oh, how dreadful! Isn't he dangerous?" + +"Dangerous! I guess not. We served him out, I tell you. He'll never eat +any more people, I tell you, the old wretch!" + +"But, poor shark, it isn't his fault that he eats people. He was made +so," said Mara, unconsciously touching a deep theological mystery. + +"Well, I don't know but he was," said Moses; "but sharks that we catch +never eat any more, I'll bet you." + +"Oh, Moses, did you see any icebergs?" + +"Icebergs! yes; we passed right by one,--a real grand one." + +"Were there any bears on it?" + +"Bears! No; we didn't see any." + +"Captain Kittridge says there are white bears live on 'em." + +"Oh, Captain Kittridge," said Moses, with a toss of superb contempt; "if +you're going to believe all _he_ says, you've got your hands full." + +"Why, Moses, you don't think he tells lies?" said Mara, the tears +actually starting in her eyes. "I think he is _real_ good, and tells +nothing but the truth." + +"Well, well, you are young yet," said Moses, turning away with an air of +easy grandeur, "and only a girl besides," he added. + +Mara was nettled at this speech. First, it pained her to have her +child's faith shaken in anything, and particularly in her good old +friend, the Captain; and next, she felt, with more force than ever she +did before, the continual disparaging tone in which Moses spoke of her +girlhood. + +"I'm sure," she said to herself, "he oughtn't to feel so about girls and +women. There was Deborah was a prophetess, and judged Israel; and there +was Egeria,--she taught Numa Pompilius all his wisdom." + +But it was not the little maiden's way to speak when anything thwarted +or hurt her, but rather to fold all her feelings and thoughts inward, as +some insects, with fine gauzy wings, draw them under a coat of horny +concealment. Somehow, there was a shivering sense of disappointment in +all this meeting with Moses. She had dwelt upon it, and fancied so much, +and had so many things to say to him; and he had come home so +self-absorbed and glorious, and seemed to have had so little need of or +thought for her, that she felt a cold, sad sinking at her heart; and +walking away very still and white, sat down demurely by her +grandfather's knee. + +"Well, so my little girl is glad grandfather's come," he said, lifting +her fondly in his arms, and putting her golden head under his coat, as +he had been wont to do from infancy; "grandpa thought a great deal about +his little Mara." + +The small heart swelled against his. Kind, faithful old grandpa! how +much more he thought about her than Moses; and yet she had thought so +much of Moses. And there he sat, this same ungrateful Moses, bright-eyed +and rosy-cheeked, full of talk and gayety, full of energy and vigor, as +ignorant as possible of the wound he had given to the little loving +heart that was silently brooding under her grandfather's +butternut-colored sea-coat. Not only was he ignorant, but he had not +even those conditions within himself which made knowledge possible. All +that there was developed of him, at present, was a fund of energy, +self-esteem, hope, courage, and daring, the love of action, life, and +adventure; his life was in the outward and present, not in the inward +and reflective; he was a true ten-year old boy, in its healthiest and +most animal perfection. What she was, the small pearl with the golden +hair, with her frail and high-strung organization, her sensitive nerves, +her half-spiritual fibres, her ponderings, and marvels, and dreams, her +power of love, and yearning for self-devotion, our readers may, perhaps, +have seen. But if ever two children, or two grown people, thus +organized, are thrown into intimate relations, it follows, from the very +laws of their being, that one must hurt the other, simply by being +itself; one must always hunger for what the other has not to give. + +It was a merry meal, however, when they all sat down to the tea-table +once more, and Mara by her grandfather's side, who often stopped what he +was saying to stroke her head fondly. Moses bore a more prominent part +in the conversation than he had been wont to do before this voyage, and +all seemed to listen to him with a kind of indulgence elders often +accord to a handsome, manly boy, in the first flush of some successful +enterprise. That ignorant confidence in one's self and one's future, +which comes in life's first dawn, has a sort of mournful charm in +experienced eyes, who know how much it all amounts to. + +Gradually, little Mara quieted herself with listening to and admiring +him. It is not comfortable to have any heart-quarrel with one's +cherished idol, and everything of the feminine nature, therefore, can +speedily find fifty good reasons for seeing one's self in the wrong and +one's graven image in the right; and little Mara soon had said to +herself, without words, that, of course, Moses couldn't be expected to +think as much of her as she of him. He was handsomer, cleverer, and had +a thousand other things to do and to think of--he was a boy, in short, +and going to be a glorious man and sail all over the world, while she +could only hem handkerchiefs and knit stockings, and sit at home and +wait for him to come back. This was about the _résumé_ of life as it +appeared to the little one, who went on from the moment worshiping her +image with more undivided idolatry than ever, hoping that by and by he +would think more of her. + +Mr. Sewell appeared to study Moses carefully and thoughtfully, and +encouraged the wild, gleeful frankness which he had brought home from +his first voyage, as a knowing jockey tries the paces of a high-mettled +colt. + +"Did you get any time to read?" he interposed once, when the boy stopped +in his account of their adventures. + +"No, sir," said Moses; "at least," he added, blushing very deeply, "I +didn't feel like reading. I had so much to do, and there was so much to +see." + +"It's all new to him now," said Captain Pennel; "but when he comes to +being, as I've been, day after day, with nothing but sea and sky, he'll +be glad of a book, just to break the sameness." + +"Laws, yes," said Captain Kittridge; "sailor's life ain't all +apple-pie, as it seems when a boy first goes on a summer trip with his +daddy--not by no manner o' means." + +"But," said Mara, blushing and looking very eagerly at Mr. Sewell, +"Moses has read a great deal. He read the Roman and the Grecian history +through before he went away, and knows all about them." + +"Indeed!" said Mr. Sewell, turning with an amused look towards the tiny +little champion; "do you read them, too, my little maid?" + +"Yes, indeed," said Mara, her eyes kindling; "I have read them a great +deal since Moses went away--them and the Bible." + +Mara did not dare to name her new-found treasure--there was something so +mysterious about that, that she could not venture to produce it, except +on the score of extreme intimacy. + +"Come, sit by me, little Mara," said the minister, putting out his hand; +"you and I must be friends, I see." + +Mr. Sewell had a certain something of mesmeric power in his eyes which +children seldom resisted; and with a shrinking movement, as if both +attracted and repelled, the little girl got upon his knee. + +"So you like the Bible and Roman history?" he said to her, making a +little aside for her, while a brisk conversation was going on between +Captain Kittridge and Captain Pennel on the fishing bounty for the year. + +"Yes, sir," said Mara, blushing in a very guilty way. + +"And which do you like the best?" + +"I don't know, sir; I sometimes think it is the one, and sometimes the +other." + +"Well, what pleases you in the Roman history?" + +"Oh, I like that about Quintus Curtius." + +"Quintus Curtius?" said Mr. Sewell, pretending not to remember. + +"Oh, don't you remember him? why, there was a great gulf opened in the +Forum, and the Augurs said that the country would not be saved unless +some one would offer himself up for it, and so he jumped right in, all +on horseback. I think that was grand. I should like to have done that," +said little Mara, her eyes blazing out with a kind of starry light which +they had when she was excited. + +"And how would you have liked it, if you had been a Roman girl, and +Moses were Quintus Curtius? would you like to have him give himself up +for the good of the country?" + +"Oh, no, no!" said Mara, instinctively shuddering. + +"Don't you think it would be very grand of him?" + +"Oh, yes, sir." + +"And shouldn't we wish our friends to do what is brave and grand?" + +"Yes, sir; but then," she added, "it would be so dreadful _never_ to see +him any more," and a large tear rolled from the great soft eyes and fell +on the minister's hand. + +"Come, come," thought Mr. Sewell, "this sort of experimenting is too +bad--too much nerve here, too much solitude, too much pine-whispering +and sea-dashing are going to the making up of this little piece of +workmanship." + +"Tell me," he said, motioning Moses to sit by him, "how _you_ like the +Roman history." + +"I like it first-rate," said Moses. "The Romans were such smashers, and +beat everybody; nobody could stand against them; and I like Alexander, +too--I think he was splendid." + +"True boy," said Mr. Sewell to himself, "unreflecting brother of the +wind and the sea, and all that is vigorous and active--no precocious +development of the moral here." + +"Now you have come," said Mr. Sewell, "I will lend you another book." + +"Thank you, sir; I love to read them when I'm at home--it's so still +here. I should be dull if I didn't." + +Mara's eyes looked eagerly attentive. Mr. Sewell noticed their hungry +look when a book was spoken of. + +"And you must read it, too, my little girl," he said. + +"Thank you, sir," said Mara; "I always want to read everything Moses +does." + +"What book is it?" said Moses. + +"It is called Plutarch's 'Lives,'" said the minister; "it has more +particular accounts of the men you read about in history." + +"Are there any lives of women?" said Mara. + +"No, my dear," said Mr. Sewell; "in the old times, women did not get +their lives written, though I don't doubt many of them were much better +worth writing than the men's." + +"I should like to be a great general," said Moses, with a toss of his +head. + +"The way to be great lies through books, now, and not through battles," +said the minister; "there is more done with pens than swords; so, if you +want to do anything, you must read and study." + +"Do you think of giving this boy a liberal education?" said Mr. Sewell +some time later in the evening, after Moses and Mara were gone to bed. + +"Depends on the boy," said Zephaniah. "I've been up to Brunswick, and +seen the fellows there in the college. With a good many of 'em, going to +college seems to be just nothing but a sort of ceremony; they go because +they're sent, and don't learn anything more'n they can help. That's what +I call waste of time and money." + +"But don't you think Moses shows some taste for reading and study?" + +"Pretty well, pretty well!" said Zephaniah; "jist keep him a little +hungry; not let him get all he wants, you see, and he'll bite the +sharper. If I want to catch cod, I don't begin with flingin' over a +barrel o' bait. So with the boys, jist bait 'em with a book here and a +book there, and kind o' let 'em feel their own way, and then, if nothin' +will do but a fellow must go to college, give in to him--that'd be _my_ +way." + +"And a very good one, too!" said Mr. Sewell. "I'll see if I can't bait +my hook, so as to make Moses take after Latin this winter. I shall have +plenty of time to teach him." + +"Now, there's Mara!" said the Captain, his face becoming phosphorescent +with a sort of mild radiance of pleasure as it usually was when he spoke +of her; "she's real sharp set after books; she's ready to fly out of her +little skin at the sight of one." + +"That child thinks too much, and feels too much, and knows too much for +her years!" said Mr. Sewell. "If she were a boy, and you would take her +away cod-fishing, as you have Moses, the sea-winds would blow away some +of the thinking, and her little body would grow stout, and her mind less +delicate and sensitive. But she's a woman," he said, with a sigh, "and +they are all alike. We can't do much for them, but let them come up as +they will and make the best of it." + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +THE NATURAL AND THE SPIRITUAL + + +"Emily," said Mr. Sewell, "did you ever take much notice of that little +Mara Lincoln?" + +"No, brother; why?" + +"Because I think her a very uncommon child." + +"She is a pretty little creature," said Miss Emily, "but that is all I +know; modest--blushing to her eyes when a stranger speaks to her." + +"She has wonderful eyes," said Mr. Sewell; "when she gets excited, they +grow so large and so bright, it seems almost unnatural." + +"Dear me! has she?" said Miss Emily, in a tone of one who had been +called upon to do something about it. "Well?" she added, inquiringly. + +"That little thing is only seven years old," said Mr. Sewell; "and she +is thinking and feeling herself all into mere spirit--brain and nerves +all active, and her little body so frail. She reads incessantly, and +thinks over and over what she reads." + +"Well?" said Miss Emily, winding very swiftly on a skein of black silk, +and giving a little twitch, every now and then, to a knot to make it +subservient. + +It was commonly the way when Mr. Sewell began to talk with Miss Emily, +that she constantly answered him with the manner of one who expects some +immediate, practical proposition to flow from every train of thought. +Now Mr. Sewell was one of the reflecting kind of men, whose thoughts +have a thousand meandering paths, that lead nowhere in particular. His +sister's brisk little "Well's?" and "Ah's!" and "Indeed's!" were +sometimes the least bit in the world annoying. + +"What is to be done?" said Miss Emily; "shall we speak to Mrs. Pennel?" + +"Mrs. Pennel would know nothing about her." + +"How strangely you talk!--who should, if she doesn't?" + +"I mean, she wouldn't understand the dangers of her case." + +"Dangers! Do you think she has any disease? She seems to be a healthy +child enough, I'm sure. She has a lovely color in her cheeks." + +Mr. Sewell seemed suddenly to become immersed in a book he was reading. + +"There now," said Miss Emily, with a little tone of pique, "that's the +way you always do. You begin to talk with me, and just as I get +interested in the conversation, you take up a book. It's too bad." + +"Emily," said Mr. Sewell, laying down his book, "I think I shall begin +to give Moses Pennel Latin lessons this winter." + +"Why, what do you undertake that for?" said Miss Emily. "You have enough +to do without that, I'm sure." + +"He is an uncommonly bright boy, and he interests me." + +"Now, brother, you needn't tell me; there is some mystery about the +interest you take in that child, _you know_ there is." + +"I am fond of children," said Mr. Sewell, dryly. + +"Well, but you don't take as much interest in other boys. I never heard +of your teaching any of them Latin before." + +"Well, Emily, he is an uncommonly interesting child, and the +providential circumstances under which he came into our neighborhood"-- + +"Providential fiddlesticks!" said Miss Emily, with heightened color, +"_I_ believe you knew that boy's mother." + +This sudden thrust brought a vivid color into Mr. Sewell's cheeks. To be +interrupted so unceremoniously, in the midst of so very proper and +ministerial a remark, was rather provoking, and he answered, with some +asperity,-- + +"And suppose I had, Emily, and supposing there were any painful subject +connected with this past event, you might have sufficient forbearance +not to try to make me speak on what I do not wish to talk of." + +Mr. Sewell was one of your gentle, dignified men, from whom Heaven +deliver an inquisitive female friend! If such people would only get +angry, and blow some unbecoming blast, one might make something of them; +but speaking, as they always do, from the serene heights of immaculate +propriety, one gets in the wrong before one knows it, and has nothing +for it but to beg pardon. Miss Emily had, however, a feminine resource: +she began to cry--wisely confining herself to the simple eloquence of +tears and sobs. Mr. Sewell sat as awkwardly as if he had trodden on a +kitten's toe, or brushed down a china cup, feeling as if he were a +great, horrid, clumsy boor, and his poor little sister a martyr. + +"Come, Emily," he said, in a softer tone, when the sobs subsided a +little. + +But Emily didn't "come," but went at it with a fresh burst. Mr. Sewell +had a vision like that which drowning men are said to have, in which all +Miss Emily's sisterly devotions, stocking-darnings, account-keepings, +nursings and tendings, and infinite self-sacrifices, rose up before him: +and there she was--crying! + +"I'm sorry I spoke harshly, Emily. Come, come; that's a good girl." + +"I'm a silly fool," said Miss Emily, lifting her head, and wiping the +tears from her merry little eyes, as she went on winding her silk. + +"Perhaps he will tell me now," she thought, as she wound. + +But he didn't. + +"What I was going to say, Emily," said her brother, "was, that I thought +it would be a good plan for little Mara to come sometimes with Moses; +and then, by observing her more particularly, you might be of use to +her; her little, active mind needs good practical guidance like yours." + +Mr. Sewell spoke in a gentle, flattering tone, and Miss Emily was +flattered; but she soon saw that she had gained nothing by the whole +breeze, except a little kind of dread, which made her inwardly resolve +never to touch the knocker of his fortress again. But she entered into +her brother's scheme with the facile alacrity with which she usually +seconded any schemes of his proposing. + +"I might teach her painting and embroidery," said Miss Emily, glancing, +with a satisfied air, at a framed piece of her own work which hung over +the mantelpiece, revealing the state of the fine arts in this country, +as exhibited in the performances of well-instructed young ladies of that +period. Miss Emily had performed it under the tuition of a celebrated +teacher of female accomplishments. It represented a white marble +obelisk, which an inscription, in legible India ink letters, stated to +be "Sacred to the memory of Theophilus Sewell," etc. This obelisk stood +in the midst of a ground made very green by an embroidery of different +shades of chenille and silk, and was overshadowed by an embroidered +weeping-willow. Leaning on it, with her face concealed in a plentiful +flow of white handkerchief, was a female figure in deep mourning, +designed to represent the desolate widow. A young girl, in a very black +dress, knelt in front of it, and a very lugubrious-looking young man, +standing bolt upright on the other side, seemed to hold in his hand one +end of a wreath of roses, which the girl was presenting, as an +appropriate decoration for the tomb. The girl and gentleman were, of +course, the young Theophilus and Miss Emily, and the appalling grief +conveyed by the expression of their faces was a triumph of the pictorial +art. + +Miss Emily had in her bedroom a similar funeral trophy, sacred to the +memory of her deceased mother,--besides which there were, framed and +glazed, in the little sitting-room, two embroidered shepherdesses +standing with rueful faces, in charge of certain animals of an uncertain +breed between sheep and pigs. The poor little soul had mentally resolved +to make Mara the heiress of all the skill and knowledge of the arts by +which she had been enabled to consummate these marvels. + +"She is naturally a lady-like little thing," she said to herself, "and +if I know anything of accomplishments, she shall have them." + +Just about the time that Miss Emily came to this resolution, had she +been clairvoyant, she might have seen Mara sitting very quietly, busy in +the solitude of her own room with a little sprig of partridge-berry +before her, whose round green leaves and brilliant scarlet berries she +had been for hours trying to imitate, as appeared from the scattered +sketches and fragments around her. In fact, before Zephaniah started on +his spring fishing, he had caught her one day very busy at work of the +same kind, with bits of charcoal, and some colors compounded out of wild +berries; and so out of his capacious pocket, after his return, he drew a +little box of water-colors and a lead-pencil and square of India-rubber, +which he had bought for her in Portland on his way home. + +Hour after hour the child works, so still, so fervent, so +earnest,--going over and over, time after time, her simple, ignorant +methods to make it "look like," and stopping, at times, to give the true +artist's sigh, as the little green and scarlet fragment lies there +hopelessly, unapproachably perfect. Ignorantly to herself, the hands of +the little pilgrim are knocking at the very door where Giotto and +Cimabue knocked in the innocent child-life of Italian art. + +"Why won't it look round?" she said to Moses, who had come in behind +her. + +"Why, Mara, did you do these?" said Moses, astonished; "why, how well +they are done! I should know in a minute what they were meant for." + +Mara flushed up at being praised by Moses, but heaved a deep sigh as she +looked back. + +"It's so pretty, that sprig," she said; "if I only could make it just +like"-- + +"Why, nobody expects _that_," said Moses, "it's like enough, if people +only know what you mean it for. But come, now, get your bonnet, and come +with me in the boat. Captain Kittridge has just brought down our new +one, and I'm going to take you over to Eagle Island, and we'll take our +dinner and stay all day; mother says so." + +"Oh, how nice!" said the little girl, running cheerfully for her +sun-bonnet. + +At the house-door they met Mrs. Pennel, with a little closely covered +tin pail. + +"Here's your dinner, children; and, Moses, mind and take good care of +her." + +"Never fear _me_ mother, I've been to the Banks; there wasn't a man +there could manage a boat better than I could." + +"Yes, grandmother," said Mara, "you ought to see how strong his arms +are; I believe he will be like Samson one of these days if he keeps +on." + +So away they went. It was a glorious August forenoon, and the sombre +spruces and shaggy hemlocks that dipped and rippled in the waters were +penetrated to their deepest recesses with the clear brilliancy of the +sky,--a true northern sky, without a cloud, without even a softening +haze, defining every outline, revealing every minute point, cutting with +sharp decision the form of every promontory and rock, and distant +island. + +The blue of the sea and the blue of the sky were so much the same, that +when the children had rowed far out, the little boat seemed to float +midway, poised in the centre of an azure sphere, with a firmament above +and a firmament below. Mara leaned dreamily over the side of the boat, +and drew her little hands through the waters as they rippled along to +the swift oars' strokes, and she saw as the waves broke, and divided and +shivered around the boat, a hundred little faces, with brown eyes and +golden hair, gleaming up through the water, and dancing away over +rippling waves, and thought that so the sea-nymphs might look who came +up from the coral caves when they ring the knell of drowned people. +Moses sat opposite to her, with his coat off, and his heavy black curls +more wavy and glossy than ever, as the exercise made them damp with +perspiration. + +Eagle Island lay on the blue sea, a tangled thicket of +evergreens,--white pine, spruce, arbor vitæ, and fragrant silver firs. A +little strip of white beach bound it, like a silver setting to a gem. +And there Moses at length moored his boat, and the children landed. The +island was wholly solitary, and there is something to children quite +delightful in feeling that they have a little lonely world all to +themselves. Childhood is itself such an enchanted island, separated by +mysterious depths from the mainland of nature, life, and reality. + +Moses had subsided a little from the glorious heights on which he +seemed to be in the first flush of his return, and he and Mara, in +consequence, were the friends of old time. It is true he thought himself +quite a man, but the manhood of a boy is only a tiny masquerade,--a +fantastic, dreamy prevision of real manhood. It was curious that Mara, +who was by all odds the most precociously developed of the two, never +thought of asserting herself a woman; in fact, she seldom thought of +herself at all, but dreamed and pondered of almost everything else. + +"I declare," said Moses, looking up into a thick-branched, rugged old +hemlock, which stood all shaggy, with heavy beards of gray moss drooping +from its branches, "there's an eagle's nest up there; I mean to go and +see." And up he went into the gloomy embrace of the old tree, crackling +the dead branches, wrenching off handfuls of gray moss, rising higher +and higher, every once in a while turning and showing to Mara his +glowing face and curly hair through a dusky green frame of boughs, and +then mounting again. "I'm coming to it," he kept exclaiming. + +Meanwhile his proceedings seemed to create a sensation among the +feathered house-keepers, one of whom rose and sailed screaming away into +the air. In a moment after there was a swoop of wings, and two eagles +returned and began flapping and screaming about the head of the boy. + +Mara, who stood at the foot of the tree, could not see clearly what was +going on, for the thickness of the boughs; she only heard a great +commotion and rattling of the branches, the scream of the birds, and the +swooping of their wings, and Moses's valorous exclamations, as he seemed +to be laying about him with a branch which he had broken off. + +At last he descended victorious, with the eggs in his pocket. Mara stood +at the foot of the tree, with her sun-bonnet blown back, her hair +streaming, and her little arms upstretched, as if to catch him if he +fell. + +"Oh, I was so afraid!" she said, as he set foot on the ground. + +"Afraid? Pooh! Who's afraid? Why, you might know the old eagles couldn't +beat me." + +"Ah, well, I know how strong you are; but, you know, I couldn't help it. +But the poor birds,--do hear 'em scream. Moses, don't you suppose they +feel bad?" + +"No, they're only mad, to think they couldn't beat me. I beat them just +as the Romans used to beat folks,--I played their nest was a city, and I +spoiled it." + +"I shouldn't want to spoil cities!" said Mara. + +"That's 'cause you are a girl,--I'm a man, and men always like war; I've +taken one city this afternoon, and mean to take a great many more." + +"But, Moses, do you think war is right?" + +"Right? why, yes, to be sure; if it ain't, it's a pity; for it's all +that has ever been done in this world. In the Bible, or out, certainly +it's right. I wish I had a gun now, I'd stop those old eagles' +screeching." + +"But, Moses, we shouldn't want any one to come and steal all our things, +and then shoot us." + +"How long you do think about things!" said Moses, impatient at her +pertinacity. "I am older than you, and when I tell you a thing's right, +you ought to believe it. Besides, don't you take hens' eggs every day, +in the barn? How do you suppose the hens like that?" + +This was a home-thrust, and for the moment threw the little casuist off +the track. She carefully folded up the idea, and laid it away on the +inner shelves of her mind till she could think more about it. Pliable as +she was to all outward appearances, the child had her own still, +interior world, where all her little notions and opinions stood up crisp +and fresh, like flowers that grow in cool, shady places. If anybody too +rudely assailed a thought or suggestion she put forth, she drew it back +again into this quiet inner chamber, and went on. Reader, there are +some women of this habit; and there is no independence and pertinacity +of opinion like that of these seemingly soft, quiet creatures, whom it +is so easy to silence, and so difficult to convince. Mara, little and +unformed as she yet was, belonged to the race of those spirits to whom +is deputed the office of the angel in the Apocalypse, to whom was given +the golden rod which measured the New Jerusalem. Infant though she was, +she had ever in her hands that invisible measuring-rod, which she was +laying to the foundations of all actions and thoughts. There may, +perhaps, come a time when the saucy boy, who now steps so superbly, and +predominates so proudly in virtue of his physical strength and daring, +will learn to tremble at the golden measuring-rod, held in the hand of a +woman. + +"Howbeit, that is not first which is spiritual, but that which is +natural." Moses is the type of the first unreflecting stage of +development, in which are only the out-reachings of active faculties, +the aspirations that tend toward manly accomplishments. Seldom do we +meet sensitiveness of conscience or discriminating reflection as the +indigenous growth of a very vigorous physical development. Your true +healthy boy has the breezy, hearty virtues of a Newfoundland dog, the +wild fullness of life of the young race-colt. Sentiment, sensibility, +delicate perceptions, spiritual aspirations, are plants of later growth. + +But there are, both of men and women, beings born into this world in +whom from childhood the spiritual and the reflective predominate over +the physical. In relation to other human beings, they seem to be +organized much as birds are in relation to other animals. They are the +artists, the poets, the unconscious seers, to whom the purer truths of +spiritual instruction are open. Surveying man merely as an animal, these +sensitively organized beings, with their feebler physical powers, are +imperfect specimens of life. Looking from the spiritual side, they seem +to have a noble strength, a divine force. The types of this latter class +are more commonly among women than among men. Multitudes of them pass +away in earlier years, and leave behind in many hearts the anxious +wonder, why they came so fair only to mock the love they kindled. They +who live to maturity are the priests and priestesses of the spiritual +life, ordained of God to keep the balance between the rude but absolute +necessities of physical life and the higher sphere to which that must at +length give place. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +LESSONS + + +Moses felt elevated some inches in the world by the gift of a new Latin +grammar, which had been bought for him in Brunswick. It was a step +upward in life; no graduate from a college ever felt more ennobled. + +"Wal', now, I tell ye, Moses Pennel," said Miss Roxy, who, with her +press-board and big flat-iron, was making her autumn sojourn in the +brown house, "I tell ye Latin ain't just what you think 'tis, steppin' +round so crank; you must remember what the king of Israel said to +Benhadad, king of Syria." + +"I don't remember; what did he say?" + +"I remember," said the soft voice of Mara; "he said, 'Let not him that +putteth on the harness boast as him that putteth it off.'" + +"Good for you, Mara," said Miss Roxy; "if some other folks read their +Bibles as much as you do, they'd know more." + +Between Moses and Miss Roxy there had always been a state of sub-acute +warfare since the days of his first arrival, she regarding him as an +unhopeful interloper, and he regarding her as a grim-visaged, +interfering gnome, whom he disliked with all the intense, unreasoning +antipathy of childhood. + +"I hate that old woman," he said to Mara, as he flung out of the door. + +"Why, Moses, what for?" said Mara, who never could comprehend hating +anybody. + +"I do hate her, and Aunt Ruey, too. They are two old scratching cats; +they hate me, and I hate them; they're always trying to bring me down, +and I won't be brought down." + +Mara had sufficient instinctive insight into the feminine rôle in the +domestic concert not to adventure a direct argument just now in favor of +her friends, and therefore she proposed that they should sit down +together under a cedar hard by, and look over the first lesson. + +"Miss Emily invited me to go over with you," she said, "and I should +like so much to hear you recite." + +Moses thought this very proper, as would any other male person, young or +old, who has been habitually admired by any other female one. He did not +doubt that, as in fishing and rowing, and all other things he had +undertaken as yet, he should win himself distinguished honors. + +"See here," he said; "Mr. Sewell told me I might go as far as I liked, +and I mean to take all the declensions to begin with; there's five of +'em, and I shall learn them for the first lesson; then I shall take the +adjectives next, and next the verbs, and so in a fortnight get into +reading." + +Mara heaved a sort of sigh. She wished she had been invited to share +this glorious race; but she looked on admiring when Moses read, in a +loud voice, "Penna, pennæ, pennæ, pennam," etc. + +"There now, I believe I've got it," he said, handing Mara the book; and +he was perfectly astonished to find that, with the book withdrawn, he +boggled, and blundered, and stumbled ingloriously. In vain Mara softly +prompted, and looked at him with pitiful eyes as he grew red in the face +with his efforts to remember. + +"Confound it all!" he said, with an angry flush, snatching back the +book; "it's more trouble than it's worth." + +Again he began the repetition, saying it very loud and plain; he said it +over and over till his mind wandered far out to sea, and while his +tongue repeated "penna, pennæ," he was counting the white sails of the +fishing-smacks, and thinking of pulling up codfish at the Banks. + +"There now, Mara, try me," he said, and handed her the book again; "I'm +sure I _must_ know it now." + +But, alas! with the book the sounds glided away; and "penna" and +"pennam" and "pennis" and "pennæ" were confusedly and indiscriminately +mingled. He thought it must be Mara's fault; she didn't read right, or +she told him just as he was going to say it, or she didn't tell him +right; or was he a fool? or had he lost his senses? + +That first declension has been a valley of humiliation to many a sturdy +boy--to many a bright one, too; and often it is, that the more full of +thought and vigor the mind is, the more difficult it is to narrow it +down to the single dry issue of learning those sounds. Heinrich Heine +said the Romans would never have found time to conquer the world, if +they had had to learn their own language; but that, luckily for them, +they were born into the knowledge of what nouns form their accusatives +in "um." + +Long before Moses had learned the first declension, Mara knew it by +heart; for her intense anxiety for him, and the eagerness and zeal with +which she listened for each termination, fixed them in her mind. +Besides, she was naturally of a more quiet and scholar-like turn than +he,--more intellectually developed. Moses began to think, before that +memorable day was through, that there was some sense in Aunt Roxy's +quotation of the saying of the King of Israel, and materially to +retrench his expectations as to the time it might take to master the +grammar; but still, his pride and will were both committed, and he +worked away in this new sort of labor with energy. + +It was a fine, frosty November morning, when he rowed Mara across the +bay in a little boat to recite his first lesson to Mr. Sewell. + +Miss Emily had provided a plate of seed-cake, otherwise called cookies, +for the children, as was a kindly custom of old times, when the little +people were expected. Miss Emily had a dim idea that she was to do +something for Mara in her own department, while Moses was reciting his +lesson; and therefore producing a large sampler, displaying every form +and variety of marking-stitch, she began questioning the little girl, in +a low tone, as to her proficiency in that useful accomplishment. + +Presently, however, she discovered that the child was restless and +uneasy, and that she answered without knowing what she was saying. The +fact was that she was listening, with her whole soul in her eyes, and +feeling through all her nerves, every word Moses was saying. She knew +all the critical places, where he was likely to go wrong; and when at +last, in one place, he gave the wrong termination, she involuntarily +called out the right one, starting up and turning towards them. In a +moment she blushed deeply, seeing Mr. Sewell and Miss Emily both looking +at her with surprise. + +"Come here, pussy," said Mr. Sewell, stretching out his hand to her. +"Can you say this?" + +"I believe I could, sir." + +"Well, try it." + +She went through without missing a word. Mr. Sewell then, for curiosity, +heard her repeat all the other forms of the lesson. She had them +perfectly. + +"Very well, my little girl," he said, "have you been studying, too?" + +"I heard Moses say them so often," said Mara, in an apologetic manner, +"I couldn't help learning them." + +"Would you like to recite with Moses every day?" + +"Oh, yes, sir, so much." + +"Well, you shall. It is better for him to have company." + +Mara's face brightened, and Miss Emily looked with a puzzled air at her +brother. + +"So," she said, when the children had gone home, "I thought you wanted +me to take Mara under my care. I was going to begin and teach her some +marking stitches, and you put her up to studying Latin. I don't +understand you." + +"Well, Emily, the fact is, the child has a natural turn for study, that +no child of her age ought to have; and I have done just as people always +will with such children; there's no sense in it, but I wanted to do it. +You can teach her marking and embroidery all the same; it would break +her little heart, now, if I were to turn her back." + +"I do not see of what use Latin can be to a woman." + +"Of what use is embroidery?" + +"Why, that is an accomplishment." + +"Ah, indeed!" said Mr. Sewell, contemplating the weeping willow and +tombstone trophy with a singular expression, which it was lucky for Miss +Emily's peace she did not understand. The fact was, that Mr. Sewell had, +at one period of his life, had an opportunity of studying and observing +minutely some really fine works of art, and the remembrance of them +sometimes rose up to his mind, in the presence of the _chefs-d'oeuvre_ +on which his sister rested with so much complacency. It was a part of +his quiet interior store of amusement to look at these bits of Byzantine +embroidery round the room, which affected him always with a subtle sense +of drollery. + +"You see, brother," said Miss Emily, "it is far better for women to be +accomplished than learned." + +"You are quite right in the main," said Mr. Sewell, "only you must let +me have my own way just for once. One can't be consistent always." + +So another Latin grammar was bought, and Moses began to feel a secret +respect for his little companion, that he had never done before, when +he saw how easily she walked through the labyrinths which at first so +confused him. Before this, the comparison had been wholly in points +where superiority arose from physical daring and vigor; now he became +aware of the existence of another kind of strength with which he had not +measured himself. Mara's opinion in their mutual studies began to assume +a value in his eyes that her opinions on other subjects had never done, +and she saw and felt, with a secret gratification, that she was becoming +more to him through their mutual pursuit. To say the truth, it required +this fellowship to inspire Moses with the patience and perseverance +necessary for this species of acquisition. His active, daring +temperament little inclined him to patient, quiet study. For anything +that could be done by two hands, he was always ready; but to hold hands +still and work silently in the inner forces was to him a species of +undertaking that seemed against his very nature; but then he would do +it--he would not disgrace himself before Mr. Sewell, and let a girl +younger than himself outdo him. + +But the thing, after all, that absorbed more of Moses's thoughts than +all his lessons was the building and rigging of a small schooner, at +which he worked assiduously in all his leisure moments. He had dozens of +blocks of wood, into which he had cut anchor moulds; and the melting of +lead, the running and shaping of anchors, the whittling of masts and +spars took up many an hour. Mara entered into all those things readily, +and was too happy to make herself useful in hemming the sails. + +When the schooner was finished, they built some ways down by the sea, +and invited Sally Kittridge over to see it launched. + +"There!" he said, when the little thing skimmed down prosperously into +the sea and floated gayly on the waters, "when I'm a man, I'll have a +big ship; I'll build her, and launch her, and command her, all myself; +and I'll give you and Sally both a passage in it, and we'll go off to +the East Indies--we'll sail round the world!" + +None of the three doubted the feasibility of this scheme; the little +vessel they had just launched seemed the visible prophecy of such a +future; and how pleasant it would be to sail off, with the world all +before them, and winds ready to blow them to any port they might wish! + +The three children arranged some bread and cheese and doughnuts on a +rock on the shore, to represent the collation that was usually spread in +those parts at a ship launch, and felt quite like grown people--acting +life beforehand in that sort of shadowy pantomime which so delights +little people. Happy, happy days--when ships can be made with a +jack-knife and anchors run in pine blocks, and three children together +can launch a schooner, and the voyage of the world can all be made in +one sunny Saturday afternoon! + +"Mother says you are going to college," said Sally to Moses. + +"Not I, indeed," said Moses; "as soon as I get old enough, I'm going up +to Umbagog among the lumberers, and I'm going to cut real, splendid +timber for my ship, and I'm going to get it on the stocks, and have it +built to suit myself." + +"What will you call her?" said Sally. + +"I haven't thought of that," said Moses. + +"Call her the Ariel," said Mara. + +"What! after the spirit you were telling us about?" said Sally. + +"Ariel is a pretty name," said Moses. "But what is that about a spirit?" + +"Why," said Sally, "Mara read us a story about a ship that was wrecked, +and a spirit called Ariel, that sang a song about the drowned +mariners." + +Mara gave a shy, apprehensive glance at Moses, to see if this allusion +called up any painful recollections. + +No; instead of this, he was following the motions of his little schooner +on the waters with the briskest and most unconcerned air in the world. + +"Why didn't you ever show me that story, Mara?" said Moses. + +Mara colored and hesitated; the real reason she dared not say. + +"Why, she read it to father and me down by the cove," said Sally, "the +afternoon that you came home from the Banks; I remember how we saw you +coming in; don't you, Mara?" + +"What have you done with it?" said Moses. + +"I've got it at home," said Mara, in a faint voice; "I'll show it to +you, if you want to see it; there are such beautiful things in it." + +That evening, as Moses sat busy, making some alterations in his darling +schooner, Mara produced her treasure, and read and explained to him the +story. He listened with interest, though without any of the extreme +feeling which Mara had thought possible, and even interrupted her once +in the middle of the celebrated-- + + "Full fathom five thy father lies," + +by asking her to hold up the mast a minute, while he drove in a peg to +make it rake a little more. He was, evidently, thinking of no drowned +father, and dreaming of no possible sea-caves, but acutely busy in +fashioning a present reality; and yet he liked to hear Mara read, and, +when she had done, told her that he thought it was a pretty--quite a +pretty story, with such a total absence of recognition that the story +had any affinities with his own history, that Mara was quite astonished. + +She lay and thought about him hours, that night, after she had gone to +bed; and he lay and thought about a new way of disposing a pulley for +raising a sail, which he determined to try the effect of early in the +morning. + +What was the absolute truth in regard to the boy? Had he forgotten the +scenes of his early life, the strange catastrophe that cast him into his +present circumstances? To this we answer that all the efforts of Nature, +during the early years of a healthy childhood, are bent on effacing and +obliterating painful impressions, wiping out from each day the sorrows +of the last, as the daily tide effaces the furrows on the seashore. The +child that broods, day after day, over some fixed idea, is so far forth +not a healthy one. It is Nature's way to make first a healthy animal, +and then develop in it gradually higher faculties. We have seen our two +children unequally matched hitherto, because unequally developed. There +will come a time, by and by in the history of the boy, when the haze of +dreamy curiosity will steam up likewise from his mind, and vague +yearnings, and questionings, and longings possess and trouble him, but +it must be some years hence. + + * * * * * + +Here for a season we leave both our child friends, and when ten years +have passed over their heads,--when Moses shall be twenty, and Mara +seventeen,--we will return again to tell their story, for then there +will be one to tell. Let us suppose in the interval, how Moses and Mara +read Virgil with the minister, and how Mara works a shepherdess with +Miss Emily, which astonishes the neighborhood,--but how by herself she +learns, after divers trials, to paint partridge, and checkerberry, and +trailing arbutus,--how Moses makes better and better ships, and Sally +grows up a handsome girl, and goes up to Brunswick to the high +school,--how Captain Kittridge tells stories, and Miss Roxy and Miss +Ruey nurse and cut and make and mend for the still rising +generation,--how there are quiltings and tea-drinkings and prayer +meetings and Sunday sermons,--how Zephaniah and Mary Pennel grow old +gradually and graciously, as the sun rises and sets, and the eternal +silver tide rises and falls around our little gem, Orr's Island. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +SALLY + + +"Now, where's Sally Kittridge! There's the clock striking five, and +nobody to set the table. Sally, I say! Sally!" + +"Why, Mis' Kittridge," said the Captain, "Sally's gone out more'n an +hour ago, and I expect she's gone down to Pennel's to see Mara; 'cause, +you know, she come home from Portland to-day." + +"Well, if she's come home, I s'pose I may as well give up havin' any +good of Sally, for that girl fairly bows down to Mara Lincoln and +worships her." + +"Well, good reason," said the Captain. "There ain't a puttier creature +breathin'. I'm a'most a mind to worship her myself." + +"Captain Kittridge, you ought to be ashamed of yourself, at your age, +talking as you do." + +"Why, laws, mother, I don't feel my age," said the frisky Captain, +giving a sort of skip. "It don't seem more'n yesterday since you and I +was a-courtin', Polly. What a life you did lead me in them days! I think +you kep' me on the anxious seat a pretty middlin' spell." + +"I do wish you wouldn't talk so. You ought to be ashamed to be triflin' +round as you do. Come, now, can't you jest tramp over to Pennel's and +tell Sally I want her?" + +"Not I, mother. There ain't but two gals in two miles square here, and I +ain't a-goin' to be the feller to shoo 'em apart. What's the use of +bein' gals, and young, and putty, if they can't get together and talk +about their new gownds and the fellers? That ar's what gals is for." + +"I do wish you wouldn't talk in that way before Sally, father, for her +head is full of all sorts of vanity now; and as to Mara, I never did see +a more slack-twisted, flimsy thing than she's grown up to be. Now +Sally's learnt to do something, thanks to me. She can brew, and she can +make bread and cake and pickles, and spin, and cut, and make. But as to +Mara, what does she do? Why, she paints pictur's. Mis' Pennel was +a-showin' on me a blue-jay she painted, and I was a-thinkin' whether she +could brile a bird fit to be eat if she tried; and she don't know the +price of nothin'," continued Mrs. Kittridge, with wasteful profusion of +negatives. + +"Well," said the Captain, "the Lord makes some things jist to be looked +at. Their work is to be putty, and that ar's Mara's sphere. It never +seemed to me she was cut out for hard work; but she's got sweet ways and +kind words for everybody, and it's as good as a psalm to look at her." + +"And what sort of a wife'll she make, Captain Kittridge?" + +"A real sweet, putty one," said the Captain, persistently. + +"Well, as to beauty, I'd rather have our Sally any day," said Mrs. +Kittridge; "and she looks strong and hearty, and seems to be good for +use." + +"So she is, so she is," said the Captain, with fatherly pride. "Sally's +the very image of her ma at her age--black eyes, black hair, tall and +trim as a spruce-tree, and steps off as if she had springs in her heels. +I tell you, the feller'll have to be spry that catches her. There's two +or three of 'em at it, I see; but Sally won't have nothin' to say to +'em. I hope she won't, yet awhile." + +"Sally is a girl that has as good an eddication as money can give," +said Mrs. Kittridge. "If I'd a-had her advantages at her age, I should +a-been a great deal more'n I am. But we ha'n't spared nothin' for Sally; +and when nothin' would do but Mara must be sent to Miss Plucher's school +over in Portland, why, I sent Sally too--for all she's our seventh +child, and Pennel hasn't but the one." + +"You forget Moses," said the Captain. + +"Well, he's settin' up on his own account, I guess. They did talk o' +giving him college eddication; but he was so unstiddy, there weren't no +use in trying. A real wild ass's colt he was." + +"Wal', wal', Moses was in the right on't. He took the cross-lot track +into life," said the Captain. "Colleges is well enough for your smooth, +straight-grained lumber, for gen'ral buildin'; but come to fellers +that's got knots, and streaks, and cross-grains, like Moses Pennel, and +the best way is to let 'em eddicate 'emselves, as he's a-doin'. He's cut +out for the sea, plain enough, and he'd better be up to Umbagog, cuttin' +timber for his ship, than havin' rows with tutors, and blowin' the roof +off the colleges, as one o' them 'ere kind o' fellers is apt to when he +don't have work to use up his steam. Why, mother, there's more gas got +up in them Brunswick buildin's, from young men that are spilin' for hard +work, than you could shake a stick at! But Mis' Pennel told me yesterday +she was 'spectin' Moses home to-day." + +"Oho! that's at the bottom of Sally's bein' up there," said Mrs. +Kittridge. + +"Mis' Kittridge," said the Captain, "I take it you ain't the woman as +would expect a daughter of your bringin' up to be a-runnin' after any +young chap, be he who he may," said the Captain. + +Mrs. Kittridge for once was fairly silenced by this home-thrust; +nevertheless, she did not the less think it quite possible, from all +that she knew of Sally; for although that young lady professed great +hardness of heart and contempt for all the young male generation of her +acquaintance, yet she had evidently a turn for observing their +ways--probably purely in the way of philosophical inquiry. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +EIGHTEEN + + +In fact, at this very moment our scene-shifter changes the picture. Away +rolls the image of Mrs. Kittridge's kitchen, with its sanded floor, its +scoured rows of bright pewter platters, its great, deep fireplace, with +wide stone hearth, its little looking-glass with a bit of asparagus +bush, like a green mist, over it. _Exeunt_ the image of Mrs. Kittridge, +with her hands floury from the bread she has been moulding, and the dry, +ropy, lean Captain, who has been sitting tilting back in a +splint-bottomed chair,--and the next scene comes rolling in. It is a +chamber in the house of Zephaniah Pennel, whose windows present a blue +panorama of sea and sky. Through two windows you look forth into the +blue belt of Harpswell Bay, bordered on the farther edge by Harpswell +Neck, dotted here and there with houses, among which rises the little +white meeting-house, like a mother-bird among a flock of chickens. The +third window, on the other side of the room, looks far out to sea, where +only a group of low, rocky islands interrupts the clear sweep of the +horizon line, with its blue infinitude of distance. + +The furniture of this room, though of the barest and most frigid +simplicity, is yet relieved by many of those touches of taste and fancy +which the indwelling of a person of sensibility and imagination will +shed off upon the physical surroundings. The bed was draped with a white +spread, embroidered with a kind of knotted tracery, the working of which +was considered among the female accomplishments of those days, and over +the head of it was a painting of a bunch of crimson and white trillium, +executed with a fidelity to Nature that showed the most delicate gifts +of observation. Over the mantelpiece hung a painting of the Bay of +Genoa, which had accidentally found a voyage home in Zephaniah Pennel's +sea-chest, and which skillful fingers had surrounded with a frame +curiously wrought of moss and sea-shells. Two vases of India china stood +on the mantel, filled with spring flowers, crowfoot, anemones, and +liverwort, with drooping bells of the twin-flower. The looking-glass +that hung over the table in one corner of the room was fancifully webbed +with long, drooping festoons of that gray moss which hangs in such +graceful wreaths from the boughs of the pines in the deep forest shadows +of Orr's Island. On the table below was a collection of books: a whole +set of Shakespeare which Zephaniah Pennel had bought of a Portland +bookseller; a selection, in prose and verse, from the best classic +writers, presented to Mara Lincoln, the fly-leaf said, by her sincere +friend, Theophilus Sewell; a Virgil, much thumbed, with an old, worn +cover, which, however, some adroit fingers had concealed under a coating +of delicately marbled paper;--there was a Latin dictionary, a set of +Plutarch's Lives, the Mysteries of Udolpho, and Sir Charles Grandison, +together with Edwards on the Affections, and Boston's Fourfold +State;--there was an inkstand, curiously contrived from a sea-shell, +with pens and paper in that phase of arrangement which betokened +frequency of use; and, lastly, a little work-basket, containing a long +strip of curious and delicate embroidery, in which the needle yet +hanging showed that the work was in progress. + +By a table at the sea-looking window sits our little Mara, now grown to +the maturity of eighteen summers, but retaining still unmistakable signs +of identity with the little golden-haired, dreamy, excitable, fanciful +"Pearl" of Orr's _Island_. + +She is not quite of a middle height, with something beautiful and +child-like about the moulding of her delicate form. We still see those +sad, wistful, hazel eyes, over which the lids droop with a dreamy +languor, and whose dark lustre contrasts singularly with the golden hue +of the abundant hair which waves in a thousand rippling undulations +around her face. The impression she produces is not that of paleness, +though there is no color in her cheek; but her complexion has everywhere +that delicate pink tinting which one sees in healthy infants, and with +the least emotion brightens into a fluttering bloom. Such a bloom is on +her cheek at this moment, as she is working away, copying a bunch of +scarlet rock-columbine which is in a wine-glass of water before her; +every few moments stopping and holding her work at a distance, to +contemplate its effect. At this moment there steps behind her chair a +tall, lithe figure, a face with a rich Spanish complexion, large black +eyes, glowing cheeks, marked eyebrows, and lustrous black hair arranged +in shining braids around her head. It is our old friend, Sally +Kittridge, whom common fame calls the handsomest girl of all the region +round Harpswell, Maquoit, and Orr's Island. In truth, a wholesome, +ruddy, blooming creature she was, the sight of whom cheered and warmed +one like a good fire in December; and she seemed to have enough and to +spare of the warmest gifts of vitality and joyous animal life. She had a +well-formed mouth, but rather large, and a frank laugh which showed all +her teeth sound--and a fortunate sight it was, considering that they +were white and even as pearls; and the hand that she laid upon Mara's at +this moment, though twice as large as that of the little artist, was yet +in harmony with her vigorous, finely developed figure. + +"Mara Lincoln," she said, "you are a witch, a perfect little witch, at +painting. How you can make things look so like, I don't see. Now, I +could paint the things we painted at Miss Plucher's; but then, dear me! +they didn't look at all like flowers. One needed to write under them +what they were made for." + +"Does this look like to you, Sally?" said Mara. "I wish it would to me. +Just see what a beautiful clear color that flower is. All I can do, I +can't make one like it. My scarlet and yellows sink dead into the +paper." + +"Why, I think your flowers are wonderful! You are a real genius, that's +what you are! I am only a common girl; I can't do things as you can." + +"You can do things a thousand times more useful, Sally. I don't pretend +to compare with you in the useful arts, and I am only a bungler in +ornamental ones. Sally, I feel like a useless little creature. If I +could go round as you can, and do business, and make bargains, and push +ahead in the world, I should feel that I was good for something; but +somehow I can't." + +"To be sure you can't," said Sally, laughing. "I should like to see you +try it." + +"Now," pursued Mara, in a tone of lamentation, "I could no more get into +a carriage and drive to Brunswick as you can, than I could fly. I can't +drive, Sally--something is the matter with me; and the horses always +know it the minute I take the reins; they always twitch their ears and +stare round into the chaise at me, as much as to say, 'What! you there?' +and I feel sure they never will mind me. And then how you can make those +wonderful bargains you do, I can't see!--you talk up to the clerks and +the men, and somehow you talk everybody round; but as for me, if I only +open my mouth in the humblest way to dispute the price, everybody puts +me down. I always tremble when I go into a store, and people talk to me +just as if I was a little girl, and once or twice they have made me buy +things that I knew I didn't want, just because they will talk me down." + +"Oh, Mara, Mara," said Sally, laughing till the tears rolled down her +cheeks, "what do _you_ ever go a-shopping for?--of course you ought +always to send me. Why, look at this dress--real India chintz; do you +know I made old Pennywhistle's clerk up in Brunswick give it to me just +for the price of common cotton? You see there was a yard of it had got +faded by lying in the shop-window, and there were one or two holes and +imperfections in it, and you ought to have heard the talk I made! I +abused it to right and left, and actually at last I brought the poor +wretch to believe that he ought to be grateful to me for taking it off +his hands. Well, you see the dress I've made of it. The imperfections +didn't hurt it the least in the world as I managed it,--and the faded +breadth makes a good apron, so you see. And just so I got that red +spotted flannel dress I wore last winter. It was moth-eaten in one or +two places, and I made them let me have it at half-price;--made exactly +as good a dress. But after all, Mara, I can't trim a bonnet as you can, +and I can't come up to your embroidery, nor your lace-work, nor I can't +draw and paint as you can, and I can't sing like you; and then as to all +those things you talk with Mr. Sewell about, why they're beyond my +depth,--that's all I've got to say. Now, you are made to have poetry +written to you, and all that kind of thing one reads of in novels. +Nobody would ever think of writing poetry to me, now, or sending me +flowers and rings, and such things. If a fellow likes me, he gives me a +quince, or a big apple; but, then, Mara, there ain't any fellows round +here that are fit to speak to." + +"I'm sure, Sally, there always is a train following you everywhere, at +singing-school and Thursday lecture." + +"Yes--but what do I care for 'em?" said Sally, with a toss of her head. +"Why they follow me, I don't see. I don't do anything to make 'em, and I +tell 'em all that they tire me to death; and still they will hang +round. What is the reason, do you suppose?" + +"What can it be?" said Mara, with a quiet kind of arch drollery which +suffused her face, as she bent over her painting. + +"Well, you know I can't bear fellows--I think they are hateful." + +"What! even Tom Hiers?" said Mara, continuing her painting. + +"Tom Hiers! Do you suppose I care for him? He would insist on waiting on +me round all last winter, taking me over in his boat to Portland, and up +in his sleigh to Brunswick; but I didn't care for him." + +"Well, there's Jimmy Wilson, up at Brunswick." + +"What! that little snip of a clerk! You don't suppose I care for him, do +you?--only he almost runs his head off following me round when I go up +there shopping; he's nothing but a little dressed-up yard-stick! I never +saw a fellow yet that I'd cross the street to have another look at. By +the by, Mara, Miss Roxy told me Sunday that Moses was coming down from +Umbagog this week." + +"Yes, he is," said Mara; "we are looking for him every day." + +"You must want to see him. How long is it since you saw him?" + +"It is three years," said Mara. "I scarcely know what he is like now. I +was visiting in Boston when he came home from his three-years' voyage, +and he was gone into the lumbering country when I came back. He seems +almost a stranger to me." + +"He's pretty good-looking," said Sally. "I saw him on Sunday when he was +here, but he was off on Monday, and never called on old friends. Does he +write to you often?" + +"Not very," said Mara; "in fact, almost never; and when he does, there +is so little in his letters." + +"Well, I tell you, Mara, you must not expect fellows to write as girls +can. They don't do it. Now, our boys, when they write home, they tell +the latitude and longitude, and soil and productions, and such things. +But if you or I were only there, don't you think we should find +something more to say? Of course we should,--fifty thousand little +things that they never think of." + +Mara made no reply to this, but went on very intently with her painting. +A close observer might have noticed a suppressed sigh that seemed to +retreat far down into her heart. Sally did not notice it. + +What was in that sigh? It was the sigh of a long, deep, inner history, +unwritten and untold--such as are transpiring daily by thousands, and of +which we take no heed. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +REBELLION + + +We have introduced Mara to our readers as she appears in her seventeenth +year, at the time when she is expecting the return of Moses as a young +man of twenty; but we cannot do justice to the feelings which are roused +in her heart by this expectation, without giving a chapter or two to +tracing the history of Moses since we left him as a boy commencing the +study of the Latin grammar with Mr. Sewell. The reader must see the +forces that acted upon his early development, and what they have made of +him. + +It is common for people who write treatises on education to give forth +their rules and theories with a self-satisfied air, as if a human being +were a thing to be made up, like a batch of bread, out of a given number +of materials combined by an infallible recipe. Take your child, and do +thus and so for a given number of years, and he comes out a thoroughly +educated individual. + +But in fact, education is in many cases nothing more than a blind +struggle of parents and guardians with the evolutions of some strong, +predetermined character, individual, obstinate, unreceptive, and seeking +by an inevitable law of its being to develop itself and gain free +expression in its own way. Captain Kittridge's confidence that he would +as soon undertake a boy as a Newfoundland pup, is good for those whose +idea of what is to be done for a human being are only what would be done +for a dog, namely, give food, shelter, and world-room, and leave each to +act out his own nature without let or hindrance. + +But everybody takes an embryo human being with some plan of one's own +what it shall do or be. The child's future shall shape out some darling +purpose or plan, and fulfill some long unfulfilled expectation of the +parent. And thus, though the wind of every generation sweeps its hopes +and plans like forest-leaves, none are whirled and tossed with more +piteous moans than those which come out green and fresh to shade the +happy spring-time of the cradle. For the temperaments of children are +often as oddly unsuited to parents as if capricious fairies had been +filling cradles with changelings. + +A meek member of the Peace Society, a tender, devout, poetical +clergyman, receives an heir from heaven, and straightway devotes him to +the Christian ministry. But lo! the boy proves a young war-horse, +neighing for battle, burning for gunpowder and guns, for bowie-knives +and revolvers, and for every form and expression of physical force;--he +might make a splendid trapper, an energetic sea-captain, a bold, daring +military man, but his whole boyhood is full of rebukes and disciplines +for sins which are only the blind effort of the creature to express a +nature which his parent does not and cannot understand. So again, the +son that was to have upheld the old, proud merchant's time-honored firm, +that should have been mighty in ledgers and great upon 'Change, breaks +his father's heart by an unintelligible fancy for weaving poems and +romances. A father of literary aspirations, balked of privileges of +early education, bends over the cradle of his son with but one idea. +This child shall have the full advantages of regular college-training; +and so for years he battles with a boy abhorring study, and fitted only +for a life of out-door energy and bold adventure,--on whom Latin forms +and Greek quantities fall and melt aimless and useless, as snow-flakes +on the hide of a buffalo. Then the secret agonies,--the long years of +sorrowful watchings of those gentler nurses of humanity who receive the +infant into their bosom out of the void unknown, and strive to read its +horoscope through the mists of their prayers and tears!--what +perplexities,--what confusion! Especially is this so in a community +where the moral and religious sense is so cultivated as in New England, +and frail, trembling, self-distrustful mothers are told that the shaping +and ordering not only of this present life, but of an immortal destiny, +is in their hands. + +On the whole, those who succeed best in the rearing of children are the +tolerant and easy persons who instinctively follow nature and accept +without much inquiry whatever she sends; or that far smaller class, wise +to discern spirits and apt to adopt means to their culture and +development, who can prudently and carefully train every nature +according to its true and characteristic ideal. + +Zephaniah Pennel was a shrewd old Yankee, whose instincts taught him +from the first, that the waif that had been so mysteriously washed out +of the gloom of the sea into his family, was of some different class and +lineage from that which might have filled a cradle of his own, and of a +nature which he could not perfectly understand. So he prudently watched +and waited, only using restraint enough to keep the boy anchored in +society, and letting him otherwise grow up in the solitary freedom of +his lonely seafaring life. + +The boy was from childhood, although singularly attractive, of a moody, +fitful, unrestful nature,--eager, earnest, but unsteady,--with varying +phases of imprudent frankness and of the most stubborn and unfathomable +secretiveness. He was a creature of unreasoning antipathies and +attractions. As Zephaniah Pennel said of him, he was as full of hitches +as an old bureau drawer. His peculiar beauty, and a certain electrical +power of attraction, seemed to form a constant circle of protection and +forgiveness around him in the home of his foster-parents; and great as +was the anxiety and pain which he often gave them, they somehow never +felt the charge of him as a weariness. + +We left him a boy beginning Latin with Mr. Sewell in company with the +little Mara. This arrangement progressed prosperously for a time, and +the good clergyman, all whose ideas of education ran through the halls +of a college, began to have hopes of turning out a choice scholar. But +when the boy's ship of life came into the breakers of that narrow and +intricate channel which divides boyhood from manhood, the difficulties +that had always attended his guidance and management wore an intensified +form. How much family happiness is wrecked just then and there! How many +mothers' and sisters' hearts are broken in the wild and confused +tossings and tearings of that stormy transition! A whole new nature is +blindly upheaving itself, with cravings and clamorings, which neither +the boy himself nor often surrounding friends understand. + +A shrewd observer has significantly characterized the period as the time +when the boy wishes he were dead, and everybody else wishes so too. The +wretched, half-fledged, half-conscious, anomalous creature has all the +desires of the man, and none of the rights; has a double and triple +share of nervous edge and intensity in every part of his nature, and no +definitely perceived objects on which to bestow it,--and, of course, all +sorts of unreasonable moods and phases are the result. + +One of the most common signs of this period, in some natures, is the +love of contradiction and opposition,--a blind desire to go contrary to +everything that is commonly received among the older people. The boy +disparages the minister, quizzes the deacon, thinks the school-master an +ass, and doesn't believe in the Bible, and seems to be rather pleased +than otherwise with the shock and flutter that all these announcements +create among peaceably disposed grown people. No respectable hen that +ever hatched out a brood of ducks was more puzzled what to do with them +than was poor Mrs. Pennel when her adopted nursling came into this +state. Was he a boy? an immortal soul? a reasonable human being? or only +a handsome goblin sent to torment her? + +"What shall we do with him, father?" said she, one Sunday, to Zephaniah, +as he stood shaving before the little looking-glass in their bedroom. +"He can't be governed like a child, and he won't govern himself like a +man." + +Zephaniah stopped and strapped his razor reflectively. + +"We must cast out anchor and wait for day," he answered. "Prayer is a +long rope with a strong hold." + +It was just at this critical period of life that Moses Pennel was drawn +into associations which awoke the alarm of all his friends, and from +which the characteristic willfulness of his nature made it difficult to +attempt to extricate him. + +In order that our readers may fully understand this part of our history, +we must give some few particulars as to the peculiar scenery of Orr's +Island and the state of the country at this time. + +The coast of Maine, as we have elsewhere said, is remarkable for a +singular interpenetration of the sea with the land, forming amid its +dense primeval forests secluded bays, narrow and deep, into which +vessels might float with the tide, and where they might nestle unseen +and unsuspected amid the dense shadows of the overhanging forest. + +At this time there was a very brisk business done all along the coast of +Maine in the way of smuggling. Small vessels, lightly built and swift of +sail, would run up into these sylvan fastnesses, and there make their +deposits and transact their business so as entirely to elude the +vigilance of government officers. + +It may seem strange that practices of this kind should ever have +obtained a strong foothold in a community peculiar for its rigid +morality and its orderly submission to law; but in this case, as in many +others, contempt of law grew out of weak and unworthy legislation. The +celebrated embargo of Jefferson stopped at once the whole trade of New +England, and condemned her thousand ships to rot at the wharves, and +caused the ruin of thousands of families. + +The merchants of the country regarded this as a flagrant, high-handed +piece of injustice, expressly designed to cripple New England commerce, +and evasions of this unjust law found everywhere a degree of sympathy, +even in the breasts of well-disposed and conscientious people. In +resistance to the law, vessels were constantly fitted out which ran upon +trading voyages to the West Indies and other places; and although the +practice was punishable as smuggling, yet it found extensive connivance. +From this beginning smuggling of all kinds gradually grew up in the +community, and gained such a foothold that even after the repeal of the +embargo it still continued to be extensively practiced. Secret +depositories of contraband goods still existed in many of the lonely +haunts of islands off the coast of Maine. Hid in deep forest shadows, +visited only in the darkness of the night, were these illegal stores of +merchandise. And from these secluded resorts they found their way, no +one knew or cared to say how, into houses for miles around. + +There was no doubt that the practice, like all other illegal ones, was +demoralizing to the community, and particularly fatal to the character +of that class of bold, enterprising young men who would be most likely +to be drawn into it. + +Zephaniah Pennel, who was made of a kind of straight-grained, +uncompromising oaken timber such as built the Mayflower of old, had +always borne his testimony at home and abroad against any violations of +the laws of the land, however veiled under the pretext of righting a +wrong or resisting an injustice, and had done what he could in his +neighborhood to enable government officers to detect and break up these +unlawful depositories. This exposed him particularly to the hatred and +ill-will of the operators concerned in such affairs, and a plot was laid +by a few of the most daring and determined of them to establish one of +their depositories on Orr's Island, and to implicate the family of +Pennel himself in the trade. This would accomplish two purposes, as they +hoped,--it would be a mortification and defeat to him,--a revenge which +they coveted; and it would, they thought, insure his silence and +complicity for the strongest reasons. + +The situation and characteristics of Orr's Island peculiarly fitted it +for the carrying out of a scheme of this kind, and for this purpose we +must try to give our readers a more definite idea of it. + +The traveler who wants a ride through scenery of more varied and +singular beauty than can ordinarily be found on the shores of any land +whatever, should start some fine clear day along the clean sandy road, +ribboned with strips of green grass, that leads through the flat +pitch-pine forests of Brunswick toward the sea. As he approaches the +salt water, a succession of the most beautiful and picturesque lakes +seems to be lying softly cradled in the arms of wild, rocky forest +shores, whose outlines are ever changing with the windings of the road. + +At a distance of about six or eight miles from Brunswick he crosses an +arm of the sea, and comes upon the first of the interlacing group of +islands which beautifies the shore. A ride across this island is a +constant succession of pictures, whose wild and solitary beauty entirely +distances all power of description. The magnificence of the evergreen +forests,--their peculiar air of sombre stillness,--the rich +intermingling ever and anon of groves of birch, beech, and oak, in +picturesque knots and tufts, as if set for effect by some skillful +landscape-gardener,--produce a sort of strange dreamy wonder; while the +sea, breaking forth both on the right hand and the left of the road into +the most romantic glimpses, seems to flash and glitter like some strange +gem which every moment shows itself through the framework of a new +setting. Here and there little secluded coves push in from the sea, +around which lie soft tracts of green meadow-land, hemmed in and guarded +by rocky pine-crowned ridges. In such sheltered spots may be seen neat +white houses, nestling like sheltered doves in the beautiful solitude. + +When one has ridden nearly to the end of Great Island, which is about +four miles across, he sees rising before him, from the sea, a bold +romantic point of land, uplifting a crown of rich evergreen and forest +trees over shores of perpendicular rock. This is Orr's Island. + +It was not an easy matter in the days of our past experience to guide a +horse and carriage down the steep, wild shores of Great Island to the +long bridge that connects it with Orr's. The sense of wild seclusion +reaches here the highest degree; and one crosses the bridge with a +feeling as if genii might have built it, and one might be going over it +to fairy-land. From the bridge the path rises on to a high granite +ridge, which runs from one end of the island to the other, and has been +called the Devil's Back, with that superstitious generosity which seems +to have abandoned all romantic places to so undeserving an owner. + +By the side of this ridge of granite is a deep, narrow chasm, running a +mile and a half or two miles parallel with the road, and veiled by the +darkest and most solemn shadows of the primeval forest. Here scream the +jays and the eagles, and fish-hawks make their nests undisturbed; and +the tide rises and falls under black branches of evergreen, from which +depend long, light festoons of delicate gray moss. The darkness of the +forest is relieved by the delicate foliage and the silvery trunks of +the great white birches, which the solitude of centuries has allowed to +grow in this spot to a height and size seldom attained elsewhere. + +It was this narrow, rocky cove that had been chosen by the smuggler +Atkinson and his accomplices as a safe and secluded resort for their +operations. He was a seafaring man of Bath, one of that class who always +prefer uncertain and doubtful courses to those which are safe and +reputable. He was possessed of many of those traits calculated to make +him a hero in the eyes of young men; was dashing, free, and frank in his +manners, with a fund of humor and an abundance of ready anecdote which +made his society fascinating; but he concealed beneath all these +attractions a character of hard, grasping, unscrupulous selfishness, and +an utter destitution of moral principle. + +Moses, now in his sixteenth year, and supposed to be in a general way +doing well, under the care of the minister, was left free to come and go +at his own pleasure, unwatched by Zephaniah, whose fishing operations +often took him for weeks from home. Atkinson hung about the boy's path, +engaging him first in fishing or hunting enterprises; plied him with +choice preparations of liquor, with which he would enhance the hilarity +of their expeditions; and finally worked on his love of adventure and +that impatient restlessness incident to his period of life to draw him +fully into his schemes. Moses lost all interest in his lessons, often +neglecting them for days at a time--accounting for his negligence by +excuses which were far from satisfactory. When Mara would expostulate +with him about this, he would break out upon her with a fierce +irritation. Was he always going to be tied to a girl's apron-string? He +was tired of study, and tired of old Sewell, whom he declared an old +granny in a white wig, who knew nothing of the world. He wasn't going to +college--it was altogether too slow for him--he was going to see life +and push ahead for himself. + +Mara's life during this time was intensely wearing. A frail, slender, +delicate girl of thirteen, she carried a heart prematurely old with the +most distressing responsibility of mature life. Her love for Moses had +always had in it a large admixture of that maternal and care-taking +element which, in some shape or other, qualities the affection of woman +to man. Ever since that dream of babyhood, when the vision of a pale +mother had led the beautiful boy to her arms, Mara had accepted him as +something exclusively her own, with an intensity of ownership that +seemed almost to merge her personal identity with his. She felt, and +saw, and enjoyed, and suffered in him, and yet was conscious of a higher +nature in herself, by which unwillingly he was often judged and +condemned. His faults affected her with a kind of guilty pain, as if +they were her own; his sins were borne bleeding in her heart in silence, +and with a jealous watchfulness to hide them from every eye but hers. +She busied herself day and night interceding and making excuses for him, +first to her own sensitive moral nature, and then with everybody around, +for with one or another he was coming into constant collision. She felt +at this time a fearful load of suspicion, which she dared not express to +a human being. + +Up to this period she had always been the only confidant of Moses, who +poured into her ear without reserve all the good and the evil of his +nature, and who loved her with all the intensity with which he was +capable of loving anything. Nothing so much shows what a human being is +in moral advancement as the quality of his love. Moses Pennel's love was +egotistic, exacting, tyrannical, and capricious--sometimes venting +itself in expressions of a passionate fondness, which had a savor of +protecting generosity in them, and then receding to the icy pole of +surly petulance. For all that, there was no resisting the magnetic +attraction with which in his amiable moods he drew those whom he liked +to himself. + +Such people are not very wholesome companions for those who are +sensitively organized and predisposed to self-sacrificing love. They +keep the heart in a perpetual freeze and thaw, which, like the American +northern climate, is so particularly fatal to plants of a delicate +habit. They could live through the hot summer and the cold winter, but +they cannot endure the three or four months when it freezes one day and +melts the next,--when all the buds are started out by a week of genial +sunshine, and then frozen for a fortnight. These fitful persons are of +all others most engrossing, because you are always sure in their good +moods that they are just going to be angels,--an expectation which no +number of disappointments seems finally to do away. Mara believed in +Moses's future as she did in her own existence. He was going to do +something great and good,--that she was certain of. He would be a +splendid man! Nobody, she thought, knew him as she did; nobody could +know how good and generous he was _sometimes_, and how frankly he would +confess his faults, and what noble aspirations he had! + +But there was no concealing from her watchful sense that Moses was +beginning to have secrets from her. He was cloudy and murky; and at some +of the most harmless inquiries in the world, would flash out with a +sudden temper, as if she had touched some sore spot. Her bedroom was +opposite to his; and she became quite sure that night after night, while +she lay thinking of him, she heard him steal down out of the house +between two and three o'clock, and not return till a little before +day-dawn. Where he went, and with whom, and what he was doing, was to +her an awful mystery,--and it was one she dared not share with a human +being. If she told her kind old grandfather, she feared that any +inquiry from him would only light as a spark on that inflammable spirit +of pride and insubordination that was rising within him, and bring on an +instantaneous explosion. Mr. Sewell's influence she could hope little +more from; and as to poor Mrs. Pennel, such communications would only +weary and distress her, without doing any manner of good. There was, +therefore, only that one unfailing Confidant--the Invisible Friend to +whom the solitary child could pour out her heart, and whose inspirations +of comfort and guidance never fail to come again in return to true +souls. + +One moonlight night, as she lay thus praying, her senses, sharpened by +watching, discerned a sound of steps treading under her window, and then +a low whistle. Her heart beat violently, and she soon heard the door of +Moses's room open, and then the old chamber-stairs gave forth those +inconsiderate creaks and snaps that garrulous old stairs always will +when anybody is desirous of making them accomplices in a night-secret. +Mara rose, and undrawing her curtain, saw three men standing before the +house, and saw Moses come out and join them. Quick as thought she threw +on her clothes and wrapping her little form in a dark cloak, with a +hood, followed them out. She kept at a safe distance behind them,--so +far back as just to keep them in sight. They never looked back, and +seemed to say but little till they approached the edge of that deep belt +of forest which shrouds so large a portion of the island. She hurried +along, now nearer to them lest they should be lost to view in the deep +shadows, while they went on crackling and plunging through the dense +underbrush. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +THE TEMPTER + + +It was well for Mara that so much of her life had been passed in wild +forest rambles. She looked frail as the rays of moonbeam which slid down +the old white-bearded hemlocks, but her limbs were agile and supple as +steel; and while the party went crashing on before, she followed with +such lightness that the slight sound of her movements was entirely lost +in the heavy crackling plunges of the party. Her little heart was +beating fast and hard; but could any one have seen her face, as it now +and then came into a spot of moonshine, they might have seen it fixed in +a deadly expression of resolve and determination. She was going after +_him_--no matter where; she was resolved to know who and what it was +that was leading him away, as her heart told her, to no good. Deeper and +deeper into the shadows of the forest they went, and the child easily +kept up with them. + +Mara had often rambled for whole solitary days in this lonely wood, and +knew all its rocks and dells the whole three miles to the long bridge at +the other end of the island. But she had never before seen it under the +solemn stillness of midnight moonlight, which gives to the most familiar +objects such a strange, ghostly charm. After they had gone a mile into +the forest, she could see through the black spruces silver gleams of the +sea, and hear, amid the whirr and sway of the pine-tops, the dash of the +ever restless tide which pushed up the long cove. It was at the full, as +she could discern with a rapid glance of her practiced eye, expertly +versed in the knowledge of every change of the solitary nature around. + +And now the party began to plunge straight down the rocky ledge of the +Devil's Back, on which they had been walking hitherto, into the deep +ravine where lay the cove. It was a scrambling, precipitous way, over +perpendicular walls of rock, whose crevices furnished anchoring-places +for grand old hemlocks or silver-birches, and whose rough sides, +leathery with black flaps of lichen, were all tangled and interlaced +with thick netted bushes. The men plunged down laughing, shouting, and +swearing at their occasional missteps, and silently as moonbeam or +thistledown the light-footed shadow went down after them. + +She suddenly paused behind a pile of rock, as, through an opening +between two great spruces, the sea gleamed out like a sheet of +looking-glass set in a black frame. And here the child saw a small +vessel swinging at anchor, with the moonlight full on its slack sails, +and she could hear the gentle gurgle and lick of the green-tongued waves +as they dashed under it toward the rocky shore. + +Mara stopped with a beating heart as she saw the company making for the +schooner. The tide is high; will they go on board and sail away with him +where she cannot follow? What could she do? In an ecstasy of fear she +kneeled down and asked God not to let him go,--to give her at least one +more chance to save him. + +For the pure and pious child had heard enough of the words of these men, +as she walked behind them, to fill her with horror. She had never before +heard an oath, but there came back from these men coarse, brutal tones +and words of blasphemy that froze her blood with horror. And Moses was +going with them! She felt somehow as if they must be a company of fiends +bearing him to his ruin. + +For some time she kneeled there watching behind the rock, while Moses +and his companions went on board the little schooner. She had no +feeling of horror at the loneliness of her own situation, for her +solitary life had made every woodland thing dear and familiar to her. +She was cowering down, on a loose, spongy bed of moss, which was all +threaded through and through with the green vines and pale pink blossoms +of the mayflower, and she felt its fragrant breath streaming up in the +moist moonlight. As she leaned forward to look through a rocky crevice, +her arms rested on a bed of that brittle white moss she had often +gathered with so much admiration, and a scarlet rock-columbine, such as +she loved to paint, brushed her cheek,--and all these mute fair things +seemed to strive to keep her company in her chill suspense of +watchfulness. Two whippoorwills, from a clump of silvery birches, kept +calling to each other in melancholy iteration, while she stayed there +still listening, and knowing by an occasional sound of laughing, or the +explosion of some oath, that the men were not yet gone. At last they all +appeared again, and came to a cleared place among the dry leaves, quite +near to the rock where she was concealed, and kindled a fire which they +kept snapping and crackling by a constant supply of green resinous +hemlock branches. + +The red flame danced and leaped through the green fuel, and leaping +upward in tongues of flame, cast ruddy bronze reflections on the old +pine-trees with their long branches waving with boards of white +moss,--and by the firelight Mara could see two men in sailor's dress +with pistols in their belts, and the man Atkinson, whom she had +recollected as having seen once or twice at her grandfather's. She +remembered how she had always shrunk from him with a strange instinctive +dislike, half fear, half disgust, when he had addressed her with that +kind of free admiration which men of his class often feel themselves at +liberty to express to a pretty girl of her early age. He was a man that +might have been handsome, had it not been for a certain strange +expression of covert wickedness. It was as if some vile evil spirit, +walking, as the Scriptures say, through dry places, had lighted on a +comely man's body, in which he had set up housekeeping, making it look +like a fair house abused by an unclean owner. + +As Mara watched his demeanor with Moses, she could think only of a +loathsome black snake that she had once seen in those solitary +rocks;--she felt as if his handsome but evil eye were charming him with +an evil charm to his destruction. + +"Well, Mo, my boy," she heard him say,--slapping Moses on the +shoulder,--"this is something like. We'll have a 'tempus,' as the +college fellows say,--put down the clams to roast, and I'll mix the +punch," he said, setting over the fire a tea-kettle which they brought +from the ship. + +After their preparations were finished, all sat down to eat and drink. +Mara listened with anxiety and horror to a conversation such as she +never heard or conceived before. It is not often that women hear men +talk in the undisguised manner which they use among themselves; but the +conversation of men of unprincipled lives, and low, brutal habits, +unchecked by the presence of respectable female society, might well +convey to the horror-struck child a feeling as if she were listening at +the mouth of hell. Almost every word was preceded or emphasized by an +oath; and what struck with a death chill to her heart was, that Moses +swore too, and seemed to show that desperate anxiety to seem _au fait_ +in the language of wickedness, which boys often do at that age, when +they fancy that to be ignorant of vice is a mark of disgraceful +greenness. Moses evidently was bent on showing that he was not +green,--ignorant of the pure ear to which every such word came like the +blast of death. + +He drank a great deal, too, and the mirth among them grew furious and +terrific. Mara, horrified and shocked as she was, did not, however, lose +that intense and alert presence of mind, natural to persons in whom +there is moral strength, however delicate be their physical frame. She +felt at once that these men were playing upon Moses; that they had an +object in view; that they were flattering and cajoling him, and leading +him to drink, that they might work out some fiendish purpose of their +own. The man called Atkinson related story after story of wild +adventure, in which sudden fortunes had been made by men who, he said, +were not afraid to take "the short cut across lots." He told of +piratical adventures in the West Indies,--of the fun of chasing and +overhauling ships,--and gave dazzling accounts of the treasures found on +board. It was observable that all these stories were told on the line +between joke and earnest,--as frolics, as specimens of good fun, and +seeing life, etc. + +At last came a suggestion,--What if they should start off together some +fine day, "just for a spree," and try a cruise in the West Indies, to +see what they could pick up? They had arms, and a gang of fine, +whole-souled fellows. Moses had been tied to Ma'am Pennel's apron-string +long enough. And "hark ye," said one of them, "Moses, they say old +Pennel has lots of dollars in that old sea-chest of his'n. It would be a +kindness to him to invest them for him in an adventure." + +Moses answered with a streak of the boy innocence which often remains +under the tramping of evil men, like ribbons of green turf in the middle +of roads:-- + +"You don't know Father Pennel,--why, he'd no more come into it than"-- + +A perfect roar of laughter cut short this declaration, and Atkinson, +slapping Moses on the back, said,-- + +"By ----, Mo! you are the jolliest green dog! I shall die a-laughing of +your innocence some day. Why, my boy, can't you see? Pennel's money can +be invested without asking him." + +"Why, he keeps it locked," said Moses. + +"And supposing you pick the lock?" + +"Not I, indeed," said Moses, making a sudden movement to rise. + +Mara almost screamed in her ecstasy, but she had sense enough to hold +her breath. + +"Ho! see him now," said Atkinson, lying back, and holding his sides +while he laughed, and rolled over; "you can get off anything on that +muff,--any hoax in the world,--he's so soft! Come, come, my dear boy, +sit down. I was only seeing how wide I could make you open those great +black eyes of your'n,--that's all." + +"You'd better take care how you joke with me," said Moses, with that +look of gloomy determination which Mara was quite familiar with of old. +It was the rallying effort of a boy who had abandoned the first outworks +of virtue to make a stand for the citadel. And Atkinson, like a prudent +besieger after a repulse, returned to lie on his arms. + +He began talking volubly on other subjects, telling stories, and singing +songs, and pressing Moses to drink. + +Mara was comforted to see that he declined drinking,--that he looked +gloomy and thoughtful, in spite of the jokes of his companions; but she +trembled to see, by the following conversation, how Atkinson was +skillfully and prudently making apparent to Moses the extent to which he +had him in his power. He seemed to Mara like an ugly spider skillfully +weaving his web around a fly. She felt cold and faint; but within her +there was a heroic strength. + +She was not going to faint; she would make herself bear up. She was +going to do something to get Moses out of this snare,--but what? At last +they rose. + +"It is past three o'clock," she heard one of them say. + +"I say, Mo," said Atkinson, "you must make tracks for home, or you won't +be in bed when Mother Pennel calls you." + +The men all laughed at this joke, as they turned to go on board the +schooner. + +When they were gone, Moses threw himself down and hid his face in his +hands. He knew not what pitying little face was looking down upon him +from the hemlock shadows, what brave little heart was determined to save +him. He was in one of those great crises of agony that boys pass through +when they first awake from the fun and frolic of unlawful enterprises to +find themselves sold under sin, and feel the terrible logic of evil +which constrains them to pass from the less to greater crime. He felt +that he was in the power of bad, unprincipled, heartless men, who, if he +refused to do their bidding, had the power to expose him. All he had +been doing would come out. His kind old foster-parents would know it. +Mara would know it. Mr. Sewell and Miss Emily would know the secrets of +his life that past month. He felt as if they were all looking at him +now. He had disgraced himself,--had sunk below his education,--had been +false to all his better knowledge and the past expectations of his +friends, living a mean, miserable, dishonorable life,--and now the +ground was fast sliding from under him, and the next plunge might be +down a precipice from which there would be no return. What he had done +up to this hour had been done in the roystering, inconsiderate +gamesomeness of boyhood. It had been represented to himself only as +"sowing wild oats," "having steep times," "seeing a little of life," and +so on; but this night he had had propositions of piracy and robbery made +to him, and he had not dared to knock down the man that made them,--had +not dared at once to break away from his company. He must meet him +again,--must go on with him, or--he groaned in agony at the thought. + +It was a strong indication of that repressed, considerate habit of mind +which love had wrought in the child, that when Mara heard the boy's sobs +rising in the stillness, she did not, as she wished to, rush out and +throw her arms around his neck and try to comfort him. + +But she felt instinctively that she must not do this. She must not let +him know that she had discovered his secret by stealing after him thus +in the night shadows. She knew how nervously he had resented even the +compassionate glances she had cast upon him in his restless, turbid +intervals during the past few weeks, and the fierceness with which he +had replied to a few timid inquiries. No,--though her heart was breaking +for him, it was a shrewd, wise little heart, and resolved not to spoil +all by yielding to its first untaught impulses. She repressed herself as +the mother does who refrains from crying out when she sees her +unconscious little one on the verge of a precipice. + +When Moses rose and moodily began walking homeward, she followed at a +distance. She could now keep farther off, for she knew the way through +every part of the forest, and she only wanted to keep within sound of +his footsteps to make sure that he was going home. When he emerged from +the forest into the open moonlight, she sat down in its shadows and +watched him as he walked over the open distance between her and the +house. He went in; and then she waited a little longer for him to be +quite retired. She thought he would throw himself on the bed, and then +she could steal in after him. So she sat there quite in the shadows. + +The grand full moon was riding high and calm in the purple sky, and +Harpswell Bay on the one hand, and the wide, open ocean on the other, +lay all in a silver shimmer of light. There was not a sound save the +plash of the tide, now beginning to go out, and rolling and rattling +the pebbles up and down as it came and went, and once in a while the +distant, mournful intoning of the whippoorwill. There were silent lonely +ships, sailing slowly to and fro far out to sea, turning their fair +wings now into bright light and now into shadow, as they moved over the +glassy stillness. Mara could see all the houses on Harpswell Neck and +the white church as clear as in the daylight. It seemed to her some +strange, unearthly dream. + +As she sat there, she thought over her whole little life, all full of +one thought, one purpose, one love, one prayer, for this being so +strangely given to her out of that silent sea, which lay so like a still +eternity around her,--and she revolved again what meant the vision of +her childhood. Did it not mean that she was to watch over him and save +him from some dreadful danger? That poor mother was lying now silent and +peaceful under the turf in the little graveyard not far off, and _she_ +must care for her boy. + +A strong motherly feeling swelled out the girl's heart,--she felt that +she _must_, she would, somehow save that treasure which had so +mysteriously been committed to her. So, when she thought she had given +time enough for Moses to be quietly asleep in his room, she arose and +ran with quick footsteps across the moonlit plain to the house. + +The front-door was standing wide open, as was always the innocent +fashion in these regions, with a half-angle of moonlight and shadow +lying within its dusky depths. Mara listened a moment,--no sound: he had +gone to bed then. "Poor boy," she said, "I hope he is asleep; how he +must feel, poor fellow! It's all the fault of those dreadful men!" said +the little dark shadow to herself, as she stole up the stairs past his +room as guiltily as if she were the sinner. Once the stairs creaked, and +her heart was in her mouth, but she gained her room and shut and bolted +the door. She kneeled down by her little white bed, and thanked God +that she had come in safe, and then prayed him to teach her what to do +next. She felt chilly and shivering, and crept into bed, and lay with +her great soft brown eyes wide open, intently thinking what she should +do. + +Should she tell her grandfather? Something instinctively said No; that +the first word from him which showed Moses he was detected would at once +send him off with those wicked men. "He would never, never bear to have +this known," she said. Mr. Sewell?--ah, that was worse. She herself +shrank from letting him know what Moses had been doing; she could not +bear to lower him so much in his eyes. He could not make allowances, she +thought. He is good, to be sure, but he is so old and grave, and doesn't +know how much Moses has been tempted by these dreadful men; and then +perhaps he would tell Miss Emily, and they never would want Moses to +come there any more. + +"What shall I do?" she said to herself. "I must get somebody to help me +or tell me what to do. I can't tell grandmamma; it would only make her +ill, and she wouldn't know what to do any more than I. Ah, I know what I +will do,--I'll tell Captain Kittridge; he was always so kind to me; and +he has been to sea and seen all sorts of men, and Moses won't care so +much perhaps to have him know, because the Captain is such a funny man, +and don't take everything so seriously. Yes, that's it. I'll go right +down to the cove in the morning. God will bring me through, I know He +will;" and the little weary head fell back on the pillow asleep. And as +she slept, a smile settled over her face, perhaps a reflection from the +face of her good angel, who always beholdeth the face of our Father in +Heaven. + + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +A FRIEND IN NEED + + +Mara was so wearied with her night walk and the agitation she had been +through, that once asleep she slept long after the early breakfast hour +of the family. She was surprised on awaking to hear the slow old clock +downstairs striking eight. She hastily jumped up and looked around with +a confused wonder, and then slowly the events of the past night came +back upon her like a remembered dream. She dressed herself quickly, and +went down to find the breakfast things all washed and put away, and Mrs. +Pennel spinning. + +"Why, dear heart," said the old lady, "how came you to sleep so?--I +spoke to you twice, but I could not make you hear." + +"Has Moses been down, grandma?" said Mara, intent on the sole thought in +her heart. + +"Why, yes, dear, long ago,--and cross enough he was; that boy does get +to be a trial,--but come, dear, I've saved some hot cakes for you,--sit +down now and eat your breakfast." + +Mara made a feint of eating what her grandmother with fond officiousness +would put before her, and then rising up she put on her sun-bonnet and +started down toward the cove to find her old friend. + +The queer, dry, lean old Captain had been to her all her life like a +faithful kobold or brownie, an unquestioning servant of all her gentle +biddings. She dared tell him anything without diffidence or +shamefacedness; and she felt that in this trial of her life he might +have in his sea-receptacle some odd old amulet or spell that should be +of power to help her. Instinctively she avoided the house, lest Sally +should see and fly out and seize her. She took a narrow path through the +cedars down to the little boat cove where the old Captain worked so +merrily ten years ago, in the beginning of our story, and where she +found him now, with his coat off, busily planing a board. + +"Wal', now,--if this 'ere don't beat all!" he said, looking up and +seeing her; "why, you're looking after Sally, I s'pose? She's up to the +house." + +"No, Captain Kittridge, I'm come to see _you_." + +"You _be_?" said the Captain, "I swow! if I ain't a lucky feller. But +what's the matter?" he said, suddenly observing her pale face and the +tears in her eyes. "Hain't nothin' bad happened,--hes there?" + +"Oh! Captain Kittridge, something dreadful; and nobody but you can help +me." + +"Want to know, now!" said the Captain, with a grave face. "Well, come +here, now, and sit down, and tell me all about it. Don't you cry, +there's a good girl! Don't, now." + +Mara began her story, and went through with it in a rapid and agitated +manner; and the good Captain listened in a fidgety state of interest, +occasionally relieving his mind by interjecting "Do tell, now!" "I +swan,--if that ar ain't too bad." + +"That ar's rediculous conduct in Atkinson. He ought to be talked to," +said the Captain, when she had finished, and then he whistled and put a +shaving in his mouth, which he chewed reflectively. + +"Don't you be a mite worried, Mara," he said. "You did a great deal +better to come to me than to go to Mr. Sewell or your grand'ther either; +'cause you see these 'ere wild chaps they'll take things from me they +wouldn't from a church-member or a minister. Folks mustn't pull 'em up +with _too_ short a rein,--they must kind o' flatter 'em off. But that ar +Atkinson's too rediculous for anything; and if he don't mind, I'll serve +him out. I know a thing or two about him that I shall shake over his +head if he don't behave. Now I don't think so much of smugglin' as some +folks," said the Captain, lowering his voice to a confidential tone. "I +reely don't, now; but come to goin' off piratin',--and tryin' to put a +young boy up to robbin' his best friends,--why, there ain't no kind o' +sense in that. It's p'ison mean of Atkinson. I shall tell him so, and I +shall talk to Moses." + +"Oh! I'm afraid to have you," said Mara, apprehensively. + +"Why, chickabiddy," said the old Captain, "you don't understand me. I +ain't goin' at him with no sermons,--I shall jest talk to him this way: +Look here now, Moses, I shall say, there's Badger's ship goin' to sail +in a fortnight for China, and they want likely fellers aboard, and I've +got a hundred dollars that I'd like to send on a venture; if you'll take +it and go, why, we'll share the profits. I shall talk like that, you +know. Mebbe I sha'n't let him know what I know, and mebbe I shall; jest +tip him a wink, you know; it depends on circumstances. But bless you, +child, these 'ere fellers ain't none of 'em 'fraid o' me, you see, +'cause they know I know the ropes." + +"And can you make that horrid man let him alone?" said Mara, fearfully. + +"Calculate I can. 'Spect if I's to tell Atkinson a few things I know, +he'd be for bein' scase in our parts. Now, you see, I hain't minded +doin' a small bit o' trade now and then with them ar fellers myself; but +this 'ere," said the Captain, stopping and looking extremely disgusted, +"why, it's contemptible, it's rediculous!" + +"Do you think I'd better tell grandpapa?" said Mara. + +"Don't worry your little head. I'll step up and have a talk with Pennel, +this evening. He knows as well as I that there is times when chaps must +be seen to, and no remarks made. Pennel knows that ar. Why, now, Mis' +Kittridge thinks our boys turned out so well all along of her bringin' +up, and I let her think so; keeps her sort o' in spirits, you see. But +Lord bless ye, child, there's been times with Job, and Sam, and Pass, +and Dass, and Dile, and all on 'em finally, when, if I hadn't jest +pulled a rope here and turned a screw there, and said nothin' to nobody, +they'd a-been all gone to smash. I never told Mis' Kittridge none o' +their didos; bless you, 'twouldn't been o' no use. I never told _them_, +neither; but I jest kind o' worked 'em off, you know; and they's all +putty 'spectable men now, as men go, you know; not like Parson Sewell, +but good, honest mates and ship-masters,--kind o' middlin' people, you +know. It takes a good many o' sich to make up a world, d'ye see." + +"But oh, Captain Kittridge, did any of them use to swear?" said Mara, in +a faltering voice. + +"Wal', they did, consid'able," said the Captain;--then seeing the +trembling of Mara's lip, he added,-- + +"Ef you could a-found this 'ere out any other way, it's most a pity +you'd a-heard him; 'cause he wouldn't never have let out afore you. It +don't do for gals to hear the fellers talk when they's alone, 'cause +fellers,--wal', you see, fellers will be fellers, partic'larly when +they're young. Some on 'em, they never gits over it all their lives +finally." + +"But oh! Captain Kittridge, that talk last night was so dreadfully +wicked! and Moses!--oh, it was dreadful to hear him!" + +"Wal', yes, it was," said the Captain, consolingly; "but don't you cry, +and don't you break your little heart. I expect he'll come all right, +and jine the church one of these days; 'cause there's old Pennel, he +prays,--fact now, I think there's consid'able in some people's prayers, +and he's one of the sort. And you pray, too; and I'm quite sure the good +Lord _must_ hear you. I declare sometimes I wish you'd jest say a good +word to Him for me; I should like to get the hang o' things a little +better than I do, somehow, I reely should. I've gi'n up swearing years +ago. Mis' Kittridge, she broke me o' that, and now I don't never go +further than 'I vum' or 'I swow,' or somethin' o' that sort; but you see +I'm old;--Moses is young; but then he's got eddication and friends, and +he'll come all right. Now you jest see ef he don't!" + +This miscellaneous budget of personal experiences and friendly +consolation which the good Captain conveyed to Mara may possibly make +you laugh, my reader, but the good, ropy brown man was doing his best to +console his little friend; and as Mara looked at him he was almost +glorified in her eyes--he had power to save Moses, and he would do it. +She went home to dinner that day with her heart considerably lightened. +She refrained, in a guilty way, from even looking at Moses, who was +gloomy and moody. + +Mara had from nature a good endowment of that kind of innocent hypocrisy +which is needed as a staple in the lives of women who bridge a thousand +awful chasms with smiling, unconscious looks, and walk, singing and +scattering flowers, over abysses of fear, while their hearts are dying +within them. + +She talked more volubly than was her wont with Mrs. Pennel, and with her +old grandfather; she laughed and seemed in more than usual spirits, and +only once did she look up and catch the gloomy eye of Moses. It had that +murky, troubled look that one may see in the eye of a boy when those +evil waters which cast up mire and dirt have once been stirred in his +soul. They fell under her clear glance, and he made a rapid, impatient +movement, as if it hurt him to be looked at. The evil spirit in boy or +man cannot bear the "touch of celestial temper;" and the sensitiveness +to eyebeams is one of the earliest signs of conscious, inward guilt. + +Mara was relieved, as he flung out of the house after dinner, to see the +long, dry figure of Captain Kittridge coming up and seizing Moses by the +button. From the window she saw the Captain assuming a confidential air +with him; and when they had talked together a few moments, she saw Moses +going with great readiness after him down the road to his house. + +In less than a fortnight, it was settled Moses was to sail for China, +and Mara was deep in the preparations for his outfit. Once she would +have felt this departure as the most dreadful trial of her life. Now it +seemed to her a deliverance for him, and she worked with a cheerful +alacrity, which seemed to Moses more than was proper, considering _he_ +was going away. + +For Moses, like many others of his sex, boy or man, had quietly settled +in his own mind that the whole love of Mara's heart was to be his, to +have and to hold, to use and to draw on, when and as he liked. He +reckoned on it as a sort of inexhaustible, uncounted treasure that was +his own peculiar right and property, and therefore he felt abused at +what he supposed was a disclosure of some deficiency on her part. + +"You seem to be very glad to be rid of me," he said to her in a bitter +tone one day, as she was earnestly busy in her preparations. + +Now the fact was, that Moses had been assiduously making himself +disagreeable to Mara for the fortnight past, by all sorts of unkind +sayings and doings; and he knew it too; yet he felt a right to feel very +much abused at the thought that she could possibly want him to be going. +If she had been utterly desolate about it, and torn her hair and sobbed +and wailed, he would have asked what she could be crying about, and +begged not to be bored with scenes; but as it was, this cheerful +composure was quite unfeeling. + +Now pray don't suppose Moses to be a monster of an uncommon species. We +take him to be an average specimen of a boy of a certain kind of +temperament in the transition period of life. Everything is chaos +within; the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the +flesh, and "light and darkness, and mind and dust, and passion and pure +thoughts, mingle and contend," without end or order. He wondered at +himself sometimes that he could say such cruel things as he did to his +faithful little friend--to one whom, after all, he did love and trust +before all other human beings. + +There is no saying why it is that a man or a boy, not radically +destitute of generous comprehensions, will often cruelly torture and +tyrannize over a woman whom he both loves and reveres, who stands in his +soul in his best hours as the very impersonation of all that is good and +beautiful. It is as if some evil spirit at times possessed him, and +compelled him to utter words which were felt at the moment to be mean +and hateful. Moses often wondered at himself, as he lay awake nights, +how he could have said and done the things he had, and felt miserably +resolved to make it up somehow before he went away; but he did not. + +He could not say, "Mara, I have done wrong," though he every day meant +to do it, and sometimes sat an hour in her presence, feeling murky and +stony, as if possessed by a dumb spirit; then he would get up and fling +stormily out of the house. + +Poor Mara wondered if he really would go without one kind word. She +thought of all the years they had been together, and how he had been her +only thought and love. What had become of her brother?--the Moses that +once she used to know--frank, careless, not ill-tempered, and who +sometimes seemed to love her and think she was the best little girl in +the world? Where was he gone to--this friend and brother of her +childhood, and would he never come back? + +At last came the evening before his parting; the sea-chest was all made +up and packed; and Mara's fingers had been busy with everything, from +more substantial garments down to all those little comforts and nameless +conveniences that only a woman knows how to improvise. Mara thought +certainly she should get a few kind words, as Moses looked it over. But +he only said, "All right;" and then added that "there was a button off +one of the shirts." Mara's busy fingers quickly replaced it, and Moses +was annoyed at the tear that fell on the button. What was she crying for +now? He knew very well, but he felt stubborn and cruel. Afterwards he +lay awake many a night in his berth, and acted this last scene over +differently. He took Mara in his arms and kissed her; he told her she +was his best friend, his good angel, and that he was not worthy to kiss +the hem of her garment; but the next day, when he thought of writing a +letter to her, he didn't, and the good mood passed away. Boys do not +acquire an ease of expression in letter-writing as early as girls, and a +voyage to China furnished opportunities few and far between of sending +letters. + +Now and then, through some sailing ship, came missives which seemed to +Mara altogether colder and more unsatisfactory than they would have done +could she have appreciated the difference between a boy and a girl in +power of epistolary expression; for the power of really representing +one's heart on paper, which is one of the first spring flowers of early +womanhood, is the latest blossom on the slow-growing tree of manhood. To +do Moses justice, these seeming cold letters were often written with a +choking lump in his throat, caused by thinking over his many sins +against his little good angel; but then that past account was so long, +and had so much that it pained him to think of, that he dashed it all +off in the shortest fashion, and said to himself, "One of these days +when I see her I'll make it all up." + +No man--especially one that is living a rough, busy, out-of-doors +life--can form the slightest conception of that veiled and secluded life +which exists in the heart of a sensitive woman, whose sphere is narrow, +whose external diversions are few, and whose mind, therefore, acts by a +continual introversion upon itself. They know nothing how their careless +words and actions are pondered and turned again in weary, quiet hours of +fruitless questioning. What did he mean by this? and what did he intend +by that?--while he, the careless buffalo, meant nothing, or has +forgotten what it was, if he did. Man's utter ignorance of woman's +nature is a cause of a great deal of unsuspected cruelty which he +practices toward her. + +Mara found one or two opportunities of writing to Moses; but her letters +were timid and constrained by a sort of frosty, discouraged sense of +loneliness; and Moses, though he knew he had no earthly right to expect +this to be otherwise, took upon him to feel as an abused individual, +whom nobody loved--whose way in the world was destined to be lonely and +desolate. So when, at the end of three years, he arrived suddenly at +Brunswick in the beginning of winter, and came, all burning with +impatience, to the home at Orr's Island, and found that Mara had gone to +Boston on a visit, he resented it as a personal slight. + +He might have inquired why she should expect him, and whether her whole +life was to be spent in looking out of the window to watch for him. He +might have remembered that he had warned her of his approach by no +letter. But no. "Mara didn't care for him--she had forgotten all about +him--she was having a good time in Boston, just as likely as not with +some train of admirers, and he had been tossing on the stormy ocean, and +she had thought nothing of it." How many things he had meant to say! He +had never felt so good and so affectionate. He would have confessed all +the sins of his life to her, and asked her pardon--and she wasn't there! + +Mrs. Pennel suggested that he might go to Boston after her. + +No, he was not going to do that. He would not intrude on her pleasures +with the memory of a rough, hard-working sailor. He was alone in the +world, and had his own way to make, and so best go at once up among +lumbermen, and cut the timber for the ship that was to carry Cæsar and +his fortunes. + +When Mara was informed by a letter from Mrs. Pennel, expressed in the +few brief words in which that good woman generally embodied her +epistolary communications, that Moses had been at home, and gone to +Umbagog without seeing her, she felt at her heart only a little closer +stricture of cold, quiet pain, which had become a habit of her inner +life. + +"He did not love her--he was cold and selfish," said the inner voice. +And faintly she pleaded, in answer, "He is a man--he has seen the +world--and has so much to do and think of, no wonder." + +In fact, during the last three years that had parted them, the great +change of life had been consummated in both. They had parted boy and +girl; they would meet man and woman. The time of this meeting had been +announced. + +And all this is the history of that sigh, so very quiet that Sally +Kittridge never checked the rattling flow of her conversation to observe +it. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +THE BEGINNING OF THE STORY + + +We have in the last three chapters brought up the history of our +characters to the time when our story opens, when Mara and Sally +Kittridge were discussing the expected return of Moses. Sally was +persuaded by Mara to stay and spend the night with her, and did so +without much fear of what her mother would say when she returned; for +though Mrs. Kittridge still made bustling demonstrations of authority, +it was quite evident to every one that the handsome grown-up girl had +got the sceptre into her own hands, and was reigning in the full +confidence of being, in one way or another, able to bring her mother +into all her views. + +So Sally stayed--to have one of those long night-talks in which girls +delight, in the course of which all sorts of intimacies and confidences, +that shun the daylight, open like the night-blooming cereus in strange +successions. One often wonders by daylight at the things one says very +naturally in the dark. + +So the two girls talked about Moses, and Sally dilated upon his +handsome, manly air the one Sunday that he had appeared in Harpswell +meeting-house. + +"He didn't know me at all, if you'll believe it," said Sally. "I was +standing with father when he came out, and he shook hands with him, and +looked at me as if I'd been an entire stranger." + +"I'm not in the least surprised," said Mara; "you're grown so and +altered." + +"Well, now, you'd hardly know him, Mara," said Sally. "He is a man--a +real man; everything about him is different; he holds up his head in +such a proud way. Well, he always did that when he was a boy; but when +he speaks, he has such a deep voice! How boys do alter in a year or +two!" + +"Do you think I have altered much, Sally?" said Mara; "at least, do you +think _he_ would think so?" + +"Why, Mara, you and I have been together so much, I can't tell. We don't +notice what goes on before us every day. I really should like to see +what Moses Pennel will think when he sees you. At any rate, he can't +order you about with such a grand air as he used to when you were +younger." + +"I think sometimes he has quite forgotten about me," said Mara. + +"Well, if I were you, I should put him in mind of myself by one or two +little ways," said Sally. "I'd plague him and tease him. I'd lead him +such a life that he couldn't forget me,--that's what I would." + +"I don't doubt you would, Sally; and he might like you all the better +for it. But you know that sort of thing isn't my way. People must act in +character." + +"Do you know, Mara," said Sally, "I always thought Moses was hateful in +his treatment of you? Now I'd no more marry that fellow than I'd walk +into the fire; but it would be a just punishment for his sins to have to +marry me! Wouldn't I serve him out, though!" + +With which threat of vengeance on her mind Sally Kittridge fell asleep, +while Mara lay awake pondering,--wondering if Moses would come +to-morrow, and what he would be like if he did come. + +The next morning as the two girls were wiping breakfast dishes in a room +adjoining the kitchen, a step was heard on the kitchen-floor, and the +first that Mara knew she found herself lifted from the floor in the +arms of a tall dark-eyed young man, who was kissing her just as if he +had a right to. She knew it must be Moses, but it seemed strange as a +dream, for all she had tried to imagine it beforehand. + +He kissed her over and over, and then holding her off at arm's length, +said, "Why, Mara, you have grown to be a beauty!" + +"And what was she, I'd like to know, when you went away, Mr. Moses?" +said Sally, who could not long keep out of a conversation. "She was +handsome when you were only a great ugly boy." + +"Thank you, Miss Sally!" said Moses, making a profound bow. + +"Thank me for what?" said Sally, with a toss. + +"For your intimation that I am a handsome young man now," said Moses, +sitting with his arm around Mara, and her hand in his. + +And in truth he was as handsome now for a man as he was in the promise +of his early childhood. All the oafishness and surly awkwardness of the +half-boy period was gone. His great black eyes were clear and confident: +his dark hair clustering in short curls round his well-shaped head; his +black lashes, and fine form, and a certain confident ease of manner, set +him off to the greatest advantage. + +Mara felt a peculiar dreamy sense of strangeness at this brother who was +not a brother,--this Moses so different from the one she had known. The +very tone of his voice, which when he left had the uncertain cracked +notes which indicate the unformed man, were now mellowed and settled. +Mara regarded him shyly as he talked, blushed uneasily, and drew away +from his arm around her, as if this handsome, self-confident young man +were being too familiar. In fact, she made apology to go out into the +other room to call Mrs. Pennel. + +Moses looked after her as she went with admiration. "What a little woman +she has grown!" he said, naïvely. + +"And what did you expect she would grow?" said Sally. "You didn't expect +to find her a girl in short clothes, did you?" + +"Not exactly, Miss Sally," said Moses, turning his attention to her; +"and some other people are changed too." + +"Like enough," said Sally, carelessly. "I should think so, since +somebody never spoke a word to one the Sunday he was at meeting." + +"Oh, you remember that, do you? On my word, Sally"-- + +"Miss Kittridge, if you please, sir," said Sally, turning round with the +air of an empress. + +"Well, then, Miss Kittridge," said Moses, making a bow; "now let me +finish my sentence. I never dreamed who you were." + +"Complimentary," said Sally, pouting. + +"Well, hear me through," said Moses; "you had grown so handsome, Miss +Kittridge." + +"Oh! that indeed! I suppose you mean to say I was a fright when you +left?" + +"Not at all--not at all," said Moses; "but handsome things may grow +handsomer, you know." + +"I don't like flattery," said Sally. + +"I never flatter, Miss Kittridge," said Moses. + +Our young gentleman and young lady of Orr's Island went through with +this customary little lie of civilized society with as much gravity as +if they were practicing in the court of Versailles,--she looking out +from the corner of her eye to watch the effect of her words, and he +laying his hand on his heart in the most edifying gravity. They +perfectly understood one another. + +But, says the reader, seems to me Sally Kittridge does all the talking! +So she does,--so she always will,--for it is her nature to be bright, +noisy, and restless; and one of these girls always overcrows a timid and +thoughtful one, and makes her, for the time, seem dim and faded, as does +rose color when put beside scarlet. + +Sally was a born coquette. It was as natural for her to want to flirt +with every man she saw, as for a kitten to scamper after a pin-ball. +Does the kitten care a fig for the pin-ball, or the dry leaves, which +she whisks, and frisks, and boxes, and pats, and races round and round +after? No; it's nothing but kittenhood; every hair of her fur is alive +with it. Her sleepy green eyes, when she pretends to be dozing, are full +of it; and though she looks wise a moment, and seems resolved to be a +discreet young cat, let but a leaf sway--off she goes again, with a +frisk and a rap. So, though Sally had scolded and flounced about Moses's +inattention to Mara in advance, she contrived even in this first +interview to keep him talking with nobody but herself;--not because she +wanted to draw him from Mara, or meant to; not because she cared a pin +for him; but because it was her nature, as a frisky young cat. And Moses +let himself be drawn, between bantering and contradicting, and jest and +earnest, at some moments almost to forget that Mara was in the room. + +She took her sewing and sat with a pleased smile, sometimes breaking +into the lively flow of conversation, or eagerly appealed to by both +parties to settle some rising quarrel. + +Once, as they were talking, Moses looked up and saw Mara's head, as a +stray sunbeam falling upon the golden hair seemed to make a halo around +her face. Her large eyes were fixed upon him with an expression so +intense and penetrative, that he felt a sort of wincing uneasiness. +"What makes you look at me so, Mara?" he said, suddenly. + +A bright flush came in her cheek as she answered, "I didn't know I was +looking. It all seems so strange to me. I am trying to make out who and +what you are." + +"It's not best to look too deep," Moses said, laughing, but with a +slight shade of uneasiness. + +When Sally, late in the afternoon, declared that she must go home, she +couldn't stay another minute, Moses rose to go with her. + +"What are you getting up for?" she said to Moses, as he took his hat. + +"To go home with you, to be sure." + +"Nobody asked you to," said Sally. + +"I'm accustomed to asking myself," said Moses. + +"Well, I suppose I must have you along," said Sally. "Father will be +glad to see you, of course." + +"You'll be back to tea, Moses," said Mara, "will you not? Grandfather +will be home, and want to see you." + +"Oh, I shall be right back," said Moses, "I have a little business to +settle with Captain Kittridge." + +But Moses, however, did stay at tea with Mrs. Kittridge, who looked +graciously at him through the bows of her black horn spectacles, having +heard her liege lord observe that Moses was a smart chap, and had done +pretty well in a money way. + +How came he to stay? Sally told him every other minute to go; and then +when he had got fairly out of the door, called him back to tell him that +there was something she had heard about him. And Moses of course came +back; wanted to know what it was; and couldn't be told, it was a secret; +and then he would be ordered off, and reminded that he promised to go +straight home; and then when he got a little farther off she called +after him a second time, to tell him that he would be very much +surprised if he knew how she found it out, etc., etc.,--till at last tea +being ready, there was no reason why he shouldn't have a cup. And so it +was sober moonrise before Moses found himself going home. + +"Hang that girl!" he said to himself; "don't she know what she's about, +though?" + +There our hero was mistaken. Sally never did know what she was +about,--had no plan or purpose more than a blackbird; and when Moses was +gone laughed to think how many times she had made him come back. + +"Now, confound it all," said Moses, "I care more for our little Mara +than a dozen of her; and what have I been fooling all this time +for?--now Mara will think I don't love her." + +And, in fact, our young gentleman rather set his heart on the sensation +he was going to make when he got home. It is flattering, after all, to +feel one's power over a susceptible nature; and Moses, remembering how +entirely and devotedly Mara had loved him all through childhood, never +doubted but he was the sole possessor of uncounted treasure in her +heart, which he could develop at his leisure and use as he pleased. He +did not calculate for one force which had grown up in the meanwhile +between them,--and that was the power of womanhood. He did not know the +intensity of that kind of pride, which is the very life of the female +nature, and which is most vivid and vigorous in the most timid and +retiring. + +Our little Mara was tender, self-devoting, humble, and religious, but +she was woman after all to the tips of her fingers,--quick to feel +slights, and determined with the intensest determination, that no man +should wrest from her one of those few humble rights and privileges, +which Nature allows to woman. Something swelled and trembled in her when +she felt the confident pressure of that bold arm around her waist,--like +the instinct of a wild bird to fly. Something in the deep, manly voice, +the determined, self-confident air, aroused a vague feeling of defiance +and resistance in her which she could scarcely explain to herself. Was +he to assume a right to her in this way without even asking? When he +did not come to tea nor long after, and Mrs. Pennel and her grandfather +wondered, she laughed, and said gayly,-- + +"Oh, he knows he'll have time enough to see me. Sally seems more like a +stranger." + +But when Moses came home after moonrise, determined to go and console +Mara for his absence, he was surprised to hear the sound of a rapid and +pleasant conversation, in which a masculine and feminine voice were +intermingled in a lively duet. Coming a little nearer, he saw Mara +sitting knitting in the doorway, and a very good-looking young man +seated on a stone at her feet, with his straw hat flung on the ground, +while he was looking up into her face, as young men often do into pretty +faces seen by moonlight. Mara rose and introduced Mr. Adams of Boston to +Mr. Moses Pennel. + +Moses measured the young man with his eye as if he could have shot him +with a good will. And his temper was not at all bettered as he observed +that he had the easy air of a man of fashion and culture, and learned by +a few moments of the succeeding conversation, that the acquaintance had +commenced during Mara's winter visit to Boston. + +"I was staying a day or two at Mr. Sewell's," he said, carelessly, "and +the night was so fine I couldn't resist the temptation to row over." + +It was now Moses's turn to listen to a conversation in which he could +bear little part, it being about persons and places and things +unfamiliar to him; and though he could give no earthly reason why the +conversation was not the most proper in the world,--yet he found that it +made him angry. + +In the pauses, Mara inquired, prettily, how he found the Kittridges, and +reproved him playfully for staying, in despite of his promise to come +home. Moses answered with an effort to appear easy and playful, that +there was no reason, it appeared, to hurry on her account, since she +had been so pleasantly engaged. + +"That is true," said Mara, quietly; "but then grandpapa and grandmamma +expected you, and they have gone to bed, as you know they always do +after tea." + +"They'll keep till morning, I suppose," said Moses, rather gruffly. + +"Oh yes; but then as you had been gone two or three months, naturally +they wanted to see a little of you at first." + +The stranger now joined in the conversation, and began talking with +Moses about his experiences in foreign parts, in a manner which showed a +man of sense and breeding. Moses had a jealous fear of people of +breeding,--an apprehension lest they should look down on one whose life +had been laid out of the course of their conventional ideas; and +therefore, though he had sufficient ability and vigor of mind to acquit +himself to advantage in this conversation, it gave him all the while a +secret uneasiness. After a few moments, he rose up moodily, and saying +that he was very much fatigued, he went into the house to retire. + +Mr. Adams rose to go also, and Moses might have felt in a more Christian +frame of mind, had he listened to the last words of the conversation +between him and Mara. + +"Do you remain long in Harpswell?" she asked. + +"That depends on circumstances," he replied. "If I do, may I be +permitted to visit you?" + +"As a friend--yes," said Mara; "I shall always be happy to see you." + +"No more?" + +"No more," replied Mara. + +"I had hoped," he said, "that you would reconsider." + +"It is impossible," said she; and soft voices can pronounce that word, +_impossible_, in a very fateful and decisive manner. + +"Well, God bless you, then, Miss Lincoln," he said, and was gone. + +Mara stood in the doorway and saw him loosen his boat from its moorings +and float off in the moonlight, with a long train of silver sparkles +behind. + +A moment after Moses was looking gloomily over her shoulder. + +"Who is that puppy?" he said. + +"He is not a puppy, but a very fine young man," said Mara. + +"Well, that very fine young man, then?" + +"I thought I told you. He is a Mr. Adams of Boston, and a distant +connection of the Sewells. I met him when I was visiting at Judge +Sewell's in Boston." + +"You seemed to be having a very pleasant time together?" + +"We were," said Mara, quietly. + +"It's a pity I came home as I did. I'm sorry I interrupted you," said +Moses, with a sarcastic laugh. + +"You didn't interrupt us; he had been here almost two hours." + +Now Mara saw plainly enough that Moses was displeased and hurt, and had +it been in the days of her fourteenth summer, she would have thrown her +arms around his neck, and said, "Moses, I don't care a fig for that man, +and I love you better than all the world." But this the young lady of +eighteen would not do; so she wished him good-night very prettily, and +pretended not to see anything about it. + +Mara was as near being a saint as human dust ever is; but--she was a +woman saint; and therefore may be excused for a little gentle +vindictiveness. She was, in a merciful way, rather glad that Moses had +gone to bed dissatisfied, and rather glad that he did not know what she +might have told him--quite resolved that he should not know at present. +Was he to know that she liked nobody so much as him? Not he, unless he +loved her more than all the world, and said so first. Mara was resolved +upon that. He might go where he liked--flirt with whom he liked--come +back as late as he pleased; never would she, by word or look, give him +reason to think she cared. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +DESIRES AND DREAMS + + +Moses passed rather a restless and uneasy night on his return to the +home-roof which had sheltered his childhood. All his life past, and all +his life expected, seemed to boil and seethe and ferment in his +thoughts, and to go round and round in never-ceasing circles before him. + +Moses was _par excellence_ proud, ambitious, and willful. These words, +generally supposed to describe positive vices of the mind, in fact are +only the overaction of certain very valuable portions of our nature, +since one can conceive all three to raise a man immensely in the scale +of moral being, simply by being applied to right objects. He who is too +proud even to admit a mean thought--who is ambitious only of ideal +excellence--who has an inflexible will only in the pursuit of truth and +righteousness--may be a saint and a hero. + +But Moses was neither a saint nor a hero, but an undeveloped chaotic +young man, whose pride made him sensitive and restless; whose ambition +was fixed on wealth and worldly success; whose willfulness was for the +most part a blind determination to compass his own points, with the +leave of Providence or without. There was no God in his estimate of +life--and a sort of secret unsuspected determination at the bottom of +his heart that there should be none. He feared religion, from a +suspicion which he entertained that it might hamper some of his future +schemes. He did not wish to put himself under its rules, lest he might +find them in some future time inconveniently strict. + +With such determinations and feelings, the Bible--necessarily an +excessively uninteresting book to him--he never read, and satisfied +himself with determining in a general way that it was not worth reading, +and, as was the custom with many young men in America at that period, +announced himself as a skeptic, and seemed to value himself not a little +on the distinction. Pride in skepticism is a peculiar distinction of +young men. It takes years and maturity to make the discovery that the +power of faith is nobler than the power of doubt; and that there is a +celestial wisdom in the ingenuous propensity to trust, which belongs to +honest and noble natures. Elderly skeptics generally regard their +unbelief as a misfortune. + +Not that Moses was, after all, without "the angel in him." He had a good +deal of the susceptibility to poetic feeling, the power of vague and +dreamy aspiration, the longing after the good and beautiful, which is +God's witness in the soul. A noble sentiment in poetry, a fine scene in +nature, had power to bring tears in his great dark eyes, and he had, +under the influence of such things, brief inspired moments in which he +vaguely longed to do, or be, something grand or noble. But this, +however, was something apart from the real purpose of his life,--a sort +of voice crying in the wilderness,--to which he gave little heed. +Practically, he was determined with all his might, to have a good time +in this life, whatever another might be,--if there were one; and that he +would do it by the strength of his right arm. Wealth he saw to be the +lamp of Aladdin, which commanded all other things. And the pursuit of +wealth was therefore the first step in his programme. + +As for plans of the heart and domestic life, Moses was one of that very +common class who had more desire to be loved than power of loving. His +cravings and dreams were not for somebody to be devoted to, but for +somebody who should be devoted to him. And, like most people who +possess this characteristic, he mistook it for an affectionate +disposition. + +Now the chief treasure of his heart had always been his little sister +Mara, chiefly from his conviction that he was the one absorbing thought +and love of her heart. He had never figured life to himself otherwise +than with Mara at his side, his unquestioning, devoted friend. Of course +he and his plans, his ways and wants, would always be in the future, as +they always had been, her sole thought. These sleeping partnerships in +the interchange of affection, which support one's heart with a basis of +uncounted wealth, and leave one free to come and go, and buy and sell, +without exaction or interference, are a convenience certainly, and the +loss of them in any way is like the sudden breaking of a bank in which +all one's deposits are laid. + +It had never occurred to Moses how or in what capacity he should always +stand banker to the whole wealth of love that there was in Mara's heart, +and what provision he should make on his part for returning this +incalculable debt. But the interview of this evening had raised a new +thought in his mind. Mara, as he saw that day, was no longer a little +girl in a pink sun-bonnet. She was a woman,--a little one, it is true, +but every inch a woman,--and a woman invested with a singular poetic +charm of appearance, which, more than beauty, has the power of awakening +feeling in the other sex. + +He felt in himself, in the experience of that one day, that there was +something subtle and veiled about her, which set the imagination at +work; that the wistful, plaintive expression of her dark eyes, and a +thousand little shy and tremulous movements of her face, affected him +more than the most brilliant of Sally Kittridge's sprightly sallies. +Yes, there would be people falling in love with her fast enough, he +thought even here, where she is as secluded as a pearl in an +oyster-shell,--it seems means were found to come after her,--and then +all the love of her heart, that priceless love, would go to another. + +Mara would be absorbed in some one else, would love some one else, as he +knew she could, with heart and soul and mind and strength. When he +thought of this, it affected him much as it would if one were turned out +of a warm, smiling apartment into a bleak December storm. What should he +do, if that treasure which he had taken most for granted in all his +valuations of life should suddenly be found to belong to another? Who +was this fellow that seemed so free to visit her, and what had passed +between them? Was Mara in love with him, or going to be? There is no +saying how the consideration of this question enhanced in our hero's +opinion both her beauty and all her other good qualities. + +Such a brave little heart! such a good, clear little head! and such a +pretty hand and foot! She was always so cheerful, so unselfish, so +devoted! When had he ever seen her angry, except when she had taken up +some childish quarrel of his, and fought for him like a little Spartan? +Then she was pious, too. She was born religious, thought our hero, who, +in common with many men professing skepticism for their own particular +part, set a great value on religion in that unknown future person whom +they are fond of designating in advance as "my wife." Yes, Moses meant +his wife should be pious, and pray for him, while he did as he pleased. + +"Now there's that witch of a Sally Kittridge," he said to himself; "I +wouldn't have such a girl for a wife. Nothing to her but foam and +frisk,--no heart more than a bobolink! But isn't she amusing? By George! +isn't she, though?" + +"But," thought Moses, "it's time I settled this matter who is to be my +wife. I won't marry till I'm rich,--that's flat. My wife isn't to rub +and grub. So at it I must go to raise the wind. I wonder if old Sewell +really does know anything about my parents. Miss Emily would have it +that there was some mystery that he had the key of; but I never could +get any thing from him. He always put me off in such a smooth way that I +couldn't tell whether he did or he didn't. But, now, supposing I have +relatives, family connections, then who knows but what there may be +property coming to me? That's an idea worth looking after, surely." + +There's no saying with what vividness ideas and images go through one's +wakeful brain when the midnight moon is making an exact shadow of your +window-sash, with panes of light, on your chamber-floor. How vividly we +all have loved and hated and planned and hoped and feared and desired +and dreamed, as we tossed and turned to and fro upon such watchful, +still nights. In the stillness, the tide upon one side of the Island +replied to the dash on the other side in unbroken symphony, and Moses +began to remember all the stories gossips had told him of how he had +floated ashore there, like a fragment of tropical seaweed borne landward +by a great gale. He positively wondered at himself that he had never +thought of it more, and the more he meditated, the more mysterious and +inexplicable he felt. Then he had heard Miss Roxy once speaking +something about a bracelet, he was sure he had; but afterwards it was +hushed up, and no one seemed to know anything about it when he inquired. +But in those days he was a boy,--he was nobody,--now he was a young man. +He could go to Mr. Sewell, and demand as his right a fair answer to any +questions he might ask. If he found, as was quite likely, that there was +nothing to be known, his mind would be thus far settled,--he should +trust only to his own resources. + +So far as the state of the young man's finances were concerned, it +would be considered in those simple times and regions an auspicious +beginning of life. The sum intrusted to him by Captain Kittridge had +been more than doubled by the liberality of Zephaniah Pennel, and Moses +had traded upon it in foreign parts with a skill and energy that brought +a very fair return, and gave him, in the eyes of the shrewd, thrifty +neighbors, the prestige of a young man who was marked for success in the +world. + +He had already formed an advantageous arrangement with his grandfather +and Captain Kittridge, by which a ship was to be built, which he should +command, and thus the old Saturday afternoon dream of their childhood be +fulfilled. As he thought of it, there arose in his mind a picture of +Mara, with her golden hair and plaintive eyes and little white hands, +reigning as a fairy queen in the captain's cabin, with a sort of wish to +carry her off and make sure that no one else ever should get her from +him. + +But these midnight dreams were all sobered down by the plain +matter-of-fact beams of the morning sun, and nothing remained of +immediate definite purpose except the resolve, which came strongly upon +Moses as he looked across the blue band of Harpswell Bay, that he would +go that morning and have a talk with Mr. Sewell. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +MISS EMILY + + +Miss Roxy Toothache was seated by the window of the little keeping-room +where Miss Emily Sewell sat on every-day occasions. Around her were the +insignia of her power and sway. Her big tailor's goose was heating +between Miss Emily's bright brass fire-irons; her great pin-cushion was +by her side, bristling with pins of all sizes, and with broken needles +thriftily made into pins by heads of red sealing-wax, and with needles +threaded with all varieties of cotton, silk, and linen; her scissors +hung martially by her side; her black bombazette work-apron was on; and +the expression of her iron features was that of deep responsibility, for +she was making the minister a new Sunday vest! + +The good soul looks not a day older than when we left her, ten years +ago. Like the gray, weather-beaten rocks of her native shore, her strong +features had an unchangeable identity beyond that of anything fair and +blooming. There was of course no chance for a gray streak in her stiff, +uncompromising mohair frisette, which still pushed up her cap-border +bristlingly as of old, and the clear, high winds and bracing atmosphere +of that rough coast kept her in an admirable state of preservation. + +Miss Emily had now and then a white hair among her soft, pretty brown +ones, and looked a little thinner; but the round, bright spot of bloom +on each cheek was there just as of yore,--and just as of yore she was +thinking of her brother, and filling her little head with endless +calculations to keep him looking fresh and respectable, and his +housekeeping comfortable and easy, on very limited means. She was now +officiously and anxiously attending on Miss Roxy, who was in the midst +of the responsible operation which should conduce greatly to this end. + +"Does that twist work well?" she said, nervously; "because I believe +I've got some other upstairs in my India box." + +Miss Roxy surveyed the article; bit a fragment off, as if she meant to +taste it; threaded a needle and made a few cabalistical stitches; and +then pronounced, _ex cathedrâ_, that it would do. Miss Emily gave a sigh +of relief. After buttons and tapes and linings, and various other items +had been also discussed, the conversation began to flow into general +channels. + +"Did you know Moses Pennel had got home from Umbagog?" said Miss Roxy. + +"Yes. Captain Kittridge told brother so this morning. I wonder he +doesn't call over to see us." + +"Your brother took a sight of interest in that boy," said Miss Roxy. "I +was saying to Ruey, this morning, that if Moses Pennel ever did turn out +well, he ought to have a large share of the credit." + +"Brother always did feel a peculiar interest in him; it was such a +strange providence that seemed to cast in his lot among us," said Miss +Emily. + +"As sure as you live, there he is a-coming to the front door," said Miss +Roxy. + +"Dear me," said Miss Emily, "and here I have on this old faded chintz. +Just so sure as one puts on any old rag, and thinks nobody will come, +company is sure to call." + +"Law, I'm sure I shouldn't think of calling him company," said Miss +Roxy. + +A rap at the door put an end to this conversation, and very soon Miss +Emily introduced our hero into the little sitting-room, in the midst of +a perfect stream of apologies relating to her old dress and the +littered condition of the sitting-room, for Miss Emily held to the +doctrine of those who consider any sign of human occupation and +existence in a room as being disorder--however reputable and respectable +be the cause of it. + +"Well, really," she said, after she had seated Moses by the fire, "how +time does pass, to be sure; it don't seem more than yesterday since you +used to come with your Latin books, and now here you are a grown man! I +must run and tell Mr. Sewell. He will be so glad to see you." + +Mr. Sewell soon appeared from his study in morning-gown and slippers, +and seemed heartily responsive to the proposition which Moses soon made +to him to have some private conversation with him in his study. + +"I declare," said Miss Emily, as soon as the study-door had closed upon +her brother and Moses, "what a handsome young man he is! and what a +beautiful way he has with him!--so deferential! A great many young men +nowadays seem to think nothing of their minister; but he comes to seek +advice. Very proper. It isn't every young man that appreciates the +privilege of having elderly friends. I declare, what a beautiful couple +he and Mara Lincoln would make! Don't Providence seem in a peculiar way +to have designed them for each other?" + +"I hope not," said Miss Roxy, with her grimmest expression. + +"You don't! Why not?" + +"I never liked him," said Miss Roxy, who had possessed herself of her +great heavy goose, and was now thumping and squeaking it emphatically on +the press-board. "She's a thousand times too good for Moses +Pennel,"--thump. "I ne'er had no faith in him,"--thump. "He's dreffle +unstiddy,"--thump. "He's handsome, but he knows it,"--thump. "He won't +never love nobody so much as he does himself,"--thump, _fortissimo con +spirito_. + +"Well, really now, Miss Roxy, you mustn't always remember the sins of +his youth. Boys must sow their wild oats. He was unsteady for a while, +but now everybody says he's doing well; and as to his knowing he's +handsome, and all that, I don't see as he does. See how polite and +deferential he was to us all, this morning; and he spoke so handsomely +to you." + +"I don't want none of his politeness," said Miss Roxy, inexorably; "and +as to Mara Lincoln, she might have better than him any day. Miss Badger +was a-tellin' Captain Brown, Sunday noon, that she was very much admired +in Boston." + +"So she was," said Miss Emily, bridling. "I never reveal secrets, or I +might tell something,--but there has been a young man,--but I promised +not to speak of it, and I sha'n't." + +"If you mean Mr. Adams," said Miss Roxy, "you needn't worry about +keepin' that secret, 'cause that ar was all talked over atween meetin's +a-Sunday noon; for Mis' Kittridge she used to know his aunt Jerushy, her +that married Solomon Peters, and Mis' Captain Badger she says that he +has a very good property, and is a professor in the Old South church in +Boston." + +"Dear me," said Miss Emily, "how things do get about!" + +"People will talk, there ain't no use trying to help it," said Miss +Roxy; "but it's strongly borne in on my mind that it ain't Adams, nor 't +ain't Moses Pennel that's to marry her. I've had peculiar exercises of +mind about that ar child,--well I have;" and Miss Roxy pulled a large +spotted bandanna handkerchief out of her pocket, and blew her nose like +a trumpet, and then wiped the withered corners of her eyes, which were +humid as some old Orr's Island rock wet with sea-spray. + +Miss Emily had a secret love of romancing. It was one of the +recreations of her quiet, monotonous life to build air-castles, which +she furnished regardless of expense, and in which she set up at +housekeeping her various friends and acquaintances, and she had always +been bent on weaving a romance on the history of Mara and Moses Pennel. +The good little body had done her best to second Mr. Sewell's attempts +toward the education of the children. It was little busy Miss Emily who +persuaded honest Zephaniah and Mary Pennel that talents such as Mara's +ought to be cultivated, and that ended in sending her to Miss Plucher's +school in Portland. There her artistic faculties were trained into +creating funereal monuments out of chenille embroidery, fully equal to +Miss Emily's own; also to painting landscapes, in which the ground and +all the trees were one unvarying tint of blue-green; and also to +creating flowers of a new and particular construction, which, as Sally +Kittridge remarked, were pretty, but did not look like anything in +heaven or earth. Mara had obediently and patiently done all these +things; and solaced herself with copying flowers and birds and +landscapes as near as possible like nature, as a recreation from these +more dignified toils. + +Miss Emily also had been the means of getting Mara invited to Boston, +where she saw some really polished society, and gained as much knowledge +of the forms of artificial life as a nature so wholly and strongly +individual could obtain. So little Miss Emily regarded Mara as her +godchild, and was intent on finishing her up into a romance in real +life, of which a handsome young man, who had been washed ashore in a +shipwreck, should be the hero. + +What would she have said could she have heard the conversation that was +passing in her brother's study? Little could she dream that the mystery, +about which she had timidly nibbled for years, was now about to be +unrolled;--but it was even so. But, upon what she does not see, good +reader, you and I, following invisibly on tiptoe, will make our +observations. + +When Moses was first ushered into Mr. Sewell's study, and found himself +quite alone, with the door shut, his heart beat so that he fancied the +good man must hear it. He knew well what he wanted and meant to say, but +he found in himself all that shrinking and nervous repugnance which +always attends the proposing of any decisive question. + +"I thought it proper," he began, "that I should call and express my +sense of obligation to you, sir, for all the kindness you showed me when +a boy. I'm afraid in those thoughtless days I did not seem to appreciate +it so much as I do now." + +As Moses said this, the color rose in his cheeks, and his fine eyes grew +moist with a sort of subdued feeling that made his face for the moment +more than usually beautiful. + +Mr. Sewell looked at him with an expression of peculiar interest, which +seemed to have something almost of pain in it, and answered with a +degree of feeling more than he commonly showed,-- + +"It has been a pleasure to me to do anything I could for you, my young +friend. I only wish it could have been more. I congratulate you on your +present prospects in life. You have perfect health; you have energy and +enterprise; you are courageous and self-reliant, and, I trust, your +habits are pure and virtuous. It only remains that you add to all this +that fear of the Lord which is the beginning of wisdom." + +Moses bowed his head respectfully, and then sat silent a moment, as if +he were looking through some cloud where he vainly tried to discover +objects. + +Mr. Sewell continued, gravely,-- + +"You have the greatest reason to bless the kind Providence which has +cast your lot in such a family, in such a community. I have had some +means in my youth of comparing other parts of the country with our New +England, and it is my opinion that a young man could not ask a better +introduction into life than the wholesome nurture of a Christian family +in our favored land." + +"Mr. Sewell," said Moses, raising his head, and suddenly looking him +straight in the eyes, "do you know anything of my family?" + +The question was so point-blank and sudden, that for a moment Mr. Sewell +made a sort of motion as if he dodged a pistol-shot, and then his face +assumed an expression of grave thoughtfulness, while Moses drew a long +breath. It was out,--the question had been asked. + +"My son," replied Mr. Sewell, "it has always been my intention, when you +had arrived at years of discretion, to make you acquainted with all that +I know or suspect in regard to your life. I trust that when I tell you +all I do know, you will see that I have acted for the best in the +matter. It has been my study and my prayer to do so." + +Mr. Sewell then rose, and unlocking the cabinet, of which we have before +made mention, in his apartment, drew forth a very yellow and time-worn +package of papers, which he untied. From these he selected one which +enveloped an old-fashioned miniature case. + +"I am going to show you," he said, "what only you and my God know that I +possess. I have not looked at it now for ten years, but I have no doubt +that it is the likeness of your mother." + +Moses took it in his hand, and for a few moments there came a mist over +his eyes,--he could not see clearly. He walked to the window as if +needing a clearer light. + +What he saw was a painting of a beautiful young girl, with large +melancholy eyes, and a clustering abundance of black, curly hair. The +face was of a beautiful, clear oval, with that warm brunette tint in +which the Italian painters delight. The black eyebrows were strongly +and clearly defined, and there was in the face an indescribable +expression of childish innocence and shyness, mingled with a kind of +confiding frankness, that gave the picture the charm which sometimes +fixes itself in faces for which we involuntarily make a history. She was +represented as simply attired in a white muslin, made low in the neck, +and the hands and arms were singularly beautiful. The picture, as Moses +looked at it, seemed to stand smiling at him with a childish grace,--a +tender, ignorant innocence which affected him deeply. + +"My young friend," said Mr. Sewell, "I have written all that I know of +the original of this picture, and the reasons I have for thinking her +your mother. + +"You will find it all in this paper, which, if I had been providentially +removed, was to have been given you in your twenty-first year. You will +see in the delicate nature of the narrative that it could not properly +have been imparted to you till you had arrived at years of +understanding. I trust when you know all that you will be satisfied with +the course I have pursued. You will read it at your leisure, and after +reading I shall be happy to see you again." + +Moses took the package, and after exchanging salutations with Mr. +Sewell, hastily left the house and sought his boat. + +When one has suddenly come into possession of a letter or paper in which +is known to be hidden the solution of some long-pondered secret, of the +decision of fate with regard to some long-cherished desire, who has not +been conscious of a sort of pain,--an unwillingness at once to know what +is therein? We turn the letter again and again, we lay it by and return +to it, and defer from moment to moment the opening of it. So Moses did +not sit down in the first retired spot to ponder the paper. He put it +in the breast pocket of his coat, and then, taking up his oars, rowed +across the bay. He did not land at the house, but passed around the +south point of the Island, and rowed up the other side to seek a +solitary retreat in the rocks, which had always been a favorite with him +in his early days. + +The shores of the Island, as we have said, are a precipitous wall of +rock, whose long, ribbed ledges extend far out into the sea. At high +tide these ledges are covered with the smooth blue sea quite up to the +precipitous shore. There was a place, however, where the rocky shore +shelved over, forming between two ledges a sort of grotto, whose smooth +floor of shells and many-colored pebbles was never wet by the rising +tide. It had been the delight of Moses when a boy, to come here and +watch the gradual rise of the tide till the grotto was entirely cut off +from all approach, and then to look out in a sort of hermit-like +security over the open ocean that stretched before him. Many an hour he +had sat there and dreamed of all the possible fortunes that might be +found for him when he should launch away into that blue smiling +futurity. + +It was now about half-tide, and Moses left his boat and made his way +over the ledge of rocks toward his retreat. They were all shaggy and +slippery with yellow seaweeds, with here and there among them wide +crystal pools, where purple and lilac and green mosses unfolded their +delicate threads, and thousands of curious little shell-fish were +tranquilly pursuing their quiet life. The rocks where the pellucid water +lay were in some places crusted with barnacles, which were opening and +shutting the little white scaly doors of their tiny houses, and drawing +in and out those delicate pink plumes which seem to be their nerves of +enjoyment. Moses and Mara had rambled and played here many hours of +their childhood, amusing themselves with catching crabs and young +lobsters and various little fish for these rocky aquariums, and then +studying at their leisure their various ways. Now he had come hither a +man, to learn the secret of his life. + +Moses stretched himself down on the clean pebbly shore of the grotto, +and drew forth Mr. Sewell's letter. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +DOLORES + + +Mr. Sewell's letter ran as follows:-- + +MY DEAR YOUNG FRIEND,--It has always been my intention when you arrived +at years of maturity to acquaint you with some circumstances which have +given me reason to conjecture your true parentage, and to let you know +what steps I have taken to satisfy my own mind in relation to these +conjectures. In order to do this, it will be necessary for me to go back +to the earlier years of my life, and give you the history of some +incidents which are known to none of my most intimate friends. I trust I +may rely on your honor that they will ever remain as secrets with you. + +I graduated from Harvard University in ----. At the time I was suffering +somewhat from an affection of the lungs, which occasioned great alarm to +my mother, many of whose family had died of consumption. In order to +allay her uneasiness, and also for the purpose of raising funds for the +pursuit of my professional studies, I accepted a position as tutor in +the family of a wealthy gentleman at St. Augustine, in Florida. + +I cannot do justice to myself,--to the motives which actuated me in the +events which took place in this family, without speaking with the most +undisguised freedom of the character of all the parties with whom I was +connected. + +Don José Mendoza was a Spanish gentleman of large property, who had +emigrated from the Spanish West Indies to Florida, bringing with him an +only daughter, who had been left an orphan by the death of her mother +at a very early age. He brought to this country a large number of +slaves;--and shortly after his arrival, married an American lady: a +widow with three children. By her he had four other children. And thus +it will appear that the family was made up of such a variety of elements +as only the most judicious care could harmonize. But the character of +the father and mother was such that judicious care was a thing not to be +expected of either. + +Don José was extremely ignorant and proud, and had lived a life of the +grossest dissipation. Habits of absolute authority in the midst of a +community of a very low moral standard had produced in him all the worst +vices of despots. He was cruel, overbearing, and dreadfully passionate. +His wife was a woman who had pretensions to beauty, and at times could +make herself agreeable, and even fascinating, but she was possessed of a +temper quite as violent and ungoverned as his own. + +Imagine now two classes of slaves, the one belonging to the mistress, +and the other brought into the country by the master, and each animated +by a party spirit and jealousy;--imagine children of different +marriages, inheriting from their parents violent tempers and stubborn +wills, flattered and fawned on by slaves, and alternately petted or +stormed at, now by this parent and now by that, and you will have some +idea of the task which I undertook in being tutor in this family. + +I was young and fearless in those days, as you are now, and the +difficulties of the position, instead of exciting apprehension, only +awakened the spirit of enterprise and adventure. + +The whole arrangements of the household, to me fresh from the simplicity +and order of New England, had a singular and wild sort of novelty which +was attractive rather than otherwise. I was well recommended in the +family by an influential and wealthy gentleman of Boston, who +represented my family, as indeed it was, as among the oldest and most +respectable of Boston, and spoke in such terms of me, personally, as I +should not have ventured to use in relation to myself. When I arrived, I +found that two or three tutors, who had endeavored to bear rule in this +tempestuous family, had thrown up the command after a short trial, and +that the parents felt some little apprehension of not being able to +secure the services of another,--a circumstance which I did not fail to +improve in making my preliminary arrangements. I assumed an air of grave +hauteur, was very exacting in all my requisitions and stipulations, and +would give no promise of doing more than to give the situation a +temporary trial. I put on an air of supreme indifference as to my +continuance, and acted in fact rather on the assumption that I should +confer a favor by remaining. + +In this way I succeeded in obtaining at the outset a position of more +respect and deference than had been enjoyed by any of my predecessors. I +had a fine apartment, a servant exclusively devoted to me, a horse for +riding, and saw myself treated among the servants as a person of +consideration and distinction. + +Don José and his wife both had in fact a very strong desire to retain my +services, when after the trial of a week or two, it was found that I +really could make their discordant and turbulent children to some extent +obedient and studious during certain portions of the day; and in fact I +soon acquired in the whole family that ascendancy which a well-bred +person who respects himself, and can keep his temper, must have over +passionate and undisciplined natures. + +I became the receptacle of the complaints of all, and a sort of +confidential adviser. Don José imparted to me with more frankness than +good taste his chagrins with regard to his wife's indolence, +ill-temper, and bad management, and his wife in turn omitted no +opportunity to vent complaints against her husband for similar reasons. +I endeavored, to the best of my ability, to act a friendly part by both. +It never was in my nature to see anything that needed to be done without +trying to do it, and it was impossible to work at all without becoming +so interested in my work as to do far more than I had agreed to do. I +assisted Don José about many of his affairs; brought his neglected +accounts into order; and suggested from time to time arrangements which +relieved the difficulties which had been brought on by disorder and +neglect. In fact, I became, as he said, quite a necessary of life to +him. + +In regard to the children, I had a more difficult task. The children of +Don José by his present wife had been systematically stimulated by the +negroes into a chronic habit of dislike and jealousy toward her children +by a former husband. On the slightest pretext, they were constantly +running to their father with complaints; and as the mother warmly +espoused the cause of her first children, criminations and +recriminations often convulsed the whole family. + +In ill-regulated families in that region, the care of the children is +from the first in the hands of half-barbarized negroes, whose power of +moulding and assimilating childish minds is peculiar, so that the +teacher has to contend constantly with a savage element in the children +which seems to have been drawn in with the mother's milk. It is, in a +modified way, something the same result as if the child had formed its +manners in Dahomey or on the coast of Guinea. In the fierce quarrels +which were carried on between the children of this family, I had +frequent occasion to observe this strange, savage element, which +sometimes led to expressions and actions which would seem incredible in +civilized society. + +The three children by Madame Mendoza's former husband were two girls of +sixteen and eighteen and a boy of fourteen. The four children of the +second marriage consisted of three boys and a daughter,--the eldest +being not more than thirteen. + +The natural capacity of all the children was good, although, from +self-will and indolence, they had grown up in a degree of ignorance +which could not have been tolerated except in a family living an +isolated plantation life in the midst of barbarized dependents. Savage +and untaught and passionate as they were, the work of teaching them was +not without its interest to me. A power of control was with me a natural +gift; and then that command of temper which is the common attribute of +well-trained persons in the Northern states, was something so singular +in this family as to invest its possessor with a certain awe; and my +calm, energetic voice, and determined manner, often acted as a charm on +their stormy natures. + +But there was one member of the family of whom I have not yet +spoken,--and yet all this letter is about her,--the daughter of Don José +by his first marriage. Poor Dolores! poor child! God grant she may have +entered into his rest! + +I need not describe her. You have seen her picture. And in the wild, +rude, discordant family, she always reminded me of the words, "a lily +among thorns." She was in her nature unlike all the rest, and, I may +say, unlike any one I ever saw. She seemed to live a lonely kind of life +in this disorderly household, often marked out as the object of the +spites and petty tyrannies of both parties. She was regarded with bitter +hatred and jealousy by Madame Mendoza, who was sure to visit her with +unsparing bitterness and cruelty after the occasional demonstrations of +fondness she received from her father. Her exquisite beauty and the +gentle softness of her manners made her such a contrast to her sisters +as constantly excited their ill-will. Unlike them all, she was +fastidiously neat in her personal habits, and orderly in all the little +arrangements of life. + +She seemed to me in this family to be like some shy, beautiful pet +creature in the hands of rude, unappreciated owners, hunted from quarter +to quarter, and finding rest only by stealth. Yet she seemed to have no +perception of the harshness and cruelty with which she was treated. She +had grown up with it; it was the habit of her life to study peaceable +methods of averting or avoiding the various inconveniences and +annoyances of her lot, and secure to herself a little quiet. + +It not unfrequently happened, amid the cabals and storms which shook the +family, that one party or the other took up and patronized Dolores for a +while, more, as it would appear, out of hatred for the other than any +real love to her. At such times it was really affecting to see with what +warmth the poor child would receive these equivocal demonstrations of +good-will--the nearest approaches to affection which she had ever +known--and the bitterness with which she would mourn when they were +capriciously withdrawn again. With a heart full of affection, she +reminded me of some delicate, climbing plant trying vainly to ascend the +slippery side of an inhospitable wall, and throwing its neglected +tendrils around every weed for support. + +Her only fast, unfailing friend was her old negro nurse, or Mammy, as +the children called her. This old creature, with the cunning and +subtlety which had grown up from years of servitude, watched and waited +upon the interests of her little mistress, and contrived to carry many +points for her in the confused household. Her young mistress was her one +thought and purpose in living. She would have gone through fire and +water to serve her; and this faithful, devoted heart, blind and +ignorant though it were, was the only unfailing refuge and solace of the +poor hunted child. + +Dolores, of course, became my pupil among the rest. Like the others, she +had suffered by the neglect and interruptions in the education of the +family, but she was intelligent and docile, and learned with a +surprising rapidity. It was not astonishing that she should soon have +formed an enthusiastic attachment to me, as I was the only intelligent, +cultivated person she had ever seen, and treated her with unvarying +consideration and delicacy. The poor thing had been so accustomed to +barbarous words and manners that simple politeness and the usages of +good society seemed to her cause for the most boundless gratitude. + +It is due to myself, in view of what follows, to say that I was from the +first aware of the very obvious danger which lay in my path in finding +myself brought into close and daily relations with a young creature so +confiding, so attractive, and so singularly circumstanced. I knew that +it would be in the highest degree dishonorable to make the slightest +advances toward gaining from her that kind of affection which might +interfere with her happiness in such future relations as her father +might arrange for her. According to the European fashion, I know that +Dolores was in her father's hands, to be disposed of for life according +to his pleasure, as absolutely as if she had been one of his slaves. I +had every reason to think that his plans on this subject were matured, +and only waited for a little more teaching and training on my part, and +her fuller development in womanhood, to be announced to her. + +In looking back over the past, therefore, I have not to reproach myself +with any dishonest and dishonorable breach of trust; for I was from the +first upon my guard, and so much so that even the jealousy my other +scholars never accused me of partiality. I was not in the habit of +giving very warm praise, and was in my general management anxious +rather to be just than conciliatory, knowing that with the kind of +spirits I had to deal with, firmness and justice went farther than +anything else. If I approved Dolores oftener than the rest, it was seen +to be because she never failed in a duty; if I spent more time with her +lessons, it was because her enthusiasm for study led her to learn longer +ones and study more things; but I am sure there was never a look or a +word toward her that went beyond the proprieties of my position. + +But yet I could not so well guard my heart. I was young and full of +feeling. She was beautiful; and more than that, there was something in +her Spanish nature at once so warm and simple, so artless and yet so +unconsciously poetic, that her presence was a continual charm. How well +I remember her now,--all her little ways,--the movements of her pretty +little hands,--the expression of her changeful face as she recited to +me,--the grave, rapt earnestness with which she listened to all my +instructions! + +I had not been with her many weeks before I felt conscious that it was +her presence that charmed the whole house, and made the otherwise +perplexing and distasteful details of my situation agreeable. I had a +dim perception that this growing passion was a dangerous thing for +myself; but was it a reason, I asked, why I should relinquish a position +in which I felt that I was useful, and when I could do for this lovely +child what no one else could do? I call her a child,--she always +impressed me as such,--though she was in her sixteenth year and had the +early womanly development of Southern climates. She seemed to me like +something frail and precious, needing to be guarded and cared for; and +when reason told me that I risked my own happiness in holding my +position, love argued on the other hand that I was her only friend, and +that I should be willing to risk something myself for the sake of +protecting and shielding her. For there was no doubt that my presence in +the family was a restraint upon the passions which formerly vented +themselves so recklessly on her, and established a sort of order in +which she found more peace than she had ever known before. + +For a long time in our intercourse I was in the habit of looking on +myself as the only party in danger. It did not occur to me that this +heart, so beautiful and so lonely, might, in the want of all natural and +appropriate objects of attachment, fasten itself on me unsolicited, from +the mere necessity of loving. She seemed to me so much too beautiful, +too perfect, to belong to a lot in life like mine, that I could not +suppose it possible this could occur without the most blameworthy +solicitation on my part; and it is the saddest and most affecting proof +to me how this poor child had been starved for sympathy and love, that +she should have repaid such cold services as mine with such an entire +devotion. At first her feelings were expressed openly toward me, with +the dutiful air of a good child. She placed flowers on my desk in the +morning, and made quaint little nosegays in the Spanish fashion, which +she gave me, and busied her leisure with various ingenious little +knick-knacks of fancy work, which she brought me. I treated them all as +the offerings of a child while with her, but I kept them sacredly in my +own room. To tell the truth, I have some of the poor little things now. + +But after a while I could not help seeing how she loved me; and then I +felt as if I ought to go; but how could I? The pain to myself I could +have borne; but how could I leave her to all the misery of her bleak, +ungenial position? She, poor thing, was so unconscious of what I +knew,--for I was made clear-sighted by love. I tried the more strictly +to keep to the path I had marked out for myself, but I fear I did not +always do it; in fact, many things seemed to conspire to throw us +together. The sisters, who were sometimes invited out to visit on +neighboring estates, were glad enough to dispense with the presence and +attractions of Dolores, and so she was frequently left at home to study +with me in their absence. As to Don José, although he always treated me +with civility, yet he had such an ingrained and deep-rooted idea of his +own superiority of position, that I suppose he would as soon have +imagined the possibility of his daughter's falling in love with one of +his horses. I was a great convenience to him. I had a knack of governing +and carrying points in his family that it had always troubled and +fatigued him to endeavor to arrange,--and that was all. So that my +intercourse with Dolores was as free and unwatched, and gave me as many +opportunities of enjoying her undisturbed society, as heart could +desire. + +At last came the crisis, however. After breakfast one morning, Don José +called Dolores into his library and announced to her that he had +concluded for her a treaty of marriage, and expected her husband to +arrive in a few days. He expected that this news would be received by +her with the glee with which a young girl hears of a new dress or of a +ball-ticket, and was quite confounded at the grave and mournful silence +in which she received it. She said no word, made no opposition, but went +out from the room and shut herself up in her own apartment, and spent +the day in tears and sobs. + +Don José, who had rather a greater regard for Dolores than for any +creature living, and who had confidently expected to give great delight +by the news he had imparted, was quite confounded by this turn of +things. If there had been one word of either expostulation or argument, +he would have blazed and stormed in a fury of passion; but as it was, +this broken-hearted submission, though vexatious, was perplexing. He +sent for me, and opened his mind, and begged me to talk with Dolores +and show her the advantages of the alliance, which the poor foolish +child, he said, did not seem to comprehend. The man was immensely rich, +and had a splendid estate in Cuba. It was a most desirable thing. + +I ventured to inquire whether his person and manners were such as would +be pleasing to a young girl, and could gather only that he was a man of +about fifty, who had been most of his life in the military service, and +was now desirous of making an establishment for the repose of his latter +days, at the head of which he would place a handsome and tractable +woman, and do well by her. + +I represented that it would perhaps be safer to say no more on the +subject until Dolores had seen him, and to this he agreed. Madame +Mendoza was very zealous in the affair, for the sake of getting clear of +the presence of Dolores in the family, and her sisters laughed at her +for her dejected appearance. They only wished, they said, that so much +luck might happen to them. For myself, I endeavored to take as little +notice as possible of the affair, though what I felt may be conjectured. +I knew,--I was perfectly certain,--that Dolores loved me as I loved her. +I knew that she had one of those simple and unworldly natures which +wealth and splendor could not satisfy, and whose life would lie entirely +in her affections. Sometimes I violently debated with myself whether +honor required me to sacrifice her happiness as well as my own, and I +felt the strongest temptation to ask her to be my wife and fly with me +to the Northern states, where I did not doubt my ability to make for her +a humble and happy home. + +But the sense of honor is often stronger than all reasoning, and I felt +that such a course would be the betrayal of a trust; and I determined at +least to command myself till I should see the character of the man who +was destined to be her husband. + +Meanwhile the whole manner of Dolores was changed. She maintained a +stony, gloomy silence, performed all her duties in a listless way, and +occasionally, when I commented on anything in her lessons or exercises, +would break into little flashes of petulance, most strange and unnatural +in her. Sometimes I could feel that she was looking at me earnestly, but +if I turned my eyes toward her, hers were instantly averted; but there +was in her eyes a peculiar expression at times, such as I have seen in +the eye of a hunted animal when it turned at bay,--a sort of desperate +resistance,--which, taken in connection with her fragile form and lovely +face, produced a mournful impression. + +One morning I found Dolores sitting alone in the schoolroom, leaning her +head on her arms. She had on her wrist a bracelet of peculiar +workmanship, which she always wore,--the bracelet which was afterwards +the means of confirming her identity. She sat thus some moments in +silence, and then she raised her head and began turning this bracelet +round and round upon her arm, while she looked fixedly before her. At +last she spoke abruptly, and said,-- + +"Did I ever tell you that this was _my mother's_ hair? It is my mother's +hair,--and she was the only one that ever loved me; except poor old +Mammy, nobody else loves me,--nobody ever will." + +"My dear Miss Dolores," I began. + +"Don't call me dear," she said; "you don't care for me,--nobody +does,--papa doesn't, and I always loved him; everybody in the house +wants to get rid of me, whether I like to go or not. I have always tried +to be good and do all you wanted, and I should think _you_ might care +for me a little, but you don't." + +"Dolores," I said, "I do care for you more than I do for any one in the +world; I love you more than my own soul." + +These were the very words I never meant to say, but somehow they seemed +to utter themselves against my will. She looked at me for a moment as if +she could not believe her hearing, and then the blood flushed her face, +and she laid her head down on her arms. + +At this moment Madame Mendoza and the other girls came into the room in +a clamor of admiration about a diamond bracelet which had just arrived +as a present from her future husband. It was a splendid thing, and had +for its clasp his miniature, surrounded by the largest brilliants. + +The enthusiasm of the party even at this moment could not say anything +in favor of the beauty of this miniature, which, though painted on +ivory, gave the impression of a coarse-featured man, with a scar across +one eye. + +"No matter for the beauty," said one of the girls, "so long as it is set +with such diamonds." + +"Come, Dolores," said another, giving her the present, "pull off that +old hair bracelet, and try this on." + +Dolores threw the diamond bracelet from her with a vehemence so unlike +her gentle self as to startle every one. + +"I shall not take off my mother's bracelet for a gift from a man I never +knew," she said. "I hate diamonds. I wish those who like such things +might have them." + +"Was ever anything so odd?" said Madame Mendoza. + +"Dolores always was odd," said another of the girls; "nobody ever could +tell what she would like." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +HIDDEN THINGS + + +The next day Señor Don Guzman de Cardona arrived, and the whole house +was in a commotion of excitement. There was to be no school, and +everything was bustle and confusion. I passed my time in my own room in +reflecting severely upon myself for the imprudent words by which I had +thrown one more difficulty in the way of this poor harassed child. + +Dolores this day seemed perfectly passive in the hands of her mother and +sisters, who appeared disposed to show her great attention. She allowed +them to array her in her most becoming dress, and made no objection to +anything except removing the bracelet from her arm. "Nobody's gifts +should take the place of her mother's," she said, and they were obliged +to be content with her wearing of the diamond bracelet on the other arm. + +Don Guzman was a large, plethoric man, with coarse features and heavy +gait. Besides the scar I have spoken of, his face was adorned here and +there with pimples, which were not set down in the miniature. In the +course of the first hour's study, I saw him to be a man of much the same +stamp as Dolores's father--sensual, tyrannical, passionate. He seemed in +his own way to be much struck with the beauty of his intended wife, and +was not wanting in efforts to please her. All that I could see in her +was the settled, passive paleness of despair. She played, sang, +exhibited her embroidery and painting, at the command of Madame Mendoza, +with the air of an automaton; and Don Guzman remarked to her father on +the passive obedience as a proper and hopeful trait. Once only when he, +in presenting her a flower, took the liberty of kissing her cheek, did I +observe the flashing of her eye and a movement of disgust and +impatience, that she seemed scarcely able to restrain. + +The marriage was announced to take place the next week, and a holiday +was declared through the house. Nothing was talked of or discussed but +the _corbeille de mariage_ which the bridegroom had brought--the +dresses, laces, sets of jewels, and cashmere shawls. Dolores never had +been treated with such attention by the family in her life. She rose +immeasurably in the eyes of all as the future possessor of such wealth +and such an establishment as awaited her. Madame Mendoza had visions of +future visits in Cuba rising before her mind, and overwhelmed her +daughter-in-law with flatteries and caresses, which she received in the +same passive silence as she did everything else. + +For my own part, I tried to keep entirely by myself. I remained in my +room reading, and took my daily rides, accompanied by my servant--seeing +Dolores only at mealtimes, when I scarcely ventured to look at her. One +night, however, as I was walking through a lonely part of the garden, +Dolores suddenly stepped out from the shrubbery and stood before me. It +was bright moonlight, by which her face and person were distinctly +shown. How well I remember her as she looked then! She was dressed in +white muslin, as she was fond of being, but it had been torn and +disordered by the haste with which she had come through the shrubbery. +Her face was fearfully pale, and her great, dark eyes had an unnatural +brightness. She laid hold on my arm. + +"Look here," she said, "I saw you and came down to speak with you." + +She panted and trembled, so that for some moments she could not speak +another word. "I want to ask you," she gasped, after a pause, "whether I +heard you right? Did you say"-- + +"Yes, Dolores, you did. I did say what I had no right to say, like a +dishonorable man." + +"But is it true? Are you sure it is true?" she said, scarcely seeming to +hear my words. + +"God knows it is," said I despairingly. + +"Then why don't you save me? Why do you let them sell me to this +dreadful man? He don't love me--he never will. Can't you take me away?" + +"Dolores, I am a poor man. I cannot give you any of these splendors your +father desires for you." + +"Do you think I care for them? I love you more than all the world +together. And if you do really love me, why should we not be happy with +each other?" + +"Dolores," I said, with a last effort to keep calm, "I am much older +than you, and know the world, and ought not to take advantage of your +simplicity. You have been so accustomed to abundant wealth and all it +can give, that you cannot form an idea of what the hardships and +discomforts of marrying a poor man would be. You are unused to having +the least care, or making the least exertion for yourself. All the world +would say that I acted a very dishonorable part to take you from a +position which offers you wealth, splendor, and ease, to one of +comparative hardship. Perhaps some day you would think so yourself." + +While I was speaking, Dolores turned me toward the moonlight, and fixed +her great dark eyes piercingly upon me, as if she wanted to read my +soul. "Is that all?" she said; "is that the only reason?" + +"I do not understand you," said I. + +She gave me such a desolate look, and answered in a tone of utter +dejection, "Oh, I didn't know, but perhaps _you_ might not want me. All +the rest are so glad to sell me to anybody that will take me. But you +really do love me, don't you?" she added, laying her hand on mine. + +What answer I made I cannot say. I only know that every vestige of what +is called reason and common sense left me at that moment, and that there +followed an hour of delirium in which I--we both were _very_ happy--we +forgot everything but each other, and we arranged all our plans for +flight. There was fortunately a ship lying in the harbor of St. +Augustine, the captain of which was known to me. In course of a day or +two passage was taken, and my effects transported on board. Nobody +seemed to suspect us. Everything went on quietly up to the day before +that appointed for sailing. I took my usual rides, and did everything as +much as possible in my ordinary way, to disarm suspicion, and none +seemed to exist. The needed preparations went gayly forward. On the day +I mentioned, when I had ridden some distance from the house, a messenger +came post-haste after me. It was a boy who belonged specially to +Dolores. He gave me a little hurried note. I copy it:-- + + "Papa has found all out, and it is dreadful. No one else knows, and + he means to kill you when you come back. Do, if you love me, hurry + and get on board the ship. I shall never get over it, if evil comes + on you for my sake. I shall let them do what they please with me, if + God will only save _you_. I will try to be good. Perhaps if I bear + my trials well, he will let me die soon. That is all I ask. I love + you, and always shall, to death and after. + + DOLORES." + +There was the end of it all. I escaped on the ship. I read the marriage +in the paper. Incidentally I afterwards heard of her as living in Cuba, +but I never saw her again till I saw her in her coffin. Sorrow and +death had changed her so much that at first the sight of her awakened +only a vague, painful remembrance. The sight of the hair bracelet which +I had seen on her arm brought all back, and I felt sure that my poor +Dolores had strangely come to sleep her last sleep near me. + +Immediately after I became satisfied who you were, I felt a painful +degree of responsibility for the knowledge. I wrote at once to a friend +of mine in the neighborhood of St. Augustine, to find out any +particulars of the Mendoza family. I learned that its history had been +like that of many others in that region. Don José had died in a bilious +fever, brought on by excessive dissipation, and at his death the estate +was found to be so incumbered that the whole was sold at auction. The +slaves were scattered hither and thither to different owners, and Madame +Mendoza, with her children and remains of fortune, had gone to live in +New Orleans. + +Of Dolores he had heard but once since her marriage. A friend had +visited Don Guzman's estates in Cuba. He was living in great splendor, +but bore the character of a hard, cruel, tyrannical master, and an +overbearing man. His wife was spoken of as being in very delicate +health,--avoiding society and devoting herself to religion. + +I would here take occasion to say that it was understood when I went +into the family of Don José, that I should not in any way interfere with +the religious faith of the children, the family being understood to +belong to the Roman Catholic Church. There was so little like religion +of any kind in the family, that the idea of their belonging to any faith +savored something of the ludicrous. In the case of poor Dolores, +however, it was different. The earnestness of her nature would always +have made any religious form a reality to her. In her case I was glad to +remember that the Romish Church, amid many corruptions, preserves all +the essential beliefs necessary for our salvation, and that many holy +souls have gone to heaven through its doors. I therefore was only +careful to direct her principal attention to the more spiritual parts of +her own faith, and to dwell on the great themes which all Christian +people hold in common. + +Many of my persuasion would not have felt free to do this, but my +liberty of conscience in this respect was perfect. I have seen that if +you break the cup out of which a soul has been used to take the wine of +the gospel, you often spill the very wine itself. And after all, these +forms are but shadows of which the substance is Christ. + +I am free to say, therefore, that the thought that your poor mother was +devoting herself earnestly to religion, although after the forms of a +church with which I differ, was to me a source of great consolation, +because I knew that in that way alone could a soul like hers find peace. + +I have never rested from my efforts to obtain more information. A short +time before the incident which cast you upon our shore, I conversed with +a sea-captain who had returned from Cuba. He stated that there had been +an attempt at insurrection among the slaves of Don Guzman, in which a +large part of the buildings and out-houses of the estate had been +consumed by fire. On subsequent inquiry I learned that Don Guzman had +sold his estates and embarked for Boston with his wife and family, and +that nothing had subsequently been heard of him. + +Thus, my young friend, I have told you all that I know of those singular +circumstances which have cast your lot on our shores. I do not expect at +your time of life you will take the same view of this event that I do. +You may possibly--very probably will--consider it a loss not to have +been brought up as you might have been in the splendid establishment of +Don Guzman, and found yourself heir to wealth and pleasure without +labor or exertion. Yet I am quite sure in that case that your value as a +human being would have been immeasurably less. I think I have seen in +you the elements of passions, which luxury and idleness and the too +early possession of irresponsible power, might have developed with fatal +results. You have simply to reflect whether you would rather be an +energetic, intelligent, self-controlled man, capable of guiding the +affairs of life and of acquiring its prizes,--or to be the reverse of +all this, with its prizes bought for you by the wealth of parents. I +hope mature reflection will teach you to regard with gratitude that +disposition of the All-Wise, which cast your lot as it has been cast. + +Let me ask one thing in closing. I have written for you here many things +most painful for me to remember, because I wanted you to love and honor +the memory of your mother. I wanted that her memory should have +something such a charm for you as it has for me. With me, her image has +always stood between me and all other women; but I have never even +intimated to a living being that such a passage in my history ever +occurred,--no, not even to my sister, who is nearer to me than any other +earthly creature. + +In some respects I am a singular person in my habits, and having once +written this, you will pardon me if I observe that it will never be +agreeable to me to have the subject named between us. Look upon me +always as a friend, who would regard nothing as a hardship by which he +might serve the son of one so dear. + +I have hesitated whether I ought to add one circumstance more. I think I +will do so, trusting to your good sense not to give it any undue weight. + +I have never ceased making inquiries in Cuba, as I found opportunity, in +regard to your father's property, and late investigations have led me to +the conclusion that he left a considerable sum of money in the hands of +a notary, whose address I have, which, if your identity could be proved, +would come in course of law to you. I have written an account of all the +circumstances which, in my view, identify you as the son of Don Guzman +de Cardona, and had them properly attested in legal form. + +This, together with your mother's picture and the bracelet, I recommend +you to take on your next voyage, and to see what may result from the +attempt. How considerable the sum may be which will result from this, I +cannot say, but as Don Guzman's fortune was very large, I am in hopes it +may prove something worth attention. + +At any time you may wish to call, I will have all these things ready for +you. + + I am, with warm regard, + Your sincere friend, + THEOPHILUS SEWELL. + +When Moses had finished reading this letter, he laid it down on the +pebbles beside him, and, leaning back against a rock, looked moodily out +to sea. The tide had washed quite up to within a short distance of his +feet, completely isolating the little grotto where he sat from all the +surrounding scenery, and before him, passing and repassing on the blue +bright solitude of the sea, were silent ships, going on their wondrous +pathless ways to unknown lands. The letter had stirred all within him +that was dreamy and poetic: he felt somehow like a leaf torn from a +romance, and blown strangely into the hollow of those rocks. Something +too of ambition and pride stirred within him. He had been born an heir +of wealth and power, little as they had done for the happiness of his +poor mother; and when he thought he might have had these two wild horses +which have run away with so many young men, he felt, as young men all +do, an impetuous desire for their possession, and he thought as so many +do, "Give them to me, and I'll risk my character,--I'll risk my +happiness." + +The letter opened a future before him which was something to speculate +upon, even though his reason told him it was uncertain, and he lay there +dreamily piling one air-castle on another,--unsubstantial as the great +islands of white cloud that sailed through the sky and dropped their +shadows in the blue sea. + +It was late in the afternoon when he bethought him he must return home, +and so climbing from rock to rock he swung himself upward on to the +island, and sought the brown cottage. As he passed by the open window he +caught a glimpse of Mara sewing. He walked softly up to look in without +her seeing him. She was sitting with the various articles of his +wardrobe around her, quietly and deftly mending his linen, singing soft +snatches of an old psalm-tune. + +She seemed to have resumed quite naturally that quiet care of him and +his, which she had in all the earlier years of their life. He noticed +again her little hands,--they seemed a sort of wonder to him. Why had he +never seen, when a boy, how pretty they were? And she had such dainty +little ways of taking up and putting down things as she measured and +clipped; it seemed so pleasant to have her handling his things; it was +as if a good fairy were touching them, whose touch brought back peace. +But then, he thought, by and by she will do all this for some one else. +The thought made him angry. He really felt abused in anticipation. She +was doing all this for him just in sisterly kindness, and likely as not +thinking of somebody else whom she loved better all the time. It is +astonishing how cool and dignified this consideration made our hero as +he faced up to the window. He was, after all, in hopes she might blush, +and look agitated at seeing him suddenly; but she did not. The foolish +boy did not know the quick wits of a girl, and that all the while that +he had supposed himself so sly, and been holding his breath to observe, +Mara had been perfectly cognizant of his presence, and had been +schooling herself to look as unconscious and natural as possible. So she +did,--only saying,-- + +"Oh, Moses, is that you? Where have you been all day?" + +"Oh, I went over to see Parson Sewell, and get my pastoral lecture, you +know." + +"And did you stay to dinner?" + +"No; I came home and went rambling round the rocks, and got into our old +cave, and never knew how the time passed." + +"Why, then you've had no dinner, poor boy," said Mara, rising suddenly. +"Come in quick, you must be fed, or you'll get dangerous and eat +somebody." + +"No, no, don't get anything," said Moses, "it's almost supper-time, and +I'm not hungry." + +And Moses threw himself into a chair, and began abstractedly snipping a +piece of tape with Mara's very best scissors. + +"If you please, sir, don't demolish that; I was going to stay one of +your collars with it," said Mara. + +"Oh, hang it, I'm always in mischief among girls' things," said Moses, +putting down the scissors and picking up a bit of white wax, which with +equal unconsciousness, he began kneading in his hands, while he was +dreaming over the strange contents of the morning's letter. + +"I hope Mr. Sewell didn't say anything to make you look so very gloomy," +said Mara. + +"Mr. Sewell?" said Moses, starting; "no, he didn't; in fact, I had a +pleasant call there; and there was that confounded old sphinx of a Miss +Roxy there. Why don't she die? She must be somewhere near a hundred +years old by this time." + +"Never thought to ask her why she didn't die," said Mara; "but I presume +she has the best of reasons for living." + +"Yes, that's so," said Moses; "every old toadstool, and burdock, and +mullein lives and thrives and lasts; no danger of their dying." + +"You seem to be in a charitable frame of mind," said Mara. + +"Confound it all! I hate this world. If I could have my own way now,--if +I could have just what I wanted, and do just as I please exactly, I +might make a pretty good thing of it." + +"And pray what would you have?" said Mara. + +"Well, in the first place, riches." + +"In the first place?" + +"Yes, in the first place, I say; for money buys everything else." + +"Well, supposing so," said Mara, "for argument's sake, what would you +buy with it?" + +"Position in society, respect, consideration,--and I'd have a splendid +place, with everything elegant. I have ideas enough, only give me the +means. And then I'd have a wife, of course." + +"And how much would you pay for her?" said Mara, looking quite cool. + +"I'd buy her with all the rest,--a girl that wouldn't look at _me_ as I +am,--would take me for all the rest, you know,--that's the way of the +world." + +"It is, is it?" said Mara. "I don't understand such matters much." + +"Yes; it's the way with all you girls," said Moses; "it's the way you'll +marry when you do." + +"Don't be so fierce about it. I haven't done it yet," said Mara; "but +now, really, I must go and set the supper-table when I have put these +things away,"--and Mara gathered an armful of things together, and +tripped singing upstairs, and arranged them in the drawer of Moses's +room. "Will his wife like to do all these little things for him as I +do?" she thought. "It's natural I should. I grew up with him, and love +him, just as if he were my own brother,--he is all the brother I ever +had. I love him more than anything else in the world, and this wife he +talks about could do no more." + +"She don't care a pin about me," thought Moses; "it's only a habit she +has got, and her strict notions of duty, that's all. She is housewifely +in her instincts, and seizes all neglected linen and garments as her +lawful prey,--she would do it just the same for her grandfather;" and +Moses drummed moodily on the window-pane. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +A COQUETTE + + +The timbers of the ship which was to carry the fortunes of our hero were +laid by the side of Middle Bay, and all these romantic shores could +hardly present a lovelier scene. This beautiful sheet of water separates +Harpswell from a portion of Brunswick. Its shores are rocky and +pine-crowned, and display the most picturesque variety of outline. Eagle +Island, Shelter Island, and one or two smaller ones, lie on the glassy +surface like soft clouds of green foliage pierced through by the +steel-blue tops of arrowy pine-trees. + +There were a goodly number of shareholders in the projected vessel; some +among the most substantial men in the vicinity. Zephaniah Pennel had +invested there quite a solid sum, as had also our friend Captain +Kittridge. Moses had placed therein the proceeds of his recent voyage, +which enabled him to buy a certain number of shares, and he secretly +revolved in his mind whether the sum of money left by his father might +not enable him to buy the whole ship. Then a few prosperous voyages, and +his fortune was made! + +He went into the business of building the new vessel with all the +enthusiasm with which he used, when a boy, to plan ships and mould +anchors. Every day he was off at early dawn in his working-clothes, and +labored steadily among the men till evening. No matter how early he +rose, however, he always found that a good fairy had been before him and +prepared his dinner, daintily sometimes adding thereto a fragrant +little bunch of flowers. But when his boat returned home at evening, he +no longer saw her as in the days of girlhood waiting far out on the +farthest point of rock for his return. Not that she did not watch for it +and run out many times toward sunset; but the moment she had made out +that it was surely he, she would run back into the house, and very +likely find an errand in her own room, where she would be so deeply +engaged that it would be necessary for him to call her down before she +could make her appearance. Then she came smiling, chatty, always +gracious, and ready to go or to come as he requested,--the very +cheerfulest of household fairies,--but yet for all that there was a +cobweb invisible barrier around her that for some reason or other he +could not break over. It vexed and perplexed him, and day after day he +determined to whistle it down,--ride over it rough-shod,--and be as free +as he chose with this apparently soft, unresistant, airy being, who +seemed so accessible. Why shouldn't he kiss her when he chose, and sit +with his arm around her waist, and draw her familiarly upon his +knee,--this little child-woman, who was as a sister to him? Why, to be +sure? Had she ever frowned or scolded as Sally Kittridge did when he +attempted to pass the air-line that divides man from womanhood? Not at +all. She had neither blushed nor laughed, nor ran away. If he kissed +her, she took it with the most matter-of-fact composure; if he passed +his arm around her, she let it remain with unmoved calmness; and so +somehow he did these things less and less, and wondered why. + +The fact is, our hero had begun an experiment with his little friend +that we would never advise a young man to try on one of these intense, +quiet, soft-seeming women, whose whole life is inward. He had determined +to find out whether she loved him before he committed himself to her; +and the strength of a whole book of martyrs is in women to endure and +to bear without flinching before they will surrender the gate of this +citadel of silence. Moreover, our hero had begun his siege with +precisely the worst weapons. + +For on the night that he returned and found Mara conversing with a +stranger, the suspicion arose in his mind that somehow Mara might be +particularly interested in him, and instead of asking her, which anybody +might consider the most feasible step in the case, he asked Sally +Kittridge. + +Sally's inborn, inherent love of teasing was up in a moment. Did she +know anything of that Mr. Adams? Of course she did,--a young lawyer of +one of the best Boston families,--a splendid fellow; she wished any such +luck might happen to her! Was Mara engaged to him? What would he give to +know? Why didn't he ask Mara? Did he expect her to reveal her friend's +secrets? Well, she shouldn't,--report said Mr. Adams was well-to-do in +the world, and had expectations from an uncle,--and didn't Moses think +he was interesting in conversation? Everybody said what a conquest it +was for an Orr's Island girl, etc., etc. And Sally said the rest with +many a malicious toss and wink and sly twinkle of the dimples of her +cheek, which might mean more or less, as a young man of imaginative +temperament was disposed to view it. Now this was all done in pure +simple love of teasing. We incline to think phrenologists have as yet +been very incomplete in their classification of faculties, or they would +have appointed a separate organ for this propensity of human nature. +Certain persons, often the most kind-hearted in the world, and who would +not give pain in any serious matter, seem to have an insatiable appetite +for those small annoyances we commonly denominate teasing,--and Sally +was one of this number. + +She diverted herself infinitely in playing upon the excitability of +Moses,--in awaking his curiosity, and baffling it, and tormenting him +with a whole phantasmagoria of suggestions and assertions, which played +along so near the line of probability, that one could never tell which +might be fancy and which might be fact. + +Moses therefore pursued the line of tactics for such cases made and +provided, and strove to awaken jealousy in Mara by paying marked and +violent attentions to Sally. He went there evening after evening, +leaving Mara to sit alone at home. He made secrets with her, and alluded +to them before Mara. He proposed calling his new vessel the Sally +Kittridge; but whether all these things made Mara jealous or not, he +could never determine. Mara had no peculiar gift for acting, except in +this one point; but here all the vitality of nature rallied to her +support, and enabled her to preserve an air of the most unperceiving +serenity. If she shed any tears when she spent a long, lonesome evening, +she was quite particular to be looking in a very placid frame when Moses +returned, and to give such an account of the books, or the work, or +paintings which had interested her, that Moses was sure to be vexed. +Never were her inquiries for Sally more cordial,--never did she seem +inspired by a more ardent affection for her. + +Whatever may have been the result of this state of things in regard to +Mara, it is certain that Moses succeeded in convincing the common fame +of that district that he and Sally were destined for each other, and the +thing was regularly discussed at quilting frolics and tea-drinkings +around, much to Miss Emily's disgust and Aunt Roxy's grave satisfaction, +who declared that "Mara was altogether too good for Moses Pennel, but +Sally Kittridge would make him stand round,"--by which expression she +was understood to intimate that Sally had in her the rudiments of the +same kind of domestic discipline which had operated so favorably in the +case of Captain Kittridge. + +These things, of course, had come to Mara's ears. She had overheard the +discussions on Sunday noons as the people between meetings sat over +their doughnuts and cheese, and analyzed their neighbors' affairs, and +she seemed to smile at them all. Sally only laughed, and declared that +it was no such thing; that she would no more marry Moses Pennel, or any +other fellow, than she would put her head into the fire. What did she +want of any of them? She knew too much to get married,--that she did. +She was going to have her liberty for one while yet to come, etc., etc.; +but all these assertions were of course supposed to mean nothing but the +usual declarations in such cases. Mara among the rest thought it quite +likely that this thing was yet to be. + +So she struggled and tried to reason down a pain which constantly ached +in her heart when she thought of this. She ought to have foreseen that +it must some time end in this way. Of course she must have known that +Moses would some time choose a wife; and how fortunate that, instead of +a stranger, he had chosen her most intimate friend. Sally was careless +and thoughtless, to be sure, but she had a good generous heart at the +bottom, and she hoped she would love Moses at least as well as _she_ +did, and then she would always live with them, and think of any little +things that Sally might forget. + +After all, Sally was so much more capable and efficient a person than +herself,--so much more bustling and energetic, she would make altogether +a better housekeeper, and doubtless a better wife for Moses. But then it +was so hard that he did not tell her about it. Was she not his +sister?--his confidant for all his childhood?--and why should he shut up +his heart from her now? But then she must guard herself from being +jealous,--that would be mean and wicked. So Mara, in her zeal of +self-discipline, pushed on matters; invited Sally to tea to meet Moses; +and when she came, left them alone together while she busied herself in +hospitable cares. She sent Moses with errands and commissions to Sally, +which he was sure to improve into protracted visits; and in short, no +young match-maker ever showed more good-will to forward the union of two +chosen friends than Mara showed to unite Moses and Sally. + +So the flirtation went on all summer, like a ship under full sail, with +prosperous breezes; and Mara, in the many hours that her two best +friends were together, tried heroically to persuade herself that she was +not unhappy. She said to herself constantly that she never had loved +Moses other than as a brother, and repeated and dwelt upon the fact to +her own mind with a pertinacity which might have led her to suspect the +reality of the fact, had she had experience enough to look closer. True, +it was rather lonely, she said, but that she was used to,--she always +had been and always should be. Nobody would ever love her in return as +she loved; which sentence she did not analyze very closely, or she might +have remembered Mr. Adams and one or two others, who had professed more +for her than she had found herself able to return. That general +proposition about nobody is commonly found, if sifted to the bottom, to +have specific relation to somebody whose name never appears in the +record. + +Nobody could have conjectured from Mara's calm, gentle cheerfulness of +demeanor, that any sorrow lay at the bottom of her heart; she would not +have owned it to herself. + +There are griefs which grow with years, which have no marked +beginnings,--no especial dates; they are not events, but slow +perceptions of disappointment, which bear down on the heart with a +constant and equable pressure like the weight of the atmosphere, and +these things are never named or counted in words among life's sorrows; +yet through them, as through an unsuspected inward wound, life, energy, +and vigor slowly bleed away, and the persons, never owning even to +themselves the weight of the pressure,--standing, to all appearance, +fair and cheerful, are still undermined with a secret wear of this inner +current, and ready to fall with the first external pressure. + +There are persons often brought into near contact by the relations of +life, and bound to each other by a love so close, that they are +perfectly indispensable to each other, who yet act upon each other as a +file upon a diamond, by a slow and gradual friction, the pain of which +is so equable, so constantly diffused through life, as scarcely ever at +any time to force itself upon the mind as a reality. + +Such had been the history of the affection of Mara for Moses. It had +been a deep, inward, concentrated passion that had almost absorbed +self-consciousness, and made her keenly alive to all the moody, +restless, passionate changes of his nature; it had brought with it that +craving for sympathy and return which such love ever will, and yet it +was fixed upon a nature so different and so uncomprehending that the +action had for years been one of pain more than pleasure. Even now, when +she had him at home with her and busied herself with constant cares for +him, there was a sort of disturbing, unquiet element in the history of +every day. The longing for him to come home at night,--the wish that he +would stay with her,--the uncertainty whether he would or would not go +and spend the evening with Sally,--the musing during the day over all +that he had done and said the day before, were a constant interior +excitement. For Moses, besides being in his moods quite variable and +changeable, had also a good deal of the dramatic element in him, and put +on sundry appearances in the way of experiment. + +He would feign to have quarreled with Sally, that he might detect +whether Mara would betray some gladness; but she only evinced concern +and a desire to make up the difficulty. He would discuss her character +and her fitness to make a man happy in matrimony in the style that +young gentlemen use who think their happiness a point of great +consequence in the creation; and Mara, always cool, and firm, and +sensible, would talk with him in the most maternal style possible, and +caution him against trifling with her affections. Then again he would be +lavish in his praise of Sally's beauty, vivacity, and energy, and Mara +would join with the most apparently unaffected delight. Sometimes he +ventured, on the other side, to rally her on some future husband, and +predict the days when all the attentions which she was daily bestowing +on him would be for another; and here, as everywhere else, he found his +little Sphinx perfectly inscrutable. Instinct teaches the grass-bird, +who hides her eggs under long meadow grass, to creep timidly yards from +the nest, and then fly up boldly in the wrong place; and a like instinct +teaches shy girls all kinds of unconscious stratagems when the one +secret of their life is approached. They may be as truthful in all other +things as the strictest Puritan, but here they deceive by an infallible +necessity. And meanwhile, where was Sally Kittridge in all this matter? +Was her heart in the least touched by the black eyes and long lashes? +Who can say? Had she a heart? Well, Sally was a good girl. When one got +sufficiently far down through the foam and froth of the surface to find +what was in the depths of her nature, there was abundance there of good +womanly feeling, generous and strong, if one could but get at it. + +She was the best and brightest of daughters to the old Captain, whose +accounts she kept, whose clothes she mended, whose dinner she often +dressed and carried to him, from loving choice; and Mrs. Kittridge +regarded her housewifely accomplishments with pride, though she never +spoke to her otherwise than in words of criticism and rebuke, as in her +view an honest mother should who means to keep a flourishing sprig of a +daughter within limits of a proper humility. + +But as for any sentiment or love toward any person of the other sex, +Sally, as yet, had it not. Her numerous admirers were only so many +subjects for the exercise of her dear delight of teasing, and Moses +Pennel, the last and most considerable, differed from the rest only in +the fact that he was a match for her in this redoubtable art and +science, and this made the game she was playing with him altogether more +stimulating than that she had carried on with any other of her admirers. +For Moses could sulk and storm for effect, and clear off as bright as +Harpswell Bay after a thunder-storm--for effect also. Moses could play +jealous, and make believe all those thousand-and-one shadowy nothings +that coquettes, male and female, get up to carry their points with; and +so their quarrels and their makings-up were as manifold as the +sea-breezes that ruffled the ocean before the Captain's door. + +There is but one danger in play of this kind, and that is, that deep +down in the breast of every slippery, frothy, elfish Undine sleeps the +germ of an unawakened soul, which suddenly, in the course of some such +trafficking with the outward shows and seemings of affection, may wake +up and make of the teasing, tricksy elf a sad and earnest woman--a +creature of loves and self-denials and faithfulness unto death--in +short, something altogether too good, too sacred to be trifled with; and +when a man enters the game protected by a previous attachment which +absorbs all his nature, and the woman awakes in all her depth and +strength to feel the real meaning of love and life, she finds that she +has played with one stronger than she, at a terrible disadvantage. + +Is this mine lying dark and evil under the saucy little feet of our +Sally? Well, we should not of course be surprised some day to find it +so. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +NIGHT TALKS + + +October is come, and among the black glooms of the pine forests flare +out the scarlet branches of the rock-maple, and the beech-groves are all +arrayed in gold, through which the sunlight streams in subdued richness. +October is come with long, bright, hazy days, swathing in purple mists +the rainbow brightness of the forests, and blending the otherwise gaudy +and flaunting colors into wondrous harmonies of splendor. And Moses +Pennel's ship is all built and ready, waiting only a favorable day for +her launching. + +And just at this moment Moses is sauntering home from Captain +Kittridge's in company with Sally, for Mara has sent him to bring her to +tea with them. Moses is in high spirits; everything has succeeded to his +wishes; and as the two walk along the high, bold, rocky shore, his eye +glances out to the open ocean, where the sun is setting, and the fresh +wind blowing, and the white sails flying, and already fancies himself a +sea-king, commanding his own place, and going from land to land. + +"There hasn't been a more beautiful ship built here these twenty years," +he says, in triumph. + +"Oho, Mr. Conceit," said Sally, "that's only because it's yours +now--your geese are all swans. I wish you could have seen the Typhoon, +that Ben Drummond sailed in--a real handsome fellow he was. What a pity +there aren't more like him!" + +"I don't enter on the merits of Ben Drummond's beauty," said Moses; "but +I don't believe the Typhoon was one whit superior to our ship. Besides, +Miss Sally, I thought you were going to take it under your especial +patronage, and let me honor it with your name." + +"How absurd you always will be talking about that--why don't you call it +after Mara?" + +"After Mara?" said Moses. "I don't want to--it wouldn't be +appropriate--one wants a different kind of girl to name a ship +after--something bold and bright and dashing!" + +"Thank you, sir, but I prefer not to have my bold and dashing qualities +immortalized in this way," said Sally; "besides, sir, how do I know that +you wouldn't run me on a rock the very first thing? When I give my name +to a ship, it must have an experienced commander," she added, +maliciously, for she knew that Moses was specially vulnerable on this +point. + +"As you please," said Moses, with heightened color. "Allow me to remark +that he who shall ever undertake to command the 'Sally Kittridge' will +have need of all his experience--and then, perhaps, not be able to know +the ways of the craft." + +"See him now," said Sally, with a malicious laugh; "we are getting +wrathy, are we?" + +"Not I," said Moses; "it would cost altogether too much exertion to get +angry at every teasing thing you choose to say, Miss Sally. By and by I +shall be gone, and then won't your conscience trouble you?" + +"My conscience is all easy, so far as you are concerned, sir; your +self-esteem is too deep-rooted to suffer much from my poor little +nips--they produce no more impression than a cat-bird pecking at the +cones of that spruce-tree yonder. Now don't you put your hand where your +heart is supposed to be--there's nobody at home there, you know. There's +Mara coming to meet us;" and Sally bounded forward to meet Mara with all +those demonstrations of extreme delight which young girls are fond of +showering on each other. + +"It's such a beautiful evening," said Mara, "and we are all in such good +spirits about Moses's ship, and I told him you must come down and hold +counsel with us as to what was to be done about the launching; and the +name, you know, that is to be decided on--are you going to let it be +called after you?" + +"Not I, indeed. I should always be reading in the papers of horrible +accidents that had happened to the 'Sally Kittridge.'" + +"Sally has so set her heart on my being unlucky," said Moses, "that I +believe if I make a prosperous voyage, the disappointment would injure +her health." + +"She doesn't mean what she says," said Mara; "but I think there are some +objections in a young lady's name being given to a ship." + +"Then I suppose, Mara," said Moses, "that you would not have yours +either?" + +"I would be glad to accommodate you in anything _but_ that," said Mara, +quietly; but she added, "Why need the ship be named for anybody? A ship +is such a beautiful, graceful thing, it should have a fancy name." + +"Well, suggest one," said Moses. + +"Don't you remember," said Mara, "one Saturday afternoon, when you and +Sally and I launched your little ship down in the cove after you had +come from your first voyage at the Banks?" + +"I do," said Sally. "We called that the Ariel, Mara, after that old torn +play you were so fond of. That's a pretty name for a ship." + +"Why not take that?" said Mara. + +"I bow to the decree," said Moses. "The Ariel it shall be." + +"Yes; and you remember," said Sally, "Mr. Moses here promised at that +time that he would build a ship, and take us two round the world with +him." + +Moses's eyes fell upon Mara as Sally said these words with a sort of +sudden earnestness of expression which struck her. He was really feeling +very much about something, under all the bantering disguise of his +demeanor, she said to herself. Could it be that he felt unhappy about +his prospects with Sally? That careless liveliness of hers might wound +him perhaps now, when he felt that he was soon to leave her. + +Mara was conscious herself of a deep undercurrent of sadness as the time +approached for the ship to sail that should carry Moses from her, and +she could not but think some such feeling must possess her mind. In vain +she looked into Sally's great Spanish eyes for any signs of a lurking +softness or tenderness concealed under her sparkling vivacity. Sally's +eyes were admirable windows of exactly the right size and color for an +earnest, tender spirit to look out of, but just now there was nobody at +the casement but a slippery elf peering out in tricksy defiance. + +When the three arrived at the house, tea was waiting on the table for +them. Mara fancied that Moses looked sad and preoccupied as they sat +down to the tea-table, which Mrs. Pennel had set forth festively, with +the best china and the finest tablecloth and the choicest sweetmeats. In +fact, Moses did feel that sort of tumult and upheaving of the soul which +a young man experiences when the great crisis comes which is to plunge +him into the struggles of manhood. It is a time when he wants sympathy +and is grated upon by uncomprehending merriment, and therefore his +answers to Sally grew brief and even harsh at times, and Mara sometimes +perceived him looking at herself with a singular fixedness of +expression, though he withdrew his eyes whenever she turned hers to look +on him. Like many another little woman, she had fixed a theory about +her friends, into which she was steadily interweaving all the facts she +saw. Sally _must_ love Moses, because she had known her from childhood +as a good and affectionate girl, and it was impossible that she could +have been going on with Moses as she had for the last six months without +loving him. She must evidently have seen that he cared for her; and in +how many ways had she shown that she liked his society and him! But then +evidently she did not understand him, and Mara felt a little womanly +self-pluming on the thought that _she_ knew him so much better. She was +resolved that she would talk with Sally about it, and show her that she +was disappointing Moses and hurting his feelings. Yes, she said to +herself, Sally has a kind heart, and her coquettish desire to conceal +from him the extent of her affection ought now to give way to the +outspoken tenderness of real love. + +So Mara pressed Sally with the old-times request to stay and sleep with +her; for these two, the only young girls in so lonely a neighborhood, +had no means of excitement or dissipation beyond this occasional +sleeping together--by which is meant, of course, lying awake all night +talking. + +When they were alone together in their chamber, Sally let down her long +black hair, and stood with her back to Mara brushing it. Mara sat +looking out of the window, where the moon was making a wide sheet of +silver-sparkling water. Everything was so quiet that the restless dash +of the tide could be plainly heard. Sally was rattling away with her +usual gayety. + +"And so the launching is to come off next Thursday. What shall you +wear?" + +"I'm sure I haven't thought," said Mara. + +"Well, I shall try and finish my blue merino for the occasion. What fun +it will be! I never was on a ship when it was launched, and I think it +will be something perfectly splendid!" + +"But doesn't it sometimes seem sad to think that after all this Moses +will leave us to be gone so long?" + +"What do I care?" said Sally, tossing back her long hair as she brushed +it, and then stopping to examine one of her eyelashes. + +"Sally dear, you often speak in that way," said Mara, "but really and +seriously, you do yourself great injustice. You could not certainly have +been going on as you have these six months past with a man you did not +care for." + +"Well, I do care for him, 'sort o','" said Sally; "but is that any +reason I should break my heart for his going?--that's too much for any +man." + +"But, Sally, you _must_ know that Moses loves you." + +"I'm not so sure," said Sally, freakishly tossing her head and laughing. + +"If he did not," said Mara, "why has he sought you so much, and taken +every opportunity to be with you? I'm sure I've been left here alone +hour after hour, when my only comfort was that it was because my two +best friends loved each other, as I know they must some time love some +one better than they do me." + +The most practiced self-control must fail some time, and Mara's voice +faltered on these last words, and she put her hands over her eyes. Sally +turned quickly and looked at her, then giving her hair a sudden fold +round her shoulders, and running to her friend, she kneeled down on the +floor by her, and put her arms round her waist, and looked up into her +face with an air of more gravity than she commonly used. + +"Now, Mara, what a wicked, inconsistent fool I have been! Did you feel +lonesome?--did you care? I ought to have seen that; but I'm selfish, I +love admiration, and I love to have some one to flatter me, and run +after me; and so I've been going on and on in this silly way. But I +didn't know you cared--indeed, I didn't--you are such a deep little +thing. Nobody can ever tell what you feel. I never shall forgive myself, +if you have been lonesome, for you are worth five hundred times as much +as I am. You really do love Moses. I don't." + +"I do love him as a dear brother," said Mara. + +"Dear fiddlestick," said Sally. "Love is love; and when a person loves +all she can, it isn't much use to talk so. I've been a wicked sinner, +that I have. Love? Do you suppose I would bear with Moses Pennel all his +ins and outs and ups and downs, and be always putting him before myself +in everything, as you do? No, I couldn't; I haven't it in me; but you +have. He's a sinner, too, and deserves to get me for a wife. But, Mara, +I have tormented him well--there's some comfort in that." + +"It's no comfort to me," said Mara. "I see his heart is set on you--the +happiness of his life depends on you--and that he is pained and hurt +when you give him only cold, trifling words when he needs real true +love. It is a serious thing, dear, to have a strong man set his whole +heart on you. It will do him a great good or a great evil, and you ought +not to make light of it." + +"Oh, pshaw, Mara, you don't know these fellows; they are only playing +games with us. If they once catch us, they have no mercy; and for one +here's a child that isn't going to be caught. I can see plain enough +that Moses Pennel has been trying to get me in love with him, but he +doesn't love me. No, he doesn't," said Sally, reflectively. "He only +wants to make a conquest of me, and I'm just the same. I want to make a +conquest of him,--at least I have been wanting to,--but now I see it's a +false, wicked kind of way to do as we've been doing." + +"And is it really possible, Sally, that you don't love him?" said Mara, +her large, serious eyes looking into Sally's. "What! be with him so +much,--seem to like him so much,--look at him as I have seen you +do,--and not love him!" + +"I can't help my eyes; they will look so," said Sally, hiding her face +in Mara's lap with a sort of coquettish consciousness. "I tell you I've +been silly and wicked; but he's just the same exactly." + +"And you have worn his ring all summer?" + +"Yes, and he has worn mine; and I have a lock of his hair, and he has a +lock of mine; yet I don't believe he cares for them a bit. Oh, his heart +is safe enough. If he has any, it isn't with me: that I know." + +"But if you found it were, Sally? Suppose you found that, after all, you +were the one love and hope of his life; that all he was doing and +thinking was for you; that he was laboring, and toiling, and leaving +home, so that he might some day offer you a heart and home, and be your +best friend for life? Perhaps he dares not tell you how he really does +feel." + +"It's no such thing! it's no such thing!" said Sally, lifting up her +head, with her eyes full of tears, which she dashed angrily away. "What +am I crying for? I hate him. I'm glad he's going away. Lately it has +been such a trouble to me to have things go on so. I'm really getting to +dislike him. You are the one he ought to love. Perhaps all this time you +are the one he does love," said Sally, with a sudden energy, as if a new +thought had dawned in her mind. + +"Oh, no; he does not even love me as he once did, when we were +children," said Mara. "He is so shut up in himself, so reserved, I know +nothing about what passes in his heart." + +"No more does anybody," said Sally. "Moses Pennel isn't one that says +and does things straightforward because he feels so; but he says and +does them to see what _you_ will do. That's his way. Nobody knows why he +has been going on with me as he has. He has had his own reasons, +doubtless, as I have had mine." + +"He has admired you very much, Sally," said Mara, "and praised you to me +very warmly. He thinks you are so handsome. I could tell you ever so +many things he has said about you. He knows as I do that you are a more +enterprising, practical sort of body than I am, too. Everybody thinks +you are engaged. I have heard it spoken of everywhere." + +"Everybody is mistaken, then, as usual," said Sally. "Perhaps Aunt Roxy +was in the right of it when she said that Moses would never be in love +with anybody but himself." + +"Aunt Roxy has always been prejudiced and unjust to Moses," said Mara, +her cheeks flushing. "She never liked him from a child, and she never +can be made to see anything good in him. I know that he has a deep +heart,--a nature that craves affection and sympathy; and it is only +because he is so sensitive that he is so reserved and conceals his +feelings so much. He has a noble, kind heart, and I believe he truly +loves you, Sally; it must be so." + +Sally rose from the floor and went on arranging her hair without +speaking. Something seemed to disturb her mind. She bit her lip, and +threw down the brush and comb violently. In the clear depths of the +little square of looking-glass a face looked into hers, whose eyes were +perturbed as if with the shadows of some coming inward storm; the black +brows were knit, and the lips quivered. She drew a long breath and burst +out into a loud laugh. + +"What _are_ you laughing at now?" said Mara, who stood in her white +night-dress by the window, with her hair falling in golden waves about +her face. + +"Oh, because these fellows are so funny," said Sally; "it's such fun to +see their actions. Come now," she added, turning to Mara, "don't look so +grave and sanctified. It's better to laugh than cry about things, any +time. It's a great deal better to be made hard-hearted like me, and not +care for anybody, than to be like you, for instance. The idea of any +one's being in love is the drollest thing to me. I haven't the least +idea how it feels. I wonder if I ever shall be in love!" + +"It will come to you in its time, Sally." + +"Oh, yes,--I suppose like the chicken-pox or the whooping cough," said +Sally; "one of the things to be gone through with, and rather +disagreeable while it lasts,--so I hope to put it off as long as +possible." + +"Well, come," said Mara, "we must not sit up all night." + +After the two girls were nestled into bed and the light out, instead of +the brisk chatter there fell a great silence between them. The full +round moon cast the reflection of the window on the white bed, and the +ever restless moan of the sea became more audible in the fixed +stillness. The two faces, both young and fair, yet so different in their +expression, lay each still on its pillow,--their wide-open eyes gleaming +out in the shadow like mystical gems. Each was breathing softly, as if +afraid of disturbing the other. At last Sally gave an impatient +movement. + +"How lonesome the sea sounds in the night," she said. "I wish it would +ever be still." + +"I like to hear it," said Mara. "When I was in Boston, for a while I +thought I could not sleep, I used to miss it so much." + +There was another silence, which lasted so long that each girl thought +the other asleep, and moved softly, but at a restless movement from +Sally, Mara spoke again. + +"Sally,--you asleep?" + +"No,--I thought you were." + +"I wanted to ask you," said Mara, "did Moses ever say anything to you +about me?--you know I told you how much he said about you." + +"Yes; he asked me once if you were engaged to Mr. Adams." + +"And what did you tell him?" said Mara, with increasing interest. + +"Well, I only plagued him. I sometimes made him think you were, and +sometimes that you were not; and then again, that there was a deep +mystery in hand. But I praised and glorified Mr. Adams, and told him +what a splendid match it would be, and put on any little bits of +embroidery here and there that I could lay hands on. I used to make him +sulky and gloomy for a whole evening sometimes. In that way it was one +of the best weapons I had." + +"Sally, what does make you love to tease people so?" said Mara. + +"Why, you know the hymn says,-- + + 'Let dogs delight to bark and bite, + For God hath made them so; + Let bears and lions growl and fight, + For 'tis their nature too.' + +That's all the account I can give of it." + +"But," said Mara, "I never can rest easy a moment when I see I am making +a person uncomfortable." + +"Well, I don't tease anybody but the men. I don't tease father or mother +or you,--but men are fair game; they are such thumby, blundering +creatures, and we can confuse them so." + +"Take care, Sally, it's playing with edge tools; you may lose your heart +some day in this kind of game." + +"Never you fear," said Sally; "but aren't you sleepy?--let's go to +sleep." + +Both girls turned their faces resolutely in opposite directions, and +remained for an hour with their large eyes looking out into the moonlit +chamber, like the fixed stars over Harpswell Bay. At last sleep drew +softly down the fringy curtains. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + +THE LAUNCH OF THE ARIEL + + +In the plain, simple regions we are describing,--where the sea is the +great avenue of active life, and the pine forests are the great source +of wealth,--ship-building is an engrossing interest, and there is no +fête that calls forth the community like the launching of a vessel. And +no wonder; for what is there belonging to this workaday world of ours +that has such a never-failing fund of poetry and grace as a ship? A ship +is a beauty and a mystery wherever we see it: its white wings touch the +regions of the unknown and the imaginative; they seem to us full of the +odors of quaint, strange, foreign shores, where life, we fondly dream, +moves in brighter currents than the muddy, tranquil tides of every day. + +Who that sees one bound outward, with her white breasts swelling and +heaving, as if with a reaching expectancy, does not feel his own heart +swell with a longing impulse to go with her to the far-off shores? Even +at dingy, crowded wharves, amid the stir and tumult of great cities, the +coming in of a ship is an event that never can lose its interest. But on +these romantic shores of Maine, where all is so wild and still, and the +blue sea lies embraced in the arms of dark, solitary forests, the sudden +incoming of a ship from a distant voyage is a sort of romance. Who that +has stood by the blue waters of Middle Bay, engirdled as it is by soft +slopes of green farming land, interchanged here and there with heavy +billows of forest-trees, or rocky, pine-crowned promontories, has not +felt that sense of seclusion and solitude which is so delightful? And +then what a wonder! There comes a ship from China, drifting in like a +white cloud,--the gallant creature! how the waters hiss and foam before +her! with what a great free, generous plash she throws out her anchors, +as if she said a cheerful "Well done!" to some glorious work +accomplished! The very life and spirit of strange romantic lands come +with her; suggestions of sandal-wood and spice breathe through the +pine-woods; she is an oriental queen, with hands full of mystical gifts; +"all her garments smell of myrrh and cassia, out of the ivory palaces, +whereby they have made her glad." No wonder men have loved ships like +birds, and that there have been found brave, rough hearts that in fatal +wrecks chose rather to go down with their ocean love than to leave her +in the last throes of her death-agony. + +A ship-building, a ship-sailing community has an unconscious poetry ever +underlying its existence. Exotic ideas from foreign lands relieve the +trite monotony of life; the ship-owner lives in communion with the whole +world, and is less likely to fall into the petty commonplaces that +infest the routine of inland life. + +Never arose a clearer or lovelier October morning than that which was to +start the Ariel on her watery pilgrimage. Moses had risen while the +stars were yet twinkling over their own images in Middle Bay, to go down +and see that everything was right; and in all the houses that we know in +the vicinity, everybody woke with the one thought of being ready to go +to the launching. + +Mrs. Pennel and Mara were also up by starlight, busy over the provisions +for the ample cold collation that was to be spread in a barn adjoining +the scene,--the materials for which they were packing into baskets +covered with nice clean linen cloths, ready for the little sail-boat +which lay within a stone's throw of the door in the brightening dawn, +her white sails looking rosy in the advancing light. + +It had been agreed that the Pennels and the Kittridges should cross +together in this boat with their contributions of good cheer. + +The Kittridges, too, had been astir with the dawn, intent on their quota +of the festive preparations, in which Dame Kittridge's housewifely +reputation was involved,--for it had been a disputed point in the +neighborhood whether she or Mrs. Pennel made the best doughnuts; and of +course, with this fact before her mind, her efforts in this line had +been all but superhuman. + +The Captain skipped in and out in high feather,--occasionally pinching +Sally's cheek, and asking if she were going as captain or mate upon the +vessel after it was launched, for which he got in return a fillip of his +sleeve or a sly twitch of his coat-tails, for Sally and her old father +were on romping terms with each other from early childhood, a thing +which drew frequent lectures from the always exhorting Mrs. Kittridge. + +"Such levity!" she said, as she saw Sally in full chase after his +retreating figure, in order to be revenged for some sly allusions he had +whispered in her ear. + +"Sally Kittridge! Sally Kittridge!" she called, "come back this minute. +What are you about? I should think your father was old enough to know +better." + +"Lawful sakes, Polly, it kind o' renews one's youth to get a new ship +done," said the Captain, skipping in at another door. "Sort o' puts me +in mind o' that _I_ went out cap'en in when I was jist beginning to +court you, as somebody else is courtin' our Sally here." + +"Now, father," said Sally, threateningly, "what did I tell you?" + +"It's really _lemancholy_," said the Captain, "to think how it does +distress gals to talk to 'em 'bout the fellers, when they ain't thinkin' +o' nothin' else all the time. They can't even laugh without sayin' +he-he-he!" + +"Now, father, you know I've told you five hundred times that I don't +care a cent for Moses Pennel,--that he's a hateful creature," said +Sally, looking very red and determined. + +"Yes, yes," said the Captain, "I take that ar's the reason you've ben +a-wearin' the ring he gin you and them ribbins you've got on your neck +this blessed minute, and why you've giggled off to singin'-school, and +Lord knows where with him all summer,--that ar's clear now." + +"But, father," said Sally, getting redder and more earnest, "I don't +care for him really, and I've told him so. I keep telling him so, and he +will run after me." + +"Haw! haw!" laughed the Captain; "he will, will he? Jist so, Sally; that +ar's jist the way your ma there talked to me, and it kind o' 'couraged +me along. I knew that gals always has to be read back'ard jist like the +writin' in the Barbary States." + +"Captain Kittridge, will you stop such ridiculous talk?" said his +helpmeet; "and jist carry this 'ere basket of cold chicken down to the +landin' agin the Pennels come round in the boat; and you must step spry, +for there's two more baskets a-comin'." + +The Captain shouldered the basket and walked toward the sea with it, and +Sally retired to her own little room to hold a farewell consultation +with her mirror before she went. + +You will perhaps think from the conversation that you heard the other +night, that Sally now will cease all thought of coquettish allurement in +her acquaintance with Moses, and cause him to see by an immediate and +marked change her entire indifference. Probably, as she stands +thoughtfully before her mirror, she is meditating on the propriety of +laying aside the ribbons he gave her--perhaps she will alter that +arrangement of her hair which is one that he himself particularly +dictated as most becoming to the character of her face. She opens a +little drawer, which looks like a flower garden, all full of little +knots of pink and blue and red, and various fancies of the toilet, and +looks into it reflectively. She looses the ribbon from her hair and +chooses another,--but Moses gave her that too, and said, she remembers, +that when she wore that "he should know she had been thinking of him." +Sally is Sally yet--as full of sly dashes of coquetry as a tulip is of +streaks. + +"There's no reason I should make myself look like a fright because I +don't care for him," she says; "besides, after all that he has said, he +ought to say more,--he ought at least to give me a chance to say no,--he +_shall_, too," said the gypsy, winking at the bright, elfish face in the +glass. + +"Sally Kittridge, Sally Kittridge," called her mother, "how long will +you stay prinkin'?--come down this minute." + +"Law now, mother," said the Captain, "gals must prink afore such times; +it's as natural as for hens to dress their feathers afore a +thunder-storm." + +Sally at last appeared, all in a flutter of ribbons and scarfs, whose +bright, high colors assorted well with the ultramarine blue of her +dress, and the vivid pomegranate hue of her cheeks. The boat with its +white sails flapping was balancing and courtesying up and down on the +waters, and in the stern sat Mara; her shining white straw hat trimmed +with blue ribbons set off her golden hair and pink shell complexion. The +dark, even penciling of her eyebrows, and the beauty of the brow above, +the brown translucent clearness of her thoughtful eyes, made her face +striking even with its extreme delicacy of tone. She was unusually +animated and excited, and her cheeks had a rich bloom of that pure deep +rose-color which flushes up in fair complexions under excitement, and +her eyes had a kind of intense expression, for which they had always +been remarkable. All the deep secluded yearning of repressed nature was +looking out of them, giving that pathos which every one has felt at +times in the silence of eyes. + +"Now bless that ar gal," said the Captain, when he saw her. "Our Sally +here's handsome, but she's got the real New-Jerusalem look, she +has--like them in the Revelations that wears the fine linen, clean and +white." + +"Bless you, Captain Kittridge! don't be a-makin' a fool of yourself +about no girl at your time o' life," said Mrs. Kittridge, speaking under +her breath in a nipping, energetic tone, for they were coming too near +the boat to speak very loud. + +"Good mornin', Mis' Pennel; we've got a good day, and a mercy it is so. +'Member when we launched the North Star, that it rained guns all the +mornin', and the water got into the baskets when we was a-fetchin' the +things over, and made a sight o' pester." + +"Yes," said Mrs. Pennel, with an air of placid satisfaction, "everything +seems to be going right about this vessel." + +Mrs. Kittridge and Sally were soon accommodated with seats, and +Zephaniah Pennel and the Captain began trimming sail. The day was one of +those perfect gems of days which are to be found only in the +jewel-casket of October, a day neither hot nor cold, with an air so +clear that every distant pine-tree top stood out in vivid separateness, +and every woody point and rocky island seemed cut out in crystalline +clearness against the sky. There was so brisk a breeze that the boat +slanted quite to the water's edge on one side, and Mara leaned over and +pensively drew her little pearly hand through the water, and thought of +the days when she and Moses took this sail together--she in her pink +sun-bonnet, and he in his round straw hat, with a tin dinner-pail +between them; and now, to-day the ship of her childish dreams was to be +launched. That launching was something she regarded almost with +superstitious awe. The ship, built on one element, but designed to have +its life in another, seemed an image of the soul, framed and fashioned +with many a weary hammer-stroke in this life, but finding its true +element only when it sails out into the ocean of eternity. Such was her +thought as she looked down the clear, translucent depths; but would it +have been of any use to try to utter it to anybody?--to Sally Kittridge, +for example, who sat all in a cheerful rustle of bright ribbons beside +her, and who would have shown her white teeth all round at such a +suggestion, and said, "Now, Mara, who but you would have thought of +that?" + +But there are souls sent into this world who seem to have always +mysterious affinities for the invisible and the unknown--who see the +face of everything beautiful through a thin veil of mystery and sadness. +The Germans call this yearning of spirit home-sickness--the dim +remembrances of a spirit once affiliated to some higher sphere, of whose +lost brightness all things fair are the vague reminders. As Mara looked +pensively into the water, it seemed to her that every incident of life +came up out of its depths to meet her. Her own face reflected in a +wavering image, sometimes shaped itself to her gaze in the likeness of +the pale lady of her childhood, who seemed to look up at her from the +waters with dark, mysterious eyes of tender longing. Once or twice this +dreamy effect grew so vivid that she shivered, and drawing herself up +from the water, tried to take an interest in a very minute account which +Mrs. Kittridge was giving of the way to make corn-fritters which should +taste exactly like oysters. The closing direction about the quantity of +mace Mrs. Kittridge felt was too sacred for common ears, and therefore +whispered it into Mrs. Pennel's bonnet with a knowing nod and a look +from her black spectacles which would not have been bad for a priestess +of Dodona in giving out an oracle. In this secret direction about the +_mace_ lay the whole mystery of corn-oysters; and who can say what +consequences might ensue from casting it in an unguarded manner before +the world? + +And now the boat which has rounded Harpswell Point is skimming across to +the head of Middle Bay, where the new ship can distinctly be discerned +standing upon her ways, while moving clusters of people were walking up +and down her decks or lining the shore in the vicinity. All sorts of +gossiping and neighborly chit-chat is being interchanged in the little +world assembling there. + +"I hain't seen the Pennels nor the Kittridges yet," said Aunt Ruey, +whose little roly-poly figure was made illustrious in her best +cinnamon-colored dyed silk. "There's Moses Pennel a-goin' up that ar +ladder. Dear me, what a beautiful feller he is! it's a pity he ain't +a-goin' to marry Mara Lincoln, after all." + +"Ruey, do hush up," said Miss Roxy, frowning sternly down from under the +shadow of a preternatural black straw bonnet, trimmed with huge bows of +black ribbon, which head-piece sat above her curls like a helmet. "Don't +be a-gettin' sentimental, Ruey, whatever else you get--and talkin' like +Miss Emily Sewell about match-makin'; I can't stand it; it rises on my +stomach, such talk does. As to that ar Moses Pennel, folks ain't so +certain as they thinks what he'll do. Sally Kittridge may think he's +a-goin' to have her, because he's been a-foolin' round with her all +summer, and Sally Kittridge may jist find she's mistaken, that's all." + +"Yes," said Miss Ruey, "I 'member when I was a girl my old aunt, Jerushy +Hopkins, used to be always a-dwellin' on this Scripture, and I've been +havin' it brought up to me this mornin': 'There are three things which +are too wonderful for me, yea, four, which I know not: the way of an +eagle in the air, the way of a serpent upon a rock, the way of a ship in +the sea, and the way of a man with a maid.' She used to say it as a +kind o' caution to me when she used to think Abram Peters was bein' +attentive to me. I've often reflected what a massy it was that ar never +come to nothin', for he's a poor drunken critter now." + +"Well, for my part," said Miss Roxy, fixing her eyes critically on the +boat that was just at the landing, "I should say the ways of a maid with +a man was full as particular as any of the rest of 'em. Do look at Sally +Kittridge now. There's Tom Hiers a-helpin' her out of the boat; and did +you see the look she gin Moses Pennel as she went by him? Wal', Moses has +got Mara on his arm anyhow; there's a gal worth six-and-twenty of the +other. Do see them ribbins and scarfs, and the furbelows, and the way +that ar Sally Kittridge handles her eyes. She's one that one feller +ain't never enough for." + +Mara's heart beat fast when the boat touched the shore, and Moses and +one or two other young men came to assist in their landing. Never had he +looked more beautiful than at this moment, when flushed with excitement +and satisfaction he stood on the shore, his straw hat off, and his black +curls blowing in the sea-breeze. He looked at Sally with a look of frank +admiration as she stood there dropping her long black lashes over her +bright cheeks, and coquettishly looking out from under them, but she +stepped forward with a little energy of movement, and took the offered +hand of Tom Hiers, who was gazing at her too with undisguised rapture, +and Moses, stepping into the boat, helped Mrs. Pennel on shore, and then +took Mara on his arm, looking her over as he did so with a glance far +less assured and direct than he had given to Sally. + +"You won't be afraid to climb the ladders, Mara?" said he. + +"Not if you help me," she said. + +Sally and Tom Hiers had already walked on toward the vessel, she +ostentatiously chatting and laughing with him. Moses's brow clouded a +little, and Mara noticed it. Moses thought he did not care for Sally; he +knew that the little hand that was now lying on his arm was the one he +wanted, and yet he felt vexed when he saw Sally walk off triumphantly +with another. It was the dog-in-the-manger feeling which possesses +coquettes of both sexes. Sally, on all former occasions, had shown a +marked preference for him, and professed supreme indifference to Tom +Hiers. + +"It's all well enough," he said to himself, and he helped Mara up the +ladders with the greatest deference and tenderness. "This little woman +is worth ten such girls as Sally, if one only could get her heart. Here +we are on our ship, Mara," he said, as he lifted her over the last +barrier and set her down on the deck. "Look over there, do you see Eagle +Island? Did you dream when we used to go over there and spend the day +that you ever would be on _my_ ship, as you are to-day? You won't be +afraid, will you, when the ship starts?" + +"I am too much of a sea-girl to fear on anything that sails in water," +said Mara with enthusiasm. "What a splendid ship! how nicely it all +looks!" + +"Come, let me take you over it," said Moses, "and show you my cabin." + +Meanwhile the graceful little vessel was the subject of various comments +by the crowd of spectators below, and the clatter of workmen's hammers +busy in some of the last preparations could yet be heard like a shower +of hail-stones under her. + +"I hope the ways are well greased," said old Captain Eldritch. "'Member +how the John Peters stuck in her ways for want of their being greased?" + +"Don't you remember the Grand Turk, that keeled over five minutes after +she was launched?" said the quavering voice of Miss Ruey; "there was +jist such a company of thoughtless young creatures aboard as there is +now." + +"Well, there wasn't nobody hurt," said Captain Kittridge. "If Mis' +Kittridge would let me, I'd be glad to go aboard this 'ere, and be +launched with 'em." + +"I tell the Cap'n he's too old to be climbin' round and mixin' with +young folks' frolics," said Mrs. Kittridge. + +"I suppose, Cap'n Pennel, you've seen that the ways is all right," said +Captain Broad, returning to the old subject. + +"Oh yes, it's all done as well as hands can do it," said Zephaniah. +"Moses has been here since starlight this morning, and Moses has pretty +good faculty about such matters." + +"Where's Mr. Sewell and Miss Emily?" said Miss Ruey. "Oh, there they are +over on that pile of rocks; they get a pretty fair view there." + +Mr. Sewell and Miss Emily were sitting under a cedar-tree, with two or +three others, on a projecting point whence they could have a clear view +of the launching. They were so near that they could distinguish clearly +the figures on deck, and see Moses standing with his hat off, the wind +blowing his curls back, talking earnestly to the golden-haired little +woman on his arm. + +"It is a launch into life for him," said Mr. Sewell, with suppressed +feeling. + +"Yes, and he has Mara on his arm," said Miss Emily; "that's as it should +be. Who is that that Sally Kittridge is flirting with now? Oh, Tom +Hiers. Well! he's good enough for her. Why don't she take him?" said +Miss Emily, in her zeal jogging her brother's elbow. + +"I'm sure, Emily, I don't know," said Mr. Sewell dryly; "perhaps he +won't be taken." + +"Don't you think Moses looks handsome?" said Miss Emily. "I declare +there is something quite romantic and Spanish about him; don't you think +so, Theophilus?" + +"Yes, I think so," said her brother, quietly looking, externally, the +meekest and most matter-of-fact of persons, but deep within him a voice +sighed, "Poor Dolores, be comforted, your boy is beautiful and +prosperous!" + +"There, there!" said Miss Emily, "I believe she is starting." + +All eyes of the crowd were now fixed on the ship; the sound of hammers +stopped; the workmen were seen flying in every direction to gain good +positions to see her go,--that sight so often seen on those shores, yet +to which use cannot dull the most insensible. + +First came a slight, almost imperceptible, movement, then a swift +exultant rush, a dash into the hissing water, and the air was rent with +hurrahs as the beautiful ship went floating far out on the blue seas, +where her fairer life was henceforth to be. + +Mara was leaning on Moses's arm at the instant the ship began to move, +but in the moment of the last dizzy rush she felt his arm go tightly +round her, holding her so close that she could hear the beating of his +heart. + +"Hurrah!" he said, letting go his hold the moment the ship floated free, +and swinging his hat in answer to the hats, scarfs, and handkerchiefs, +which fluttered from the crowd on the shore. His eyes sparkled with a +proud light as he stretched himself upward, raising his head and +throwing back his shoulders with a triumphant movement. He looked like a +young sea-king just crowned; and the fact is the less wonderful, +therefore, that Mara felt her heart throb as she looked at him, and that +a treacherous throb of the same nature shook the breezy ribbons +fluttering over the careless heart of Sally. A handsome young +sea-captain, treading the deck of his own vessel, is, in his time and +place, a prince. + +Moses looked haughtily across at Sally, and then passed a half-laughing +defiant flash of eyes between them. He looked at Mara, who could +certainly not have known what was in her eyes at the moment,--an +expression that made his heart give a great throb, and wonder if he saw +aright: but it was gone a moment after, as all gathered around in a knot +exchanging congratulations on the fortunate way in which the affair had +gone off. Then came the launching in boats to go back to the collation +on shore, where were high merry-makings for the space of one or two +hours: and thus was fulfilled the first part of Moses Pennel's Saturday +afternoon prediction. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + +GREEK MEETS GREEK + + +Moses was now within a day or two of the time of his sailing, and yet +the distance between him and Mara seemed greater than ever. It is +astonishing, when two people are once started on a wrong understanding +with each other, how near they may live, how intimate they may be, how +many things they may have in common, how many words they may speak, how +closely they may seem to simulate intimacy, confidence, friendship, +while yet there lies a gulf between them that neither crosses,--a +reserve that neither explores. + +Like most shy girls, Mara became more shy the more really she understood +the nature of her own feelings. The conversation with Sally had opened +her eyes to the secret of her own heart, and she had a guilty feeling as +if what she had discovered must be discovered by every one else. Yes, it +was clear she loved Moses in a way that made him, she thought, more +necessary to her happiness than she could ever be to his,--in a way that +made it impossible to think of him as wholly and for life devoted to +another, without a constant inner conflict. In vain had been all her +little stratagems practiced upon herself the whole summer long, to prove +to herself that she was glad that the choice had fallen upon Sally. She +saw clearly enough now that she was not glad,--that there was no woman +or girl living, however dear, who could come for life between him and +her, without casting on her heart the shuddering sorrow of a dim +eclipse. + +But now the truth was plain to herself, her whole force was directed +toward the keeping of her secret. "I may suffer," she thought, "but I +will have strength not to be silly and weak. Nobody shall know,--nobody +shall dream it,--and in the long, long time that he is away, I shall +have strength given me to overcome." + +So Mara put on her most cheerful and matter-of-fact kind of face, and +plunged into the making of shirts and knitting of stockings, and talked +of the coming voyage with such a total absence of any concern, that +Moses began to think, after all, there could be no depth to her +feelings, or that the deeper ones were all absorbed by some one else. + +"You really seem to enjoy the prospect of my going away," said he to +her, one morning, as she was energetically busying herself with her +preparations. + +"Well, of course; you know your career must begin. You must make your +fortune; and it is pleasant to think how favorably everything is shaping +for you." + +"One likes, however, to be a little regretted," said Moses, in a tone of +pique. + +"A little regretted!" Mara's heart beat at these words, but her +hypocrisy was well practiced. She put down the rebellious throb, and +assuming a look of open, sisterly friendliness, said, quite naturally, +"Why, we shall all miss you, of course." + +"Of course," said Moses,--"one would be glad to be missed some other way +than _of course_." + +"Oh, as to that, make yourself easy," said Mara. "We shall all be dull +enough when you are gone to content the most exacting." Still she spoke, +not stopping her stitching, and raising her soft brown eyes with a +frank, open look into Moses's--no tremor, not even of an eyelid. + +"You men must have everything," she continued, gayly, "the enterprise, +the adventure, the novelty, the pleasure of feeling that you are +something, and can do something in the world; and besides all this, you +want the satisfaction of knowing that we women are following in chains +behind your triumphal car!" + +There was a dash of bitterness in this, which was a rare ingredient in +Mara's conversation. + +Moses took the word. "And you women sit easy at home, sewing and +singing, and forming romantic pictures of our life as like its homely +reality as romances generally are to reality; and while we are off in +the hard struggle for position and the means of life, you hold your +hearts ready for the first rich man that offers a fortune ready made." + +"The first!" said Mara. "Oh, you naughty! sometimes we try two or +three." + +"Well, then, I suppose this is from one of them," said Moses, flapping +down a letter from Boston, directed in a masculine hand, which he had +got at the post-office that morning. + +Now Mara knew that this letter was nothing in particular, but she was +taken by surprise, and her skin was delicate as peach-blossom, and so +she could not help a sudden blush, which rose even to her golden hair, +vexed as she was to feel it coming. She put the letter quietly in her +pocket, and for a moment seemed too discomposed to answer. + +"You do well to keep your own counsel," said Moses. "No friend so near +as one's self, is a good maxim. One does not expect young girls to learn +it so early, but it seems they do." + +"And why shouldn't they as well as young men?" said Mara. "Confidence +begets confidence, they say." + +"I have no ambition to play confidant," said Moses; "although as one who +stands to you in the relation of older brother and guardian, and just on +the verge of a long voyage, I might be supposed anxious to know." + +"And I have no ambition to be confidant," said Mara, all her spirit +sparkling in her eyes; "although when one stands to you in the relation +of an only sister, I might be supposed perhaps to feel some interest to +be in your confidence." + +The words "older brother" and "only sister" grated on the ears of both +the combatants as a decisive sentence. Mara never looked so pretty in +her life, for the whole force of her being was awake, glowing and +watchful, to guard passage, door, and window of her soul, that no +treacherous hint might escape. Had he not just reminded her that he was +only an older brother? and what would he think if he knew the +truth?--and Moses thought the words _only sister_ unequivocal +declaration of how the matter stood in her view, and so he rose, and +saying, "I won't detain you longer from your letter," took his hat and +went out. + +"Are you going down to Sally's?" said Mara, coming to the door and +looking out after him. + +"Yes." + +"Well, ask her to come home with you and spend the evening. I have ever +so many things to tell her." + +"I will," said Moses, as he lounged away. + +"The thing is clear enough," said Moses to himself. "Why should I make a +fool of myself any further? What possesses us men always to set our +hearts precisely on what isn't to be had? There's Sally Kittridge likes +me; I can see that plainly enough, for all her mincing; and why couldn't +I have had the sense to fall in love with her? She will make a splendid, +showy woman. She has talent and tact enough to rise to any position I +may rise to, let me rise as high as I will. She will always have skill +and energy in the conduct of life; and when all the froth and foam of +youth has subsided, she will make a noble woman. Why, then, do I cling +to this fancy? I feel that this little flossy cloud, this delicate, +quiet little puff of thistledown, on which I have set my heart, is the +only thing for me, and that without her my life will always be +incomplete. I remember all our early life. It was she who sought me, and +ran after me, and where has all that love gone to? Gone to this fellow; +that's plain enough. When a girl like her is so comfortably cool and +easy, it's because her heart is off somewhere else." + +This conversation took place about four o'clock in as fine an October +afternoon as you could wish to see. The sun, sloping westward, turned to +gold the thousand blue scales of the ever-heaving sea, and soft, +pine-scented winds were breathing everywhere through the forests, waving +the long, swaying films of heavy moss, and twinkling the leaves of the +silver birches that fluttered through the leafy gloom. The moon, already +in the sky, gave promise of a fine moonlight night; and the wild and +lonely stillness of the island, and the thoughts of leaving in a few +days, all conspired to foster the restless excitement in our hero's mind +into a kind of romantic unrest. + +Now, in some such states, a man disappointed in one woman will turn to +another, because, in a certain way and measure, her presence stills the +craving and fills the void. It is a sort of supposititious courtship,--a +saying to one woman, who is sympathetic and receptive, the words of +longing and love that another will not receive. To be sure it is a game +unworthy of any true man,--a piece of sheer, reckless, inconsiderate +selfishness. But men do it, as they do many other unworthy things, from +the mere promptings of present impulse, and let consequences take care +of themselves. Moses met Sally that afternoon in just the frame to play +the lover in this hypothetical, supposititious way, with words and looks +and tones that came from feelings given to another. And as to Sally? +Well, for once, Greek met Greek; for although Sally, as we showed her, +was a girl of generous impulses, she was yet in no danger of immediate +translation on account of superhuman goodness. In short, Sally had made +up her mind that Moses should give her a chance to say that precious and +golden _No_, which should enable her to count him as one of her +captives,--and then he might go where he liked for all her. + +So said the wicked elf, as she looked into her own great eyes in the +little square of mirror shaded by a misty asparagus bush; and to this +end there were various braidings and adornings of the lustrous black +hair, and coquettish earrings were mounted that hung glancing and +twinkling just by the smooth outline of her glowing cheek,--and then +Sally looked at herself in a friendly way of approbation, and nodded at +the bright dimpled shadow with a look of secret understanding. The real +Sally and the Sally of the looking-glass were on admirable terms with +each other, and both of one mind about the plan of campaign against the +common enemy. Sally thought of him as he stood kingly and triumphant on +the deck of his vessel, his great black eyes flashing confident glances +into hers, and she felt a rebellious rustle of all her plumage. "No, +sir," she said to herself, "you don't do it. You shall never find me +among your slaves,"--"that you know of," added a doubtful voice within +her. "Never to your knowledge," she said, as she turned away. "I wonder +if he will come here this evening," she said, as she began to work upon +a pillow-case,--one of a set which Mrs. Kittridge had confided to her +nimble fingers. The seam was long, straight, and monotonous, and Sally +was restless and fidgety; her thread would catch in knots, and when she +tried to loosen it, would break, and the needle had to be threaded over. +Somehow the work was terribly irksome to her, and the house looked so +still and dim and lonesome, and the tick-tock of the kitchen-clock was +insufferable, and Sally let her work fall in her lap and looked out of +the open window, far to the open ocean, where a fresh breeze was +blowing toward her, and her eyes grew deep and dreamy following the +gliding ship sails. Sally was getting romantic. Had she been reading +novels? Novels! What can a pretty woman find in a novel equal to the +romance that is all the while weaving and unweaving about her, and of +which no human foresight can tell her the catastrophe? It is _novels_ +that give false views of life. Is there not an eternal novel, with all +these false, cheating views, written in the breast of every beautiful +and attractive girl whose witcheries make every man that comes near her +talk like a fool? Like a sovereign princess, she never hears the truth, +unless it be from the one manly man in a thousand, who understands both +himself and her. From all the rest she hears only flatteries more or +less ingenious, according to the ability of the framer. Compare, for +instance, what Tom Brown says to little Seraphina at the party to-night, +with what Tom Brown sober says to sober sister Maria _about_ her +to-morrow. Tom remembers that he was a fool last night, and knows what +he thinks and always has thought to-day; but pretty Seraphina thinks he +adores her, so that no matter what she does he will never see a flaw, +she is sure of that,--poor little puss! She does not know that +philosophic Tom looks at her as he does at a glass of champagne, or a +dose of exhilarating gas, and calculates how much it will do for him to +take of the stimulus without interfering with his serious and settled +plans of life, which, of course, he doesn't mean to give up for her. The +one-thousand-and-first man in creation is he that can feel the +fascination but will not flatter, and that tries to tell to the little +tyrant the rare word of truth that may save her; he is, as we say, the +one-thousand-and-first. Well, as Sally sat with her great dark eyes +dreamily following the ship, she mentally thought over all the +compliments Moses had paid her, expressed or understood, and those of +all her other admirers, who had built up a sort of cloud-world around +her, so that her little feet never rested on the soil of reality. Sally +was shrewd and keen, and had a native mother-wit in the discernment of +spirits, that made her feel that somehow this was all false coin; but +still she counted it over, and it looked so pretty and bright that she +sighed to think it was not real. + +"If it only had been," she thought; "if there were only any truth to the +creature; he is so handsome,--it's a pity. But I do believe in his +secret heart he is in love with Mara; he is in love with some one, I +know. I have seen looks that must come from something real; but they +were not for me. I have a kind of power over him, though," she said, +resuming her old wicked look, "and I'll puzzle him a little, and torment +him. He shall find his match in me," and Sally nodded to a cat-bird that +sat perched on a pine-tree, as if she had a secret understanding with +him, and the cat-bird went off into a perfect roulade of imitations of +all that was going on in the late bird-operas of the season. + +Sally was roused from her revery by a spray of goldenrod that was thrown +into her lap by an invisible hand, and Moses soon appeared at the +window. + +"There's a plume that would be becoming to your hair," he said; "stay, +let me arrange it." + +"No, no; you'll tumble my hair,--what can you know of such things?" + +Moses held the spray aloft, and leaned toward her with a sort of quiet, +determined insistence. + +"By your leave, fair lady," he said, wreathing it in her hair, and then +drawing back a little, he looked at her with so much admiration that +Sally felt herself blush. + +"Come, now, I dare say you've made a fright of me," she said, rising and +instinctively turning to the looking-glass; but she had too much +coquetry not to see how admirably the golden plume suited her black +hair, and the brilliant eyes and cheeks; she turned to Moses again, and +courtesied, saying "Thank you, sir," dropping her eyelashes with a mock +humility. + +"Come, now," said Moses; "I am sent after you to come and spend the +evening; let's walk along the seashore, and get there by degrees." + +And so they set out; but the path was circuitous, for Moses was always +stopping, now at this point and now at that, and enacting some of those +thousand little by-plays which a man can get up with a pretty woman. +They searched for smooth pebbles where the waves had left +them,--many-colored, pink and crimson and yellow and brown, all smooth +and rounded by the eternal tossings of the old sea that had made +playthings of them for centuries, and with every pebble given and taken +were things said which should have meant more and more, had the play +been earnest. Had Moses any idea of offering himself to Sally? No; but +he was in one of those fluctuating, unresisting moods of mind in which +he was willing to lie like a chip on the tide of present emotion, and +let it rise and fall and dash him when it liked; and Sally never had +seemed more beautiful and attractive to him than that afternoon, because +there was a shade of reality and depth about her that he had never seen +before. + +"Come on, and let me show you my hermitage," said Moses, guiding her +along the slippery projecting rocks, all covered with yellow tresses of +seaweed. Sally often slipped on this treacherous footing, and Moses was +obliged to hold her up, and instinctively he threw a meaning into his +manner so much more than ever he had before, that by the time they had +gained the little cove both were really agitated and excited. He felt +that temporary delirium which is often the mesmeric effect of a strong +womanly presence, and she felt that agitation which every woman must +when a determined hand is striking on the great vital chord of her +being. When they had stepped round the last point of rock they found +themselves driven by the advancing tide up into the little lonely +grotto,--and there they were with no lookout but the wide blue sea, all +spread out in rose and gold under the twilight skies, with a silver moon +looking down upon them. + +"Sally," said Moses, in a low, earnest whisper, "you love me,--do you +not?" and he tried to pass his arm around her. + +She turned and flashed at him a look of mingled terror and defiance, and +struck out her hands at him; then impetuously turning away and +retreating to the other end of the grotto, she sat down on a rock and +began to cry. + +Moses came toward her, and kneeling, tried to take her hand. She raised +her head angrily, and again repulsed him. + +"Go!" she said. "What right had you to say that? What right had you even +to think it?" + +"Sally, you do love me. It cannot but be. You are a woman; you could not +have been with me as we have and not feel more than friendship." + +"Oh, you men!--your conceit passes understanding," said Sally. "You +think we are born to be your bond slaves,--but for once you are +mistaken, sir. I _don't_ love you; and what's more, you don't love +me,--you know you don't; you know that you love somebody else. You love +Mara,--you know you do; there's no truth in you," she said, rising +indignantly. + +Moses felt himself color. There was an embarrassed pause, and then he +answered,-- + +"Sally, why should I love Mara? Her heart is all given to another,--you +yourself know it." + +"I don't know it either," said Sally; "I know it isn't so." + +"But you gave me to understand so." + +"Well, sir, you put prying questions about what you ought to have asked +her, and so what was I to do? Besides, I did want to show you how much +better Mara could do than to take you; besides, I didn't know till +lately. I never thought she could care much for any man more than I +could." + +"And you think she loves me?" said Moses, eagerly, a flash of joy +illuminating his face; "do you, really?" + +"There you are," said Sally; "it's a shame I have let you know! Yes, +Moses Pennel, she loves you like an angel, as none of you men deserve to +be loved,--as you in particular don't." + +Moses sat down on a point of rock, and looked on the ground +discountenanced. Sally stood up glowing and triumphant, as if she had +her foot on the neck of her oppressor and meant to make the most of it. + +"Now what do you think of yourself for all this summer's work?--for what +you have just said, asking me if I didn't love you? Supposing, now, I +had done as other girls would, played the fool and blushed, and said +yes? Why, to-morrow you would have been thinking how to be rid of me! I +shall save you all that trouble, sir." + +"Sally, I own I have been acting like a fool," said Moses, humbly. + +"You have done more than that,--you have acted wickedly," said Sally. + +"And am I the only one to blame?" said Moses, lifting his head with a +show of resistance. + +"Listen, sir!" said Sally, energetically; "I have played the fool and +acted wrong too, but there is just this difference between you and me: +you had nothing to lose, and I a great deal; your heart, such as it was, +was safely disposed of. But supposing you had won mine, what would you +have done with it? That was the last thing you considered." + +"Go on, Sally, don't spare; I'm a vile dog, unworthy of either of you," +said Moses. + +Sally looked down on her handsome penitent with some relenting, as he +sat quite dejected, his strong arms drooping, and his long eyelashes +cast down. + +"I'll be friends with you," she said, "because, after all, I'm not so +very much better than you. We have both done wrong, and made dear Mara +very unhappy. But after all, I was not so much to blame as you; because, +if there had been any reality in your love, I could have paid it +honestly. I had a heart to give,--I have it now, and hope long to keep +it," said Sally. + +"Sally, you are a right noble girl. I never knew what you were till +now," said Moses, looking at her with admiration. + +"It's the first time for all these six months that we have either of us +spoken a word of truth or sense to each other. I never did anything but +trifle with you, and you the same. Now we've come to some plain dry +land, we may walk on and be friends. So now help me up these rocks, and +I will go home." + +"And you'll not come home with me?" + +"Of course not. I think you may now go home and have one talk with Mara +without witnesses." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + +THE BETROTHAL + + +Moses walked slowly home from his interview with Sally, in a sort of +maze of confused thought. In general, men understand women only from the +outside, and judge them with about as much real comprehension as an +eagle might judge a canary-bird. The difficulty of real understanding +intensifies in proportion as the man is distinctively manly, and the +woman womanly. There are men with a large infusion of the feminine +element in their composition who read the female nature with more +understanding than commonly falls to the lot of men; but in general, +when a man passes beyond the mere outside artifices and unrealities +which lie between the two sexes, and really touches his finger to any +vital chord in the heart of a fair neighbor, he is astonished at the +quality of the vibration. + +"I could not have dreamed there was so much in her," thought Moses, as +he turned away from Sally Kittridge. He felt humbled as well as +astonished by the moral lecture which this frisky elf with whom he had +all summer been amusing himself, preached to him from the depths of a +real woman's heart. What she said of Mara's loving him filled his eyes +with remorseful tears,--and for the moment he asked himself whether this +restless, jealous, exacting desire which he felt to appropriate her +whole life and heart to himself were as really worthy of the name of +love as the generous self-devotion with which she had, all her life, +made all his interests her own. + +Was he to go to her now and tell her that he loved her, and therefore +he had teased and vexed her,--therefore he had seemed to prefer another +before her,--therefore he had practiced and experimented upon her +nature? A suspicion rather stole upon him that love which expresses +itself principally in making exactions and giving pain is not exactly +worthy of the name. And yet he had been secretly angry with her all +summer for being the very reverse of this; for her apparent cheerful +willingness to see him happy with another; for the absence of all signs +of jealousy,--all desire of exclusive appropriation. It showed, he said +to himself, that there was no love; and now when it dawned on him that +this might be the very heroism of self-devotion, he asked himself which +was best worthy to be called love. + +"She did love him, then!" The thought blazed up through the smouldering +embers of thought in his heart like a tongue of flame. She loved him! He +felt a sort of triumph in it, for he was sure Sally must know, they were +so intimate. Well, he would go to her, and tell her all, confess all his +sins, and be forgiven. + +When he came back to the house, all was still evening. The moon, which +was playing brightly on the distant sea, left one side of the brown +house in shadow. Moses saw a light gleaming behind the curtain in the +little room on the lower floor, which had been his peculiar sanctum +during the summer past. He had made a sort of library of it, keeping +there his books and papers. Upon the white curtain flitted, from time to +time, a delicate, busy shadow; now it rose and now it stooped, and then +it rose again--grew dim and vanished, and then came out again. His heart +beat quick. + +Mara was in his room, busy, as she always had been before his +departures, in cares for him. How many things had she made for him, and +done and arranged for him, all his life long! things which he had taken +as much as a matter of course as the shining of that moon. His thought +went back to the times of his first going to sea,--he a rough, chaotic +boy, sensitive and surly, and she the ever thoughtful good angel of a +little girl, whose loving-kindness he had felt free to use and to abuse. +He remembered that he made her cry there when he should have spoken +lovingly and gratefully to her, and that the words of acknowledgment +that ought to have been spoken, never had been said,--remained unsaid to +that hour. He stooped low, and came quite close to the muslin curtain. +All was bright in the room, and shadowy without; he could see her +movements as through a thin white haze. She was packing his sea-chest; +his things were lying about her, folded or rolled nicely. Now he saw her +on her knees writing something with a pencil in a book, and then she +enveloped it very carefully in silk paper, and tied it trimly, and hid +it away at the bottom of the chest. Then she remained a moment kneeling +at the chest, her head resting in her hands. A sort of strange, sacred +feeling came over him as he heard a low murmur, and knew that she felt a +Presence that he never felt or acknowledged. He felt somehow that he was +doing her a wrong thus to be prying upon moments when she thought +herself alone with God; a sort of vague remorse filled him; he felt as +if she were too good for him. He turned away, and entering the front +door of the house, stepped noiselessly along and lifted the latch of the +door. He heard a rustle as of one rising hastily as he opened it and +stood before Mara. He had made up his mind what to say; but when she +stood there before him, with her surprised, inquiring eyes, he felt +confused. + +"What, home so soon?" she said. + +"You did not expect me, then?" + +"Of course not,--not for these two hours; so," she said, looking about, +"I found some mischief to do among your things. If you had waited as +long as I expected, they would all have been quite right again, and you +would never have known." + +Moses sat down and drew her toward him, as if he were going to say +something, and then stopped and began confusedly playing with her +work-box. + +"Now, please don't," said she, archly. "You know what a little old maid +I am about my things!" + +"Mara," said Moses, "people have asked you to marry them, have they +not?" + +"People asked me to marry them!" said Mara. "I hope not. What an odd +question!" + +"You know what I mean," said Moses; "you have had offers of +marriage--from Mr. Adams, for example." + +"And what if I have?" + +"You did not accept him, Mara?" said Moses. + +"No, I did not." + +"And yet he was a fine man, I am told, and well fitted to make you +happy." + +"I believe he was," said Mara, quietly. + +"And why were you so foolish?" + +Mara was fretted at this question. She supposed Moses had come to tell +her of his engagement to Sally, and that this was a kind of preface, and +she answered,-- + +"I don't know why you call it foolish. I was a true friend to Mr. Adams. +I saw intellectually that he might have the power of making any +reasonable woman happy. I think now that the woman will be fortunate who +becomes his wife; but I did not wish to marry him." + +"Is there anybody you prefer to him, Mara?" said Moses. + +She started up with glowing cheeks and sparkling eyes. + +"You have no right to ask me that, though you are my brother." + +"I am not your brother, Mara," said Moses, rising and going toward her, +"and that is why I ask you. I feel I have a right to ask you." + +"I do not understand you," she said, faintly. + +"I can speak plainer, then. I wish to put in my poor venture. I love +you, Mara--not as a brother. I wish you to be my wife, if you will." + +While Moses was saying these words, Mara felt a sort of whirling in her +head, and it grew dark before her eyes; but she had a strong, firm will, +and she mastered herself and answered, after a moment, in a quiet, +sorrowful tone, "How can I believe this, Moses? If it is true, why have +you done as you have this summer?" + +"Because I was a fool, Mara,--because I was jealous of Mr. +Adams,--because I somehow hoped, after all, that you either loved me or +that I might make you think more of me through jealousy of another. They +say that love always is shown by jealousy." + +"Not true love, I should think," said Mara. "How _could_ you do so?--it +was cruel to her,--cruel to me." + +"I admit it,--anything, everything you can say. I have acted like a fool +and a knave, if you will; but after all, Mara, I do love you. I know I +am not worthy of you--never was--never can be; you are in all things a +true, noble woman, and I have been unmanly." + +It is not to be supposed that all this was spoken without accompaniments +of looks, movements, and expressions of face such as we cannot give, but +such as doubled their power to the parties concerned; and the "I love +you" had its usual conclusive force as argument, apology, +promise,--covering, like charity, a multitude of sins. + +Half an hour after, you might have seen a youth and a maiden coming +together out of the door of the brown house, and walking arm in arm +toward the sea-beach. + +It was one of those wonderfully clear moonlight evenings, when the +ocean, like a great reflecting mirror, seems to double the brightness of +the sky,--and its vast expanse lay all around them in its stillness, +like an eternity of waveless peace. Mara remembered that time in her +girlhood when she had followed Moses into the woods on just such a +night,--how she had sat there under the shadows of the trees, and looked +over to Harpswell and noticed the white houses and the meeting-house, +all so bright and clear in the moonlight, and then off again on the +other side of the island where silent ships were coming and going in the +mysterious stillness. They were talking together now with that +outflowing fullness which comes when the seal of some great reserve has +just been broken,--going back over their lives from day to day, bringing +up incidents of childhood, and turning them gleefully like two children. + +And then Moses had all the story of his life to relate, and to tell Mara +all he had learned of his mother,--going over with all the narrative +contained in Mr. Sewell's letter. + +"You see, Mara, that it was intended that you should be my fate," he +ended; "so the winds and waves took me up and carried me to the lonely +island where the magic princess dwelt." + +"You are Prince Ferdinand," said Mara. + +"And you are Miranda," said he. + +"Ah!" she said with fervor, "how plainly we can see that our heavenly +Father has been guiding our way! How good He is,--and how we must try to +live for Him,--both of us." + +A sort of cloud passed over Moses's brow. He looked embarrassed, and +there was a pause between them, and then he turned the conversation. + +Mara felt pained; it was like a sudden discord; such thoughts and +feelings were the very breath of her life; she could not speak in +perfect confidence and unreserve, as she then spoke, without uttering +them; and her finely organized nature felt a sort of electric +consciousness of repulsion and dissent. She grew abstracted, and they +walked on in silence. + +"I see now, Mara, I have pained you," said Moses, "but there are a class +of feelings that you have that I have not and cannot have. No, I cannot +feign anything. I can understand what religion is in you, I can admire +its results. I can be happy, if it gives you any comfort; but people are +differently constituted. I never can feel as you do." + +"Oh, don't say never," said Mara, with an intensity that nearly startled +him; "it has been the one prayer, the one hope, of my life, that you +might have these comforts,--this peace." + +"I need no comfort or peace except what I shall find in you," said +Moses, drawing her to himself, and looking admiringly at her; "but pray +for me still. I always thought that my wife must be one of the sort of +women who pray." + +"And why?" said Mara, in surprise. + +"Because I need to be loved a great deal, and it is only that kind who +pray who know how to love really. If you had not prayed for me all this +time, you never would have loved me in spite of all my faults, as you +did, and do, and will, as I know you will," he said, folding her in his +arms, and in his secret heart he said, "Some of this intensity, this +devotion, which went upward to heaven, will be mine one day. She will +worship me." + +"The fact is, Mara," he said, "I am a child of this world. I have no +sympathy with things not seen. You are a half-spiritual creature,--a +child of air; and but for the great woman's heart in you, I should feel +that you were something uncanny and unnatural. I am selfish, I know; I +frankly admit, I never disguised it; but I love your religion because it +makes you love me. It is an incident to that loving, trusting nature +which makes you all and wholly mine, as I want you to be. I want you all +and wholly; every thought, every feeling,--the whole strength of your +being. I don't care if I say it: I would not wish to be second in your +heart even to God himself!" + +"Oh, Moses!" said Mara, almost starting away from him, "such words are +dreadful; they will surely bring evil upon us." + +"I only breathed out my nature, as you did yours. Why should you love an +unseen and distant Being more than you do one whom you can feel and see, +who holds you in his arms, whose heart beats like your own?" + +"Moses," said Mara, stopping and looking at him in the clear moonlight, +"God has always been to me not so much like a father as like a dear and +tender mother. Perhaps it was because I was a poor orphan, and my father +and mother died at my birth, that He has been so loving to me. I never +remember the time when I did not feel His presence in my joys and my +sorrows. I never had a thought of joy and sorrow that I could not say to +Him. I never woke in the night that I did not feel that He was loving +and watching me, and that I loved Him in return. Oh, how many, many +things I have said to Him about you! My heart would have broken years +ago, had it not been for Him; because, though you did not know it, you +often seemed unkind; you hurt me very often when you did not mean to. +His love is so much a part of my life that I cannot conceive of life +without it. It is the very air I breathe." + +Moses stood still a moment, for Mara spoke with a fervor that affected +him; then he drew her to his heart, and said,-- + +"Oh, what could ever make you love me?" + +"He sent you and gave you to me," she answered, "to be mine in time and +eternity." + +The words were spoken in a kind of enthusiasm so different from the +usual reserve of Mara, that they seemed like a prophecy. That night, for +the first time in her life, had she broken the reserve which was her +very nature, and spoken of that which was the intimate and hidden +history of her soul. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + +AT A QUILTING + + +"And so," said Mrs. Captain Badger to Miss Roxy Toothacre, "it seems +that Moses Pennel ain't going to have Sally Kittridge after all,--he's +engaged to Mara Lincoln." + +"More shame for him," said Miss Roxy, with a frown that made her mohair +curls look really tremendous. + +Miss Roxy and Mrs. Badger were the advance party at a quilting, to be +holden at the house of Mr. Sewell, and had come at one o'clock to do the +marking upon the quilt, which was to be filled up by the busy fingers of +all the women in the parish. Said quilt was to have a bordering of a +pattern commonly denominated in those parts clam-shell, and this Miss +Roxy was diligently marking with indigo. + +"What makes you say so, now?" said Mrs. Badger, a fat, comfortable, +motherly matron, who always patronized the last matrimonial venture that +put forth among the young people. + +"What business had he to flirt and gallivant all summer with Sally +Kittridge, and make everybody think he was going to have her, and then +turn round to Mara Lincoln at the last minute? I wish I'd been in Mara's +place." + +In Miss Roxy's martial enthusiasm, she gave a sudden poke to her +frisette, giving to it a diagonal bristle which extremely increased its +usually severe expression; and any one contemplating her at the moment +would have thought that for Moses Pennel, or any other young man, to +come with tender propositions in that direction would have been indeed +a venturesome enterprise. + +"I tell you what 'tis, Mis' Badger," she said, "I've known Mara since +she was born,--I may say I fetched her up myself, for if I hadn't +trotted and tended her them first four weeks of her life, Mis' Pennel'd +never have got her through; and I've watched her every year since; and +havin' Moses Pennel is the only silly thing I ever knew her to do; but +you never can tell what a girl will do when it comes to +marryin',--never!" + +"But he's a real stirrin', likely young man, and captain of a fine +ship," said Mrs. Badger. + +"Don't care if he's captain of twenty ships," said Miss Roxy, +obdurately; "he ain't a professor of religion, and I believe he's an +infidel, and she's one of the Lord's people." + +"Well," said Mrs. Badger, "you know the unbelievin' husband shall be +sanctified by the believin' wife." + +"Much sanctifyin' he'll get," said Miss Roxy, contemptuously. "I don't +believe he loves her any more than fancy; she's the last plaything, and +when he's got her, he'll be tired of her, as he always was with anything +he got ever since. I tell you, Moses Pennel is all for pride and +ambition and the world; and his wife, when he gets used to her, 'll be +only a circumstance,--that's all." + +"Come, now, Miss Roxy," said Miss Emily, who in her best silk and +smoothly-brushed hair had just come in, "we must _not_ let you talk so. +Moses Pennel has had long talks with brother, and he thinks him in a +very hopeful way, and we are all delighted; and as to Mara, she is as +fresh and happy as a little rose." + +"So I tell Roxy," said Miss Ruey, who had been absent from the room to +hold private consultations with Miss Emily concerning the biscuits and +sponge-cake for tea, and who now sat down to the quilt and began to +unroll a capacious and very limp calico thread-case; and placing her +spectacles awry on her little pug nose, she began a series of ingenious +dodges with her thread, designed to hit the eye of her needle. + +"The old folks," she continued, "are e'en a'most tickled to +pieces,--'cause they think it'll jist be the salvation of him to get +Mara." + +"I ain't one of the sort that wants to be a-usin' up girls for the +salvation of fellers," said Miss Roxy, severely. "Ever since he nearly +like to have got her eat up by sharks, by giggiting her off in the boat +out to sea when she wa'n't more'n three years old, I always have +thought he was a misfortin' in that family, and I think so now." + +Here broke in Mrs. Eaton, a thrifty energetic widow of a deceased +sea-captain, who had been left with a tidy little fortune which +commanded the respect of the neighborhood. Mrs. Eaton had entered +silently during the discussion, but of course had come, as every other +woman had that afternoon, with views to be expressed upon the subject. + +"For my part," she said, as she stuck a decisive needle into the first +clam-shell pattern, "I ain't so sure that all the advantage in this +match is on Moses Pennel's part. Mara Lincoln is a good little thing, +but she ain't fitted to help a man along,--she'll always be wantin' +somebody to help her. Why, I 'member goin' a voyage with Cap'n Eaton, +when I saved the ship, if anybody did,--it was allowed on all hands. +Cap'n Eaton wasn't hearty at that time, he was jist gettin' up from a +fever,--it was when Marthy Ann was a baby, and I jist took her and went +to sea and took care of him. I used to work the longitude for him and +help him lay the ship's course when his head was bad,--and when we came +on the coast, we were kept out of harbor beatin' about nearly three +weeks, and all the ship's tacklin' was stiff with ice, and I tell you +the men never would have stood it through and got the ship in, if it +hadn't been for me. I kept their mittens and stockings all the while +a-dryin' at my stove in the cabin, and hot coffee all the while +a-boilin' for 'em, or I believe they'd a-frozen their hands and feet, +and never been able to work the ship in. That's the way _I_ did. Now +Sally Kittridge is a great deal more like that than Mara." + +"There's no doubt that Sally is smart," said Mrs. Badger, "but then it +ain't every one can do like you, Mrs. Eaton." + +"Oh no, oh no," was murmured from mouth to mouth; "Mrs. Eaton mustn't +think she's any rule for others,--everybody knows she can do more than +most people;" whereat the pacified Mrs. Eaton said "she didn't know as +it was anything remarkable,--it showed what anybody might do, if they'd +only _try_ and have resolution; but that Mara never had been brought up +to have resolution, and her mother never had resolution before her, it +wasn't in any of Mary Pennel's family; she knew their grandmother and +all their aunts, and they were all a weakly set, and not fitted to get +along in life,--they were a kind of people that somehow didn't seem to +know how to take hold of things." + +At this moment the consultation was hushed up by the entrance of Sally +Kittridge and Mara, evidently on the closest terms of intimacy, and more +than usually demonstrative and affectionate; they would sit together and +use each other's needles, scissors, thread, and thimbles +interchangeably, as if anxious to express every minute the most +overflowing confidence. Sly winks and didactic nods were covertly +exchanged among the elderly people, and when Mrs. Kittridge entered with +more than usual airs of impressive solemnity, several of these were +covertly directed toward her, as a matron whose views in life must have +been considerably darkened by the recent event. + +Mrs. Kittridge, however, found an opportunity to whisper under her +breath to Miss Ruey what a relief to her it was that the affair had +taken such a turn. She had felt uneasy all summer for fear of what might +come. Sally was so thoughtless and worldly, she felt afraid that he +would lead her astray. She didn't see, for her part, how a professor of +religion like Mara could make up her mind to such an unsettled kind of +fellow, even if he did seem to be rich and well-to-do. But then she had +done looking for consistency; and she sighed and vigorously applied +herself to quilting like one who has done with the world. + +In return, Miss Ruey sighed and took snuff, and related for the +hundredth time to Mrs. Kittridge the great escape she once had from the +addresses of Abraham Peters, who had turned out a "poor drunken +creetur." But then it was only natural that Mara should be interested in +Moses; and the good soul went off into her favorite verse:-- + + "The fondness of a creature's love, + How strong it strikes the sense! + Thither the warm affections move, + Nor can we drive them thence." + +In fact, Miss Ruey's sentimental vein was in quite a gushing state, for +she more than once extracted from the dark corners of the limp calico +thread-case we have spoken of certain long-treasured _morceaux_ of +newspaper poetry, of a tender and sentimental cast, which she had laid +up with true Yankee economy, in case any one should ever be in a +situation to need them. They related principally to the union of kindred +hearts, and the joys of reciprocated feeling and the pains of absence. +Good Miss Ruey occasionally passed these to Mara, with glances full of +meaning, which caused the poor old thing to resemble a sentimental +goblin, keeping Sally Kittridge in a perfect hysterical tempest of +suppressed laughter, and making it difficult for Mara to preserve the +decencies of life toward her well-intending old friend. The trouble with +poor Miss Ruey was that, while her body had grown old and crazy, her +soul was just as juvenile as ever,--and a simple, juvenile soul +disporting itself in a crazy, battered old body, is at great +disadvantage. It was lucky for her, however, that she lived in the most +sacred unconsciousness of the ludicrous effect of her little +indulgences, and the pleasure she took in them was certainly of the most +harmless kind. The world would be a far better and more enjoyable place +than it is, if all people who are old and uncomely could find amusement +as innocent and Christian-like as Miss Ruey's inoffensive thread-case +collection of sentimental truisms. + +This quilting of which we speak was a solemn, festive occasion of the +parish, held a week after Moses had sailed away; and so _piquant_ a +morsel as a recent engagement could not, of course, fail to be served up +for the company in every variety of garnishing which individual tastes +might suggest. + +It became an ascertained fact, however, in the course of the evening +festivities, that the minister was serenely approbative of the event; +that Captain Kittridge was at length brought to a sense of the errors of +his way in supposing that Sally had ever cared a pin for Moses more than +as a mutual friend and confidant; and the great affair was settled +without more ripples of discomposure than usually attend similar +announcements in more refined society. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + +FRIENDS + + +The quilting broke up at the primitive hour of nine o'clock, at which, +in early New England days, all social gatherings always dispersed. +Captain Kittridge rowed his helpmeet, with Mara and Sally, across the +Bay to the island. + +"Come and stay with me to-night, Sally," said Mara. + +"I think Sally had best be at home," said Mrs. Kittridge. "There's no +sense in girls talking all night." + +"There ain't sense in nothin' else, mother," said the Captain. "Next to +sparkin', which is the Christianist thing I knows on, comes gals' talks +'bout their sparks; they's as natural as crowsfoot and red columbines +in the spring, and spring don't come but once a year neither,--and so +let 'em take the comfort on't. I warrant now, Polly, you've laid awake +nights and talked about me." + +"We've all been foolish once," said Mrs. Kittridge. + +"Well, mother, we want to be foolish too," said Sally. + +"Well, you and your father are too much for me," said Mrs. Kittridge, +plaintively; "you always get your own way." + +"How lucky that my way is always a good one!" said Sally. + +"Well, you know, Sally, you are going to make the beer to-morrow," still +objected her mother. + +"Oh, yes; that's another reason," said Sally. "Mara and I shall come +home through the woods in the morning, and we can get whole apronfuls of +young wintergreen, and besides, I know where there's a lot of sassafras +root. We'll dig it, won't we, Mara?" + +"Yes; and I'll come down and help you brew," said Mara. "Don't you +remember the beer I made when Moses came home?" + +"Yes, yes, I remember," said the Captain, "you sent us a couple of +bottles." + +"We can make better yet now," said Mara. "The wintergreen is young, and +the green tips on the spruce boughs are so full of strength. Everything +is lively and sunny now." + +"Yes, yes," said the Captain, "and I 'spect I know why things do look +pretty lively to some folks, don't they?" + +"I don't know what sort of work you'll make of the beer among you," said +Mrs. Kittridge; "but you must have it your own way." + +Mrs. Kittridge, who never did anything else among her tea-drinking +acquaintances but laud and magnify Sally's good traits and domestic +acquirements, felt constantly bound to keep up a faint show of +controversy and authority in her dealings with her,--the fading remains +of the strict government of her childhood; but it was, nevertheless, +very perfectly understood, in a general way, that Sally was to do as she +pleased; and so, when the boat came to shore, she took the arm of Mara +and started up toward the brown house. + +The air was soft and balmy, and though the moon by which the troth of +Mara and Moses had been plighted had waned into the latest hours of the +night, still a thousand stars were lying in twinkling brightness, +reflected from the undulating waves all around them, and the tide, as it +rose and fell, made a sound as gentle and soft as the respiration of a +peaceful sleeper. + +"Well, Mara," said Sally, after an interval of silence, "all has come +out right. You see that it was you whom he loved. What a lucky thing +for me that I am made so heartless, or I might not be as glad as I am." + +"You are not heartless, Sally," said Mara; "it's the enchanted princess +asleep; the right one hasn't come to waken her." + +"Maybe so," said Sally, with her old light laugh. "If I only were sure +he would make you happy now,--half as happy as you deserve,--I'd forgive +him his share of this summer's mischief. The fault was just half mine, +you see, for I witched with him. I confess it. I have my own little +spider-webs for these great lordly flies, and I like to hear them buzz." + +"Take care, Sally; never do it again, or the spider-web may get round +you," said Mara. + +"Never fear me," said Sally. "But, Mara, I wish I felt sure that Moses +could make you happy. Do you really, now, when you think seriously, feel +as if he would?" + +"I never thought seriously about it," said Mara; "but I know he needs +me; that I can do for him what no one else can. I have always felt all +my life that he was to be mine; that he was sent to me, ordained for me +to care for and to love." + +"You are well mated," said Sally. "He wants to be loved very much, and +you want to love. There's the active and passive voice, as they used to +say at Miss Plucher's. But yet in your natures you are opposite as any +two could well be." + +Mara felt that there was in these chance words of Sally more than she +perceived. No one could feel as intensely as she could that the mind and +heart so dear to her were yet, as to all that was most vital and real in +her inner life, unsympathizing. To her the spiritual world was a +reality; God an ever-present consciousness; and the line of this present +life seemed so to melt and lose itself in the anticipation of a future +and brighter one, that it was impossible for her to speak intimately and +not unconsciously to betray the fact. To him there was only the life of +this world: there was no present God; and from all thought of a future +life he shrank with a shuddering aversion, as from something ghastly and +unnatural. She had realized this difference more in the few days that +followed her betrothal than all her life before, for now first the +barrier of mutual constraint and misunderstanding having melted away, +each spoke with an _abandon_ and unreserve which made the acquaintance +more vitally intimate than ever it had been before. It was then that +Mara felt that while her sympathies could follow him through all his +plans and interests, there was a whole world of thought and feeling in +her heart where his could not follow her; and she asked herself, Would +it be so always? Must she walk at his side forever repressing the +utterance of that which was most sacred and intimate, living in a +nominal and external communion only? How could it be that what was so +lovely and clear in its reality to her, that which was to her as +life-blood, that which was the vital air in which she lived and moved +and had her being, could be absolutely nothing to him? Was it really +possible, as he said, that God had no existence for him except in a +nominal cold belief; that the spiritual world was to him only a land of +pale shades and doubtful glooms, from which he shrank with dread, and +the least allusion to which was distasteful? and would this always be +so? and if so, could she be happy? + +But Mara said the truth in saying that the question of personal +happiness never entered her thoughts. She loved Moses in a way that made +it necessary to her happiness to devote herself to him, to watch over +and care for him; and though she knew not how, she felt a sort of +presentiment that it was through her that he must be brought into +sympathy with a spiritual and immortal life. + +All this passed through Mara's mind in the reverie into which Sally's +last words threw her, as she sat on the door-sill and looked off into +the starry distance and heard the weird murmur of the sea. + +"How lonesome the sea at night always is," said Sally. "I declare, Mara, +I don't wonder you miss that creature, for, to tell the truth, I do a +little bit. It was something, you know, to have somebody to come in, and +to joke with, and to say how he liked one's hair and one's ribbons, and +all that. I quite got up a friendship for Moses, so that I can feel how +dull you must be;" and Sally gave a half sigh, and then whistled a tune +as adroitly as a blackbird. + +"Yes," said Mara, "we two girls down on this lonely island need some one +to connect us with the great world; and he was so full of life, and so +certain and confident, he seemed to open a way before one out into +life." + +"Well, of course, while he is gone there will be plenty to do getting +ready to be married," said Sally. "By the by, when I was over to +Portland the other day, Maria Potter showed me a new pattern for a +bed-quilt, the sweetest thing you can imagine,--it is called the morning +star. There is a great star in the centre, and little stars all +around,--white on a blue ground. I mean to begin one for you." + +"I am going to begin spinning some very fine flax next week," said Mara; +"and have I shown you the new pattern I drew for a counterpane? it is to +be morning-glories, leaves and flowers, you know,--a pretty idea, isn't +it?" + +And so, the conversation falling from the region of the sentimental to +the practical, the two girls went in and spent an hour in discussions so +purely feminine that we will not enlighten the reader further therewith. +Sally seemed to be investing all her energies in the preparation of the +wedding outfit of her friend, about which she talked with a constant and +restless activity, and for which she formed a thousand plans, and +projected shopping tours to Portland, Brunswick, and even to +Boston,--this last being about as far off a venture at that time as +Paris now seems to a Boston belle. + +"When you are married," said Sally, "you'll have to take me to live with +you; that creature sha'n't have you _all_ to himself. I hate men, they +are so exorbitant,--they spoil all our playmates; and what shall I do +when _you_ are gone?" + +"You will go with Mr.--what's his name?" said Mara. + +"Pshaw, I don't know him. I shall be an old maid," said Sally; "and +really there isn't much harm in that, if one could have company,--if +somebody or other wouldn't marry all one's friends,--that's lonesome," +she said, winking a tear out of her black eyes and laughing. "If I were +only a young fellow now, Mara, I'd have you myself, and that would be +just the thing; and I'd shoot Moses, if he said a word; and I'd have +money, and I'd have honors, and I'd carry you off to Europe, and take +you to Paris and Rome, and nobody knows where; and we'd live in peace, +as the story-books say." + +"Come, Sally, how wild you are talking," said Mara, "and the clock has +just struck one; let's try to go to sleep." + +Sally put her face to Mara's and kissed her, and Mara felt a moist spot +on her cheek,--could it be a tear? + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + +THE TOOTHACRE COTTAGE + + +Aunt Roxy and Aunt Ruey Toothacre lived in a little one-story +gambrel-roofed cottage, on the side of Harpswell Bay, just at the head +of the long cove which we have already described. The windows on two +sides commanded the beautiful bay and the opposite shores, and on the +other they looked out into the dense forest, through whose deep shadows +of white birch and pine the silver rise and fall of the sea daily +revealed itself. + +The house itself was a miracle of neatness within, for the two thrifty +sisters were worshipers of soap and sand, and these two tutelary deities +had kept every board of the house-floor white and smooth, and also every +table and bench and tub of household use. There was a sacred care over +each article, however small and insignificant, which composed their +slender household stock. The loss or breakage of one of them would have +made a visible crack in the hearts of the worthy sisters,--for every +plate, knife, fork, spoon, cup, or glass was as intimate with them, as +instinct with home feeling, as if it had a soul; each defect or spot had +its history, and a cracked dish or article of furniture received as +tender and considerate medical treatment as if it were capable of +understanding and feeling the attention. + +It was now a warm, spicy day in June,--one of those which bring out the +pineapple fragrance from the fir-shoots, and cause the spruce and +hemlocks to exude a warm, resinous perfume. The two sisters, for a +wonder, were having a day to themselves, free from the numerous calls +of the vicinity for twelve miles round. The room in which they were +sitting was bestrewn with fragments of dresses and bonnets, which were +being torn to pieces in a most wholesale way, with a view to a general +rejuvenescence. A person of unsympathetic temperament, and disposed to +take sarcastic views of life, might perhaps wonder what possible object +these two battered and weather-beaten old bodies proposed to themselves +in this process,--whether Miss Roxy's gaunt black-straw helmet, which +she had worn defiantly all winter, was likely to receive much lustre +from being pressed over and trimmed with an old green ribbon which that +energetic female had colored black by a domestic recipe; and whether +Miss Roxy's rusty bombazette would really seem to the world any fresher +for being ripped, and washed, and turned, for the second or third time, +and made over with every breadth in a different situation. Probably +after a week of efficient labor, busily expended in bleaching, dyeing, +pressing, sewing, and ripping, an unenlightened spectator, seeing them +come into the meeting-house, would simply think, "There are those two +old frights with the same old things on they have worn these fifty +years." Happily the weird sisters were contentedly ignorant of any such +remarks, for no duchesses could have enjoyed a more quiet belief in +their own social position, and their semi-annual spring and fall +rehabilitation was therefore entered into with the most simple-hearted +satisfaction. + +"I'm a-thinkin', Roxy," said Aunt Ruey, considerately turning and +turning on her hand an old straw bonnet, on which were streaked all the +marks of the former trimming in lighter lines, which revealed too +clearly the effects of wind and weather,--"I'm a-thinkin' whether or no +this 'ere mightn't as well be dyed and done with it as try to bleach it +out. I've had it ten years last May, and it's kind o' losin' its +freshness, you know. I don't believe these 'ere streaks will bleach +out." + +"Never mind, Ruey," said Miss Roxy, authoritatively, "I'm goin' to do +Mis' Badger's leg'orn, and it won't cost nothin'; so hang your'n in the +barrel along with it,--the same smoke'll do 'em both. Mis' Badger she +finds the brimstone, and next fall you can put it in the dye when we do +the yarn." + +"That ar straw is a beautiful straw!" said Miss Ruey, in a plaintive +tone, tenderly examining the battered old head-piece,--"I braided every +stroke on it myself, and I don't know as I could do it ag'in. My fingers +ain't quite so limber as they was! I don't think I shall put green +ribbon on it ag'in; 'cause green is such a color to ruin, if a body gets +caught out in a shower! There's these green streaks come that day I left +my amberil at Captain Broad's, and went to meetin'. Mis' Broad she says +to me, 'Aunt Ruey, it won't rain.' And says I to her, 'Well, Mis' Broad, +I'll try it; though I never did leave my amberil at home but what it +rained.' And so I went, and sure enough it rained cats and dogs, and +streaked my bonnet all up; and them ar streaks won't bleach out, I'm +feared." + +"How long is it Mis' Badger has had that ar leg'orn?" + +"Why, you know, the Cap'n he brought it home when he came from his +voyage from Marseilles. That ar was when Phebe Ann was born, and she's +fifteen year old. It was a most elegant thing when he brought it; but I +think it kind o' led Mis' Badger on to extravagant ways,--for gettin' +new trimmin' spring and fall so uses up money as fast as new bonnets; +but Mis' Badger's got the money, and she's got a right to use it if she +pleases; but if I'd a-had new trimmin's spring and fall, I shouldn't +a-put away what I have in the bank." + +"Have you seen the straw Sally Kittridge is braidin' for Mara Lincoln's +weddin' bonnet?" said Miss Ruey. "It's jist the finest thing ever you +did see,--and the whitest. I was a-tellin' Sally that I could do as well +once myself, but my mantle was a-fallin' on her. Sally don't seem to act +a bit like a disap'inted gal. She is as chipper as she can be about +Mara's weddin', and seems like she couldn't do too much. But laws, +everybody seems to want to be a-doin' for her. Miss Emily was a-showin' +me a fine double damask tablecloth that she was goin' to give her; and +Mis' Pennel, she's been a-spinnin' and layin' up sheets and towels and +tablecloths all her life,--and then she has all Naomi's things. Mis' +Pennel was talkin' to me the other day about bleachin' 'em out 'cause +they'd got yellow a-lyin'. I kind o' felt as if 'twas unlucky to be +a-fittin' out a bride with her dead mother's things, but I didn't like +to say nothin'." + +"Ruey," said Miss Roxy impressively, "I hain't never had but jist one +mind about Mara Lincoln's weddin',--it's to be,--but it won't be the way +people think. I hain't nussed and watched and sot up nights sixty years +for nothin'. I can see beyond what most folks can,--her weddin' garments +is bought and paid for, and she'll wear 'em, but she won't be Moses +Pennel's wife,--now you see." + +"Why, whose wife will she be then?" said Miss Ruey; "'cause that ar Mr. +Adams is married. I saw it in the paper last week when I was up to Mis' +Badger's." + +Miss Roxy shut her lips with oracular sternness and went on with her +sewing. + +"Who's that comin' in the back door?" said Miss Ruey, as the sound of a +footstep fell upon her ear. "Bless me," she added, as she started up to +look, "if folks ain't always nearest when you're talkin' about 'em. Why, +Mara; you come down here and catched us in all our dirt! Well now, we're +glad to see you, if we be," said Miss Ruey. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI + +THE SHADOW OF DEATH + + +It was in truth Mara herself who came and stood in the doorway. She +appeared overwearied with her walk, for her cheeks had a vivid +brightness unlike their usual tender pink. Her eyes had, too, a +brilliancy almost painful to look upon. They seemed like ardent fires, +in which the life was slowly burning away. + +"Sit down, sit down, little Mara," said Aunt Ruey. "Why, how like a +picture you look this mornin',--one needn't ask you how you do,--it's +plain enough that you are pretty well." + +"Yes, I am, Aunt Ruey," she answered, sinking into a chair; "only it is +warm to-day, and the sun is so hot, that's all, I believe; but I am very +tired." + +"So you are now, poor thing," said Miss Ruey. "Roxy, where's my +turkey-feather fan? Oh, here 'tis; there, take it, and fan you, child; +and maybe you'll have a glass of our spruce beer?" + +"Thank you, Aunt Roxy. I brought you some young wintergreen," said Mara, +unrolling from her handkerchief a small knot of those fragrant leaves, +which were wilted by the heat. + +"Thank you, I'm sure," said Miss Ruey, in delight; "you always fetch +something, Mara,--always would, ever since you could toddle. Roxy and I +was jist talkin' about your weddin'. I s'pose you're gettin' things well +along down to your house. Well, here's the beer. I don't hardly know +whether you'll think it worked enough, though. I set it Saturday +afternoon, for all Mis' Twitchell said it was wicked for beer to work +Sundays," said Miss Ruey, with a feeble cackle at her own joke. + +"Thank you, Aunt Ruey; it is excellent, as your things always are. I was +very thirsty." + +"I s'pose you hear from Moses pretty often now," said Aunt Ruey. "How +kind o' providential it happened about his getting that property; he'll +be a rich man now; and Mara, you'll come to grandeur, won't you? Well, I +don't know anybody deserves it more,--I r'ally don't. Mis' Badger was +a-sayin' so a-Sunday, and Cap'n Kittridge and all on 'em. I s'pose +though we've got to lose you,--you'll be goin' off to Boston, or New +York, or somewhere." + +"We can't tell what may happen, Aunt Ruey," said Mara, and there was a +slight tremor in her voice as she spoke. + +Miss Roxy, who beyond the first salutations had taken no part in this +conversation, had from time to time regarded Mara over the tops of her +spectacles with looks of grave apprehension; and Mara, looking up, now +encountered one of these glances. + +"Have you taken the dock and dandelion tea I told you about?" said the +wise woman, rather abruptly. + +"Yes, Aunt Roxy, I have taken them faithfully for two weeks past." + +"And do they seem to set you up any?" said Miss Roxy. + +"No, I don't think they do. Grandma thinks I'm better, and grandpa, and +I let them think so; but Miss Roxy, _can't_ you think of something +else?" + +Miss Roxy laid aside the straw bonnet which she was ripping, and +motioned Mara into the outer room,--the sink-room, as the sisters called +it. It was the scullery of their little establishment,--the place where +all dish-washing and clothes-washing was generally performed,--but the +boards of the floor were white as snow, and the place had the odor of +neatness. The open door looked out pleasantly into the deep forest, +where the waters of the cove, now at high tide, could be seen glittering +through the trees. Soft moving spots of sunlight fell, checkering the +feathery ferns and small piney tribes of evergreen which ran in ruffling +wreaths of green through the dry, brown matting of fallen pine needles. +Birds were singing and calling to each other merrily from the green +shadows of the forest,--everything had a sylvan fullness and freshness +of life. There are moods of mind when the sight of the bloom and +freshness of nature affects us painfully, like the want of sympathy in a +dear friend. Mara had been all her days a child of the woods; her +delicate life had grown up in them like one of their own cool shaded +flowers; and there was not a moss, not a fern, not an upspringing thing +that waved a leaf or threw forth a flower-bell, that was not a +well-known friend to her; she had watched for years its haunts, known +the time of its coming and its going, studied its shy and veiled habits, +and interwoven with its life each year a portion of her own; and now she +looked out into the old mossy woods, with their wavering spots of sun +and shadow, with a yearning pain, as if she wanted help or sympathy to +come from their silent recesses. + +She sat down on the clean, scoured door-sill, and took off her straw +hat. Her golden-brown hair was moist with the damps of fatigue, which +made it curl and wave in darker little rings about her forehead; her +eyes,--those longing, wistful eyes,--had a deeper pathos of sadness than +ever they had worn before; and her delicate lips trembled with some +strong suppressed emotion. + +"Aunt Roxy," she said suddenly, "I _must_ speak to somebody. I can't go +on and keep up without telling some one, and it had better be you, +because you have skill and experience, and can help me if anybody can. +I've been going on for six months now, taking this and taking that, and +trying to get better, but it's of no use. Aunt Roxy, I feel my life +going,--going just as steadily and as quietly every day as the sand goes +out of your hour-glass. I want to live,--oh, I never wanted to live so +much, and I can't,--oh, I know I can't. Can I now,--do you think I can?" + +Mara looked imploringly at Miss Roxy. The hard-visaged woman sat down on +the wash-bench, and, covering her worn, stony visage with her checked +apron, sobbed aloud. + +Mara was confounded. This implacably withered, sensible, dry woman, +beneficently impassive in sickness and sorrow, weeping!--it was awful, +as if one of the Fates had laid down her fatal distaff to weep. + +Mara sprung up impulsively and threw her arms round her neck. + +"Now don't, Aunt Roxy, don't. I didn't think you would feel bad, or I +wouldn't have told you; but oh, you don't know how hard it is to keep +such a secret all to one's self. I have to make believe all the time +that I am feeling well and getting better. I really say what isn't true +every day, because, poor grandmamma, how could I bear to see her +distress? and grandpapa,--oh, I wish people didn't love me so! Why +cannot they let me go? And oh, Aunt Roxy, I had a letter only yesterday, +and he is so sure we shall be married this fall,--and I know it cannot +be." Mara's voice gave way in sobs, and the two wept together,--the old +grim, gray woman holding the soft golden head against her breast with a +convulsive grasp. "Oh, Aunt Roxy, do you love me, too?" said Mara. "I +didn't know you did." + +"Love ye, child?" said Miss Roxy; "yes, I love ye like my life. I ain't +one that makes talk about things, but I do; you come into my arms fust +of anybody's in this world,--and except poor little Hitty, I never loved +nobody as I have you." + +"Ah! that was your sister, whose grave I have seen," said Mara, speaking +in a soothing, caressing tone, and putting her little thin hand against +the grim, wasted cheek, which was now moist with tears. + +"Jes' so, child, she died when she was a year younger than you be; she +was not lost, for God took her. Poor Hitty! her life jest dried up like +a brook in August,--jest so. Well, she was hopefully pious, and it was +better for her." + +"Did she go like me, Aunt Roxy?" said Mara. + +"Well, yes, dear; she did begin jest so, and I gave her everything I +could think of; and we had doctors for her far and near; but _'twasn't +to be_,--that's all we could say; she was called, and her time was +come." + +"Well, now, Aunt Roxy," said Mara, "at any rate, it's a relief to speak +out to some one. It's more than two months that I have felt every day +more and more that there was no hope,--life has hung on me like a +weight. I have had to _make_ myself keep up, and make myself do +everything, and no one knows how it has tried me. I am so tired all the +time, I could cry; and yet when I go to bed nights I can't sleep, I lie +in such a hot, restless way; and then before morning I am drenched with +cold sweat, and feel so weak and wretched. I force myself to eat, and I +force myself to talk and laugh, and it's all pretense; and it wears me +out,--it would be better if I stopped trying,--it would be better to +give up and act as weak as I feel; but how can I let them know?" + +"My dear child," said Aunt Roxy, "the truth is the kindest thing we can +give folks in the end. When folks know jest where they are, why they can +walk; you'll all be supported; you must trust in the Lord. I have been +more'n forty years with sick rooms and dyin' beds, and I never knew it +fail that those that trusted in the Lord was brought through." + +"Oh, Aunt Roxy, it is so hard for me to give up,--to give up hoping to +live. There were a good many years when I thought I should love to +depart,--not that I was really unhappy, but I longed to go to heaven, +though I knew it was selfish, when I knew how lonesome I should leave my +friends. But now, oh, life has looked so bright; I have clung to it so; +I do now. I lie awake nights and pray, and try to give it up and be +resigned, and I can't. Is it wicked?" + +"Well, it's natur' to want to live," said Miss Roxy. "Life is sweet, and +in a gen'l way we was made to live. Don't worry; the Lord'll bring you +right when His time comes. Folks isn't always supported jest when they +want to be, nor _as_ they want to be; but yet they're supported fust and +last. Ef I was to tell you how as I has hope in your case, I shouldn't +be a-tellin' you the truth. I hasn't much of any; only all things is +possible with God. If you could kind o' give it all up and rest easy in +His hands, and keep a-doin' what you can,--why, while there's life +there's hope, you know; and if you are to be made well, you will be all +the sooner." + +"Aunt Roxy, it's all right; I know it's all right. God knows best; He +will do what is best; I know that; but my heart bleeds, and is sore. And +when I get his letters,--I got one yesterday,--it brings it all back +again. Everything is going on so well; he says he has done more than all +he ever hoped; his letters are full of jokes, full of spirit. Ah, he +little knows,--and how can I tell him?" + +"Child, you needn't yet. You can jest kind o' prepare his mind a +little." + +"Aunt Roxy, have you spoken of my case to any one,--have you told what +you know of me?" + +"No, child, I hain't said nothin' more than that you was a little weakly +now and then." + +"I have such a color every afternoon," said Mara. "Grandpapa talks about +my roses, and Captain Kittridge jokes me about growing so handsome; +nobody seems to realize how I feel. I have kept up with all the strength +I had. I have tried to shake it off, and to feel that nothing was the +matter,--really there is nothing much, only this weakness. This morning +I thought it would do me good to walk down here. I remember times when I +could ramble whole days in the woods, but I was so tired before I got +half way here that I had to stop a long while and rest. Aunt Roxy, if +you would only tell grandpapa and grandmamma just how things are, and +what the danger is, and let them stop talking to me about wedding +things,--for really and truly I am too unwell to keep up any longer." + +"Well, child, I will," said Miss Roxy. "Your grandfather will be +supported, and hold you up, for he's one of the sort as has the secret +of the Lord,--I remember him of old. Why, the day your father and mother +was buried he stood up and sung old China, and his face was wonderful to +see. He seemed to be standin' with the world under his feet and heaven +opening. He's a master Christian, your grandfather is; and now you jest +go and lie down in the little bedroom, and rest you a bit, and by and +by, in the cool of the afternoon, I'll walk along home with you." + +Miss Roxy opened the door of a little room, whose white fringy +window-curtains were blown inward by breezes from the blue sea, and laid +the child down to rest on a clean sweet-smelling bed with as deft and +tender care as if she were not a bony, hard-visaged, angular female, in +a black mohair frisette. + +She stopped a moment wistfully before a little profile head, of a kind +which resembles a black shadow on a white ground. "That was Hitty!" she +said. + +Mara had often seen in the graveyard a mound inscribed to this young +person, and heard traditionally of a young and pretty sister of Miss +Roxy who had died very many years before. But the grave was overgrown +with blackberry-vines, and gray moss had grown into the crevices of the +slab which served for a tombstone, and never before that day had she +heard Miss Roxy speak of her. Miss Roxy took down the little black +object and handed it to Mara. "You can't tell much by that, but she was +a most beautiful creatur'. Well, it's all best as it is." Mara saw +nothing but a little black shadow cast on white paper, yet she was +affected by the perception how bright, how beautiful, was the image in +the memory of that seemingly stern, commonplace woman, and how of all +that in her mind's eye she saw and remembered, she could find no outward +witness but this black block. "So some day my friends will speak of me +as a distant shadow," she said, as with a sigh she turned her head on +the pillow. + +Miss Roxy shut the door gently as she went out, and betrayed the +unwonted rush of softer feelings which had come over her only by being +more dictatorial and commanding than usual in her treatment of her +sister, who was sitting in fidgety curiosity to know what could have +been the subject of the private conference. + +"I s'pose Mara wanted to get some advice about makin' up her weddin' +things," said Miss Ruey, with a sort of humble quiver, as Miss Roxy +began ripping and tearing fiercely at her old straw bonnet, as if she +really purposed its utter and immediate demolition. + +"No she didn't, neither," said Miss Roxy, fiercely. "I declare, Ruey, +you are silly; your head is always full of weddin's, weddin's, +weddin's--nothin' else--from mornin' till night, and night till mornin'. +I tell you there's other things have got to be thought of in this world +besides weddin' clothes, and it would be well, if people would think +more o' gettin' their weddin' garments ready for the kingdom of heaven. +That's what Mara's got to think of; for, mark my words, Ruey, there is +no marryin' and givin' in marriage for her in this world." + +"Why, bless me, Roxy, now you don't say so!" said Miss Ruey; "why I knew +she was kind o' weakly and ailin', but"-- + +"Kind o' weakly and ailin'!" said Miss Roxy, taking up Miss Ruey's words +in a tone of high disgust, "I should rather think she was; and more'n +that, too: she's marked for death, and that before long, too. It may be +that Moses Pennel'll never see her again--he never half knew what she +was worth--maybe he'll know when he's lost her, that's one comfort!" + +"But," said Miss Ruey, "everybody has been a-sayin' what a beautiful +color she was a-gettin' in her cheeks." + +"Color in her cheeks!" snorted Miss Roxy; "so does a rock-maple get +color in September and turn all scarlet, and what for? why, the frost +has been at it, and its time is out. That's what your bright colors +stand for. Hain't you noticed that little gravestone cough, jest the +faintest in the world, and it don't come from a cold, and it hangs on. I +tell you you can't cheat me, she's goin' jest as Mehitabel went, jest as +Sally Ann Smith went, jest as Louisa Pearson went. I could count now on +my fingers twenty girls that have gone that way. Nobody saw 'em goin' +till they was gone." + +"Well, now, I don't think the old folks have the least idea on't," said +Miss Ruey. "Only last Saturday Mis' Pennel was a-talkin' to me about the +sheets and tablecloths she's got out a-bleachin'; and she said that the +weddin' dress was to be made over to Mis' Mosely's in Portland, 'cause +Moses he's so particular about havin' things genteel." + +"Well, Master Moses'll jest have to give up his particular notions," +said Miss Roxy, "and come down in the dust, like all the rest on us, +when the Lord sends an east wind and withers our gourds. Moses Pennel's +one of the sort that expects to drive all before him with the strong +arm, and sech has to learn that things ain't to go as they please in the +Lord's world. Sech always has to come to spots that they can't get over +nor under nor round, to have their own way, but jest has to give right +up square." + +"Well, Roxy," said Miss Ruey, "how does the poor little thing take it? +Has she got reconciled?" + +"Reconciled! Ruey, how you do ask questions!" said Miss Roxy, fiercely +pulling a bandanna silk handkerchief out of her pocket, with which she +wiped her eyes in a defiant manner. "Reconciled! It's easy enough to +talk, Ruey, but how would you like it, when everything was goin' smooth +and playin' into your hands, and all the world smooth and shiny, to be +took short up? I guess you wouldn't be reconciled. That's what I guess." + +"Dear me, Roxy, who said I should?" said Miss Ruey. "I wa'n't blamin' +the poor child, not a grain." + +"Well, who said you was, Ruey?" answered Miss Roxy, in the same high +key. + +"You needn't take my head off," said Aunt Ruey, roused as much as her +adipose, comfortable nature could be. "You've been a-talkin' at me ever +since you came in from the sink-room, as if I was to blame; and snappin' +at me as if I hadn't a right to ask civil questions; and I won't stan' +it," said Miss Ruey. "And while I'm about it, I'll say that you always +have snubbed me and contradicted and ordered me round. I won't bear it +no longer." + +"Come, Ruey, don't make a fool of yourself at your time of life," said +Miss Roxy. "Things is bad enough in this world without two lone sisters +and church-members turnin' agin each other. You must take me as I am, +Ruey; my bark's worse than my bite, as you know." + +Miss Ruey sank back pacified into her usual state of pillowy dependence; +it was so much easier to be good-natured than to contend. As for Miss +Roxy, if you have ever carefully examined a chestnut-burr, you will +remember that, hard as it is to handle, no plush of downiest texture can +exceed the satin smoothness of the fibres which line its heart. There +are a class of people in New England who betray the uprising of the +softer feelings of our nature only by an increase of outward asperity--a +sort of bashfulness and shyness leaves them no power of expression for +these unwonted guests of the heart--they hurry them into inner chambers +and slam the doors upon them, as if they were vexed at their appearance. + +Now if poor Miss Roxy had been like you, my dear young lady--if her soul +had been encased in a round, rosy, and comely body, and looked out of +tender blue eyes shaded by golden hair, probably the grief and love she +felt would have shown themselves only in bursts of feeling most graceful +to see, and engaging the sympathy of all; but this same soul, imprisoned +in a dry, angular body, stiff and old, and looking out under beetling +eyebrows, over withered high cheek-bones, could only utter itself by a +passionate tempest--unlovely utterance of a lovely impulse--dear only to +Him who sees with a Father's heart the real beauty of spirits. It is our +firm faith that bright solemn angels in celestial watchings were +frequent guests in the homely room of the two sisters, and that passing +by all accidents of age and poverty, withered skins, bony features, and +grotesque movements and shabby clothing, they saw more real beauty there +than in many a scented boudoir where seeming angels smile in lace and +satin. + +"Ruey," said Miss Roxy, in a more composed voice, while her hard, bony +hands still trembled with excitement, "this 'ere's been on my mind a +good while. I hain't said nothin' to nobody, but I've seen it a-comin'. +I always thought that child wa'n't for a long life. Lives is run in +different lengths, and nobody can say what's the matter with some folks, +only that their thread's run out; there's more on one spool and less on +another. I thought, when we laid Hitty in the grave, that I shouldn't +never set my heart on nothin' else--but we can't jest say we will or we +won't. Ef we are to be sorely afflicted at any time, the Lord lets us +set our hearts before we know it. This 'ere's a great affliction to me, +Ruey, but I must jest shoulder my cross and go through with it. I'm +goin' down to-night to tell the old folks, and to make arrangements so +that the poor little lamb may have the care she needs. She's been +a-keepin' up so long, 'cause she dreaded to let 'em know, but this 'ere +has got to be looked right in the face, and I hope there'll be grace +given to do it." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII + +THE VICTORY + + +Meanwhile Mara had been lying in the passive calm of fatigue and +exhaustion, her eyes fixed on the window, where, as the white curtain +drew inward, she could catch glimpses of the bay. Gradually her eyelids +fell, and she dropped into that kind of half-waking doze, when the outer +senses are at rest, and the mind is all the more calm and clear for +their repose. In such hours a spiritual clairvoyance often seems to lift +for a while the whole stifling cloud that lies like a confusing mist +over the problem of life, and the soul has sudden glimpses of things +unutterable which lie beyond. Then the narrow straits, that look so full +of rocks and quicksands, widen into a broad, clear passage, and one +after another, rosy with a celestial dawn, and ringing silver bells of +gladness, the isles of the blessed lift themselves up on the horizon, +and the soul is flooded with an atmosphere of light and joy. As the +burden of Christian fell off at the cross and was lost in the sepulchre, +so in these hours of celestial vision the whole weight of life's anguish +is lifted, and passes away like a dream; and the soul, seeing the +boundless ocean of Divine love, wherein all human hopes and joys and +sorrows lie so tenderly upholden, comes and casts the one little drop of +its personal will and personal existence with gladness into that +Fatherly depth. Henceforth, with it, God and Saviour is no more word of +mine and thine, for in that hour the child of earth feels himself heir +of all things: "All things are yours, and ye are Christ's, and Christ is +God's." + + * * * * * + +"The child is asleep," said Miss Roxy, as she stole on tiptoe into the +room when their noon meal was prepared. A plate and knife had been laid +for her, and they had placed for her a tumbler of quaint old engraved +glass, reputed to have been brought over from foreign parts, and which +had been given to Miss Roxy as her share in the effects of the +mysterious Mr. Swadkins. Tea also was served in some egg-like India +china cups, which saw the light only on the most high and festive +occasions. + +"Hadn't you better wake her?" said Miss Ruey; "a cup of hot tea would do +her so much good." + +Miss Ruey could conceive of few sorrows or ailments which would not be +materially better for a cup of hot tea. If not the very elixir of life, +it was indeed the next thing to it. + +"Well," said Miss Roxy, after laying her hand for a moment with great +gentleness on that of the sleeping girl, "she don't wake easy, and she's +tired; and she seems to be enjoying it so. The Bible says, 'He giveth +his beloved sleep,' and I won't interfere. I've seen more good come of +sleep than most things in my nursin' experience," said Miss Roxy, and +she shut the door gently, and the two sisters sat down to their noontide +meal. + +"How long the child does sleep!" said Miss Ruey as the old clock struck +four. + +"It was too much for her, this walk down here," said Aunt Roxy. "She's +been doin' too much for a long time. I'm a-goin' to put an end to that. +Well, nobody needn't say Mara hain't got resolution. I never see a +little thing have more. She always did have, when she was the leastest +little thing. She was always quiet and white and still, but she did +whatever she sot out to." + +At this moment, to their surprise, the door opened, and Mara came in, +and both sisters were struck with a change that had passed over her. It +was more than the result of mere physical repose. Not only had every +sign of weariness and bodily languor vanished, but there was about her +an air of solemn serenity and high repose that made her seem, as Miss +Ruey afterwards said, "like an angel jest walked out of the big Bible." + +"Why, dear child, how you have slept, and how bright and rested you +look," said Miss Ruey. + +"I am rested," said Mara; "oh how much! And happy," she added, laying +her little hand on Miss Roxy's shoulder. "I thank you, dear friend, for +all your kindness to me. I am sorry I made you feel so sadly; but now +you mustn't feel so any more, for all is well--yes, all is well. I see +now that it is so. I have passed beyond sorrow--yes, forever." + +Soft-hearted Miss Ruey here broke into audible sobbing, hiding her face +in her hands, and looking like a tumbled heap of old faded calico in a +state of convulsion. + +"Dear Aunt Ruey, you mustn't," said Mara, with a voice of gentle +authority. "We mustn't any of us feel so any more. There is no harm +done, no real evil is coming, only a good which we do not understand. I +am perfectly satisfied--perfectly at rest now. I was foolish and weak to +feel as I did this morning, but I shall not feel so any more. I shall +comfort you all. Is it anything so dreadful for me to go to heaven? How +little while it will be before you all come to me! Oh, how +little--little while!" + +"I told you, Mara, that you'd be supported in the Lord's time," said +Miss Roxy, who watched her with an air of grave and solemn attention. +"First and last, folks allers is supported; but sometimes there is a +long wrestlin'. The Lord's give you the victory early." + +"Victory!" said the girl, speaking as in a deep muse, and with a +mysterious brightness in her eyes; "yes, that is the word--it _is_ a +victory--no other word expresses it. Come, Aunt Roxy, we will go home. I +am not afraid now to tell grandpapa and grandmamma. God will care for +them; He will wipe away all tears." + +"Well, though, you mus'n't think of goin' till you've had a cup of tea," +said Aunt Ruey, wiping her eyes. "I've kep' the tea-pot hot by the fire, +and you must eat a little somethin', for it's long past dinner-time." + +"Is it?" said Mara. "I had no idea I had slept so long--how thoughtful +and kind you are!" + +"I do wish I could only do more for you," said Miss Ruey. "I don't seem +to get reconciled no ways; it seems dreffle hard--dreffle; but I'm glad +you _can_ feel so;" and the good old soul proceeded to press upon the +child not only the tea, which she drank with feverish relish, but every +hoarded dainty which their limited housekeeping commanded. + +It was toward sunset before Miss Roxy and Mara started on their walk +homeward. Their way lay over the high stony ridge which forms the +central part of the island. On one side, through the pines, they looked +out into the boundless blue of the ocean, and on the other caught +glimpses of Harpswell Bay as it lay glorified in the evening light. The +fresh cool breeze blowing landward brought with it an invigorating +influence, which Mara felt through all her feverish frame. She walked +with an energy to which she had long been a stranger. She said little, +but there was a sweetness, a repose, in her manner contrasting +singularly with the passionate melancholy which she had that morning +expressed. + +Miss Roxy did not interrupt her meditations. The nature of her +profession had rendered her familiar with all the changing mental and +physical phenomena that attend the development of disease and the +gradual loosening of the silver cords of a present life. Certain +well-understood phrases everywhere current among the mass of the people +in New England, strikingly tell of the deep foundations of religious +earnestness on which its daily life is built. "A triumphant death" was a +matter often casually spoken of among the records of the neighborhood; +and Miss Roxy felt that there was a vague and solemn charm about its +approach. Yet the soul of the gray, dry woman was hot within her, for +the conversation of the morning had probed depths in her own nature of +whose existence she had never before been so conscious. The roughest and +most matter-of-fact minds have a craving for the ideal somewhere; and +often this craving, forbidden by uncomeliness and ungenial surroundings +from having any personal history of its own, attaches itself to the +fortune of some other one in a kind of strange disinterestedness. Some +one young and beautiful is to live the life denied to them--to be the +poem and the romance; it is the young mistress of the poor black +slave--the pretty sister of the homely old spinster--or the clever son +of the consciously ill-educated father. Something of this unconscious +personal investment had there been on the part of Miss Roxy in the +nursling whose singular loveliness she had watched for so many years, +and on whose fair virgin orb she had marked the growing shadow of a +fatal eclipse, and as she saw her glowing and serene, with that peculiar +brightness that she felt came from no earthly presence or influence, she +could scarcely keep the tears from her honest gray eyes. + +When they arrived at the door of the house, Zephaniah Pennel was sitting +in it, looking toward the sunset. + +"Why, reely," he said, "Miss Roxy, we thought you must a-run away with +Mara; she's been gone a'most all day." + +"I expect she's had enough to talk with Aunt Roxy about," said Mrs. +Pennel. "Girls goin' to get married have a deal to talk about, what with +patterns and contrivin' and makin' up. But come in, Miss Roxy; we're +glad to see you." + +Mara turned to Miss Roxy, and gave her a look of peculiar meaning. "Aunt +Roxy," she said, "you must tell them what we have been talking about +to-day;" and then she went up to her room and shut the door. + +Miss Roxy accomplished her task with a matter-of-fact distinctness to +which her business-like habits of dealing with sickness and death had +accustomed her, yet with a sympathetic tremor in her voice which +softened the hard directness of her words. "You can take her over to +Portland, if you say so, and get Dr. Wilson's opinion," she said, in +conclusion. "It's best to have all done that can be, though in my mind +the case is decided." + +The silence that fell between the three was broken at last by the sound +of a light footstep descending the stairs, and Mara entered among them. + +She came forward and threw her arms round Mrs. Pennel's neck, and kissed +her; and then turning, she nestled down in the arms of her old +grandfather, as she had often done in the old days of childhood, and +laid her hand upon his shoulder. There was no sound for a few moments +but one of suppressed weeping; but _she_ did not weep--she lay with +bright calm eyes, as if looking upon some celestial vision. + +"It is not so very sad," she said at last, in a gentle voice, "that I +should go there; you are going, too, and grandmamma; we are all going; +and we shall be forever with the Lord. Think of it! think of it!" + +Many were the words spoken in that strange communing; and before Miss +Roxy went away, a calmness of solemn rest had settled down on all. The +old family Bible was brought forth, and Zephaniah Pennel read from it +those strange words of strong consolation, which take the sting from +death and the victory from the grave:-- + +"And I heard a great voice out of heaven. Behold the tabernacle of God +is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people; +and God himself shall be with them and be their God. And God shall wipe +away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, +neither sorrow nor crying, for the former things are passed away." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII + +OPEN VISION + + +As Miss Roxy was leaving the dwelling of the Pennels, she met Sally +Kittridge coming toward the house, laughing and singing, as was her +wont. She raised her long, lean forefinger with a gesture of warning. + +"What's the matter now, Aunt Roxy? You look as solemn as a hearse." + +"None o' your jokin' now, Miss Sally; there _is_ such a thing as serious +things in this 'ere world of our'n, for all you girls never seems to +know it." + +"What is the matter, Aunt Roxy?--has anything happened?--is anything the +matter with Mara?" + +"Matter enough. I've known it a long time," said Miss Roxy. "She's been +goin' down for three months now; and she's got that on her that will +carry her off before the year's out." + +"Pshaw, Aunt Roxy! how lugubriously you old nurses always talk! I hope +now you haven't been filling Mara's head with any such notions--people +can be frightened into anything." + +"Sally Kittridge, don't be a-talkin' of what you don't know nothin' +about! It stands to reason that a body that was bearin' the heat and +burden of the day long before you was born or thought on in this world +_should_ know a thing or two more'n you. Why, I've laid you on your +stomach and trotted you to trot up the wind many a day, and I was pretty +experienced then, and it ain't likely that I'm a-goin' to take sa'ce +from you. Mara Pennel is a gal as has every bit and grain as much +resolution and ambition as you have, for all you flap your wings and +crow so much louder, and she's one of the close-mouthed sort, that don't +make no talk, and she's been a-bearin' up and bearin' up, and comin' to +me on the sly for strengthenin' things. She's took camomile and +orange-peel, and snake-root and boneset, and dash-root and +dandelion--and there hain't nothin' done her no good. She told me to-day +she couldn't keep up no longer, and I've been a-tellin' Mis' Pennel and +her grand'ther. I tell you it has been a solemn time; and if you're +goin' in, don't go in with none o' your light triflin' ways, 'cause 'as +vinegar upon nitre is he that singeth songs on a heavy heart,' the +Scriptur' says." + +"Oh, Miss Roxy, do tell me truly," said Sally, much moved. "What do you +think is the matter with Mara? I've noticed myself that she got tired +easy, and that she was short-breathed--but she seemed so cheerful. Can +anything really be the matter?" + +"It's consumption, Sally Kittridge," said Miss Roxy, "neither more nor +less; that ar is the long and the short. They're going to take her over +to Portland to see Dr. Wilson--it won't do no harm, and it won't do no +good." + +"You seem to be determined she shall die," said Sally in a tone of +pique. + +"Determined, am I? Is it I that determines that the maple leaves shall +fall next October? Yet I know they will--folks can't help knowin' what +they know, and shuttin' one's eyes won't alter one's road. I s'pose you +think 'cause you're young and middlin' good-lookin' that you have +feelin's and I hasn't; well, you're mistaken, that's all. I don't +believe there's one person in the world that would go farther or do more +to save Mara Pennel than I would,--and yet I've been in the world long +enough to see that livin' ain't no great shakes neither. Ef one is +hopefully prepared in the days of their youth, why they escape a good +deal, ef they get took cross-lots into heaven." + +Sally turned away thoughtfully into the house; there was no one in the +kitchen, and the tick of the old clock sounded lonely and sepulchral. +She went upstairs to Mara's room; the door was ajar. Mara was sitting at +the open window that looked forth toward the ocean, busily engaged in +writing. The glow of evening shone on the golden waves of her hair, and +tinged the pearly outline of her cheek. Sally noticed the translucent +clearness of her complexion, and the deep burning color and the +transparency of the little hands, which seemed as if they might transmit +the light like Sèvres porcelain. She was writing with an expression of +tender calm, and sometimes stopping to consult an open letter that Sally +knew came from Moses. + +So fair and sweet and serene she looked that a painter might have chosen +her for an embodiment of twilight, and one might not be surprised to see +a clear star shining out over her forehead. Yet in the tender serenity +of the face there dwelt a pathos of expression that spoke of struggles +and sufferings past, like the traces of tears on the face of a restful +infant that has grieved itself to sleep. + +Sally came softly in on tiptoe, threw her arms around her, and kissed +her, with a half laugh, then bursting into tears, sobbed upon her +shoulder. + +"Dear Sally, what is the matter?" said Mara, looking up. + +"Oh, Mara, I just met Miss Roxy, and she told me"-- + +Sally only sobbed passionately. + +"It is very sad to make all one's friends so unhappy," said Mara, in a +soothing voice, stroking Sally's hair. "You don't know how much I have +suffered dreading it. Sally, it is a long time since I began to expect +and dread and fear. My time of anguish was then--then when I first felt +that it could be possible that I should not live after all. There was a +long time I dared not even think of it; I could not even tell such a +fear to myself; and I did far more than I felt able to do to convince +myself that I was not weak and failing. I have been often to Miss Roxy, +and once, when nobody knew it, I went to a doctor in Brunswick, but then +I was afraid to tell him half, lest he should say something about me, +and it should get out; and so I went on getting worse and worse, and +feeling every day as if I could not keep up, and yet afraid to lie down +for fear grandmamma would suspect me. But this morning it was pleasant +and bright, and something came over me that said I _must_ tell somebody, +and so, as it was cool and pleasant, I walked up to Aunt Roxy's and told +her. I thought, you know, that she knew the most, and would feel it the +least; but oh, Sally, she has such a feeling heart, and loves me so; it +is strange she should." + +"Is it?" said Sally, tightening her clasp around Mara's neck; and then +with a hysterical shadow of gayety she said, "I suppose you think that +you are such a hobgoblin that nobody could be expected to do that. After +all, though, I should have as soon expected roses to bloom in a juniper +clump as love from Aunt Roxy." + +"Well, she does love me," said Mara. "No mother could be kinder. Poor +thing, she really sobbed and cried when I told her. I was very tired, +and she told me she would take care of me, and tell grandpapa and +grandmamma,--_that_ had been lying on my heart as such a dreadful thing +to do,--and she laid me down to rest on her bed, and spoke so lovingly +to me! I wish you could have seen her. And while I lay there, I fell +into a strange, sweet sort of rest. I can't describe it; but since then +everything has been changed. I wish I could tell any one how I saw +things then." + +"Do try to tell me, Mara," said Sally, "for I need comfort too, if there +is any to be had." + +"Well, then, I lay on the bed, and the wind drew in from the sea and +just lifted the window-curtain, and I could see the sea shining and hear +the waves making a pleasant little dash, and then my head seemed to +swim. I thought I was walking out by the pleasant shore, and everything +seemed so strangely beautiful, and grandpapa and grandmamma were there, +and Moses had come home, and you were there, and we were all so happy. +And then I felt a sort of strange sense that something was coming--some +great trial or affliction--and I groaned and clung to Moses, and asked +him to put his arm around me and hold me. + +"Then it seemed to be not by our seashore that this was happening, but +by the Sea of Galilee, just as it tells about it in the Bible, and there +were fishermen mending their nets, and men sitting counting their money, +and I saw Jesus come walking along, and heard him say to this one and +that one, 'Leave all and follow me,' and it seemed that the moment he +spoke they did it, and then he came to me, and I felt his eyes in my +very soul, and he said, 'Wilt _thou_ leave _all_ and follow me?' I +cannot tell now what a pain I felt--what an anguish. I wanted to leave +all, but my heart felt as if it were tied and woven with a thousand +threads, and while I waited he seemed to fade away, and I found myself +then alone and unhappy, wishing that I could, and mourning that I had +not; and then something shone out warm like the sun, and I looked up, +and he stood there looking pitifully, and he said again just as he did +before, 'Wilt thou leave all and follow me?' Every word was so gentle +and full of pity, and I looked into his eyes and could not look away; +they drew me, they warmed me, and I felt a strange, wonderful sense of +his greatness and sweetness. It seemed as if I felt within me cord after +cord breaking, I felt so free, so happy; and I said, 'I will, I will, +with all my heart;' and I woke then, so happy, so sure of God's love. + +"I saw so clearly how his love is in everything, and these words came +into my mind as if an angel had spoken them, 'God shall wipe away all +tears from their eyes.' Since then I cannot be unhappy. I was so myself +only this morning, and now I wonder that any one can have a grief when +God is so loving and good, and cares so sweetly for us all. Why, Sally, +if I could see Christ and hear him speak, I could not be more certain +that he will make this sorrow such a blessing to us all that we shall +never be able to thank him enough for it." + +"Oh Mara," said Sally, sighing deeply, while her cheek was wet with +tears, "it is beautiful to hear you talk; but there is one that I am +sure will not and cannot feel so." + +"God will care for him," said Mara; "oh, I am sure of it; He is love +itself, and He values his love in us, and He never, never would have +brought such a trial, if it had not been the true and only way to our +best good. We shall not shed one needless tear. Yes, if God loved us so +that he spared not his own Son, he will surely give us all the good here +that we possibly can have without risking our eternal happiness." + +"You are writing to Moses, now?" said Sally. + +"Yes, I am answering his letter; it is so full of spirit and life and +hope--but all hope in this world--all, all earthly, as much as if there +was no God and no world to come. Sally, perhaps our Father saw that I +could not have strength to live with him and keep my faith. I should be +drawn by him earthward instead of drawing him heavenward; and so this is +in mercy to us both." + +"And are you telling him the whole truth, Mara?" + +"Not all, no," said Mara; "he could not bear it at once. I only tell him +that my health is failing, and that my friends are seriously alarmed, +and then I speak as if it were doubtful, in my mind, what the result +might be." + +"I don't think you can make him feel as you do. Moses Pennel has a +tremendous will, and he never yielded to any one. You bend, Mara, like +the little blue harebells, and so the storm goes over you; but he will +stand up against it, and it will wrench and shatter him. I am afraid, +instead of making him better, it will only make him bitter and +rebellious." + +"He has a Father in heaven who knows how to care for him," said Mara. "I +am persuaded--I feel certain that he will be blessed in the end; not +perhaps in the time and way I should have chosen, but in the end. I have +always felt that he was mine, ever since he came a little shipwrecked +boy to me--a little girl. And now I have given him up to his Saviour and +my Saviour--to his God and my God--and I am perfectly at peace. All will +be well." + +Mara spoke with a look of such solemn, bright assurance as made her, in +the dusky, golden twilight, seem like some serene angel sent down to +comfort, rather than a hapless mortal just wrenched from life and hope. + +Sally rose up and kissed her silently. "Mara," she said, "I shall come +to-morrow to see what I can do for you. I will not interrupt you now. +Good-by, dear." + + * * * * * + +There are no doubt many, who have followed this history so long as it +danced like a gay little boat over sunny waters, and who would have +followed it gayly to the end, had it closed with ringing of +marriage-bells, who turn from it indignantly, when they see that its +course runs through the dark valley. This, they say, is an imposition, a +trick upon our feelings. We want to read only stories which end in joy +and prosperity. + +But have we then settled it in our own mind that there is no such thing +as a fortunate issue in a history which does not terminate in the way of +earthly success and good fortune? Are we Christians or heathen? It is +now eighteen centuries since, as we hold, the "highly favored among +women" was pronounced to be one whose earthly hopes were all cut off in +the blossom,--whose noblest and dearest in the morning of his days went +down into the shadows of death. + +Was Mary the highly-favored among women, and was Jesus indeed the +blessed,--or was the angel mistaken? If they were these, if we are +Christians, it ought to be a settled and established habit of our souls +to regard something else as prosperity than worldly success and happy +marriages. That life is a success which, like the life of Jesus, in its +beginning, middle, and close, has borne a perfect witness to the truth +and the highest form of truth. It is true that God has given to us, and +inwoven in our nature a desire for a perfection and completeness made +manifest to our senses in this mortal life. To see the daughter bloom +into youth and womanhood, the son into manhood, to see them marry and +become themselves parents, and gradually ripen and develop in the +maturities of middle life, gradually wear into a sunny autumn, and so be +gathered in fullness of time to their fathers,--such, one says, is the +programme which God has made us to desire; such the ideal of happiness +which he has interwoven with our nerves, and for which our heart and our +flesh crieth out; to which every stroke of a knell is a violence, and +every thought of an early death is an abhorrence. + +But the life of Christ and his mother sets the foot on this lower ideal +of happiness, and teaches us that there is something higher. His +ministry began with declaring, "Blessed are they that mourn." It has +been well said that prosperity was the blessing of the Old Testament, +and adversity of the New. Christ came to show us a nobler style of +living and bearing; and so far as he had a personal and earthly life, he +buried it as a corner-stone on which to erect a new immortal style of +architecture. + +Of his own, he had nothing, neither houses, nor lands, nor family ties, +nor human hopes, nor earthly sphere of success; and as a human life, it +was all a sacrifice and a defeat. He was rejected by his countrymen, +whom the passionate anguish of his love and the unwearied devotion of +his life could not save from an awful doom. He was betrayed by weak +friends, prevailed against by slanderers, overwhelmed with an +ignominious death in the morning of youth, and his mother stood by his +cross, and she was the only woman whom God ever called highly favored in +this world. + +This, then, is the great and perfect ideal of what God honors. Christ +speaks of himself as bread to be eaten,--bread, simple, humble, +unpretending, vitally necessary to human life, made by the bruising and +grinding of the grain, unostentatiously having no life or worth of its +own except as it is absorbed into the life of others and lives in them. +We wished in this history to speak of a class of lives formed on the +model of Christ, and like his, obscure and unpretending, like his, +seeming to end in darkness and defeat, but which yet have this +preciousness and value that the dear saints who live them come nearest +in their mission to the mission of Jesus. They are made, not for a +career and history of their own, but to be bread of life to others. In +every household or house have been some of these, and if we look on +their lives and deaths with the unbaptized eyes of nature, we shall see +only most mournful and unaccountable failure, when, if we could look +with the eye of faith, we should see that their living and dying has +been bread of life to those they left behind. Fairest of these, and +least developed, are the holy innocents who come into our households to +smile with the smile of angels, who sleep in our bosoms, and win us with +the softness of tender little hands, and pass away like the lamb that +was slain before they have ever learned the speech of mortals. Not vain +are even these silent lives of Christ's lambs, whom many an earth-bound +heart has been roused to follow when the Shepherd bore them to the +higher pastures. And so the daughter who died so early, whose +wedding-bells were never rung except in heaven,--the son who had no +career of ambition or a manly duty except among the angels,--the patient +sufferers, whose only lot on earth seemed to be to endure, whose life +bled away drop by drop in the shadows of the sick-room--all these are +among those whose life was like Christ's in that they were made, not for +themselves, but to become bread to us. + +It is expedient for us that they go away. Like their Lord, they come to +suffer, and to die; they take part in his sacrifice; their life is +incomplete without their death, and not till they are gone away does the +Comforter fully come to us. + +It is a beautiful legend which one sees often represented in the +churches of Europe, that when the grave of the mother of Jesus was +opened, it was found full of blossoming lilies,--fit emblem of the +thousand flowers of holy thought and purpose which spring up in our +hearts from the memory of our sainted dead. + +Cannot many, who read these lines, bethink them of such rooms that have +been the most cheerful places in the family,--when the heart of the +smitten one seemed the band that bound all the rest together,--and have +there not been dying hours which shed such a joy and radiance on all +around, that it was long before the mourners remembered to mourn? Is it +not a misuse of words to call such a heavenly translation _death_? and +to call most things that are lived out on this earth _life_? + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX + +THE LAND OF BEULAH + + +It is now about a month after the conversation which we have recorded, +and during that time the process which was to loose from this present +life had been going on in Mara with a soft, insensible, but steady +power. When she ceased to make efforts beyond her strength, and allowed +herself that languor and repose which nature claimed, all around her +soon became aware how her strength was failing; and yet a cheerful +repose seemed to hallow the atmosphere around her. The sight of her +every day in family worship, sitting by in such tender tranquillity, +with such a smile on her face, seemed like a present inspiration. And +though the aged pair knew that she was no more for this world, yet she +was comforting and inspiring to their view as the angel who of old +rolled back the stone from the sepulchre and sat upon it. They saw in +her eyes, not death, but the solemn victory which Christ gives over +death. + +Bunyan has no more lovely poem than the image he gives of that land of +pleasant waiting which borders the river of death, where the chosen of +the Lord repose, while shining messengers, constantly passing and +repassing, bear tidings from the celestial shore, opening a way between +earth and heaven. It was so, that through the very thought of Mara an +influence of tenderness and tranquillity passed through the whole +neighborhood, keeping hearts fresh with sympathy, and causing thought +and conversation to rest on those bright mysteries of eternal joy which +were reflected on her face. + +Sally Kittridge was almost a constant inmate of the brown house, ever +ready in watching and waiting; and one only needed to mark the +expression of her face to feel that a holy charm was silently working +upon her higher and spiritual nature. Those great, dark, sparkling eyes +that once seemed to express only the brightness of animal vivacity, and +glittered like a brook in unsympathetic gayety, had in them now +mysterious depths, and tender, fleeting shadows, and the very tone of +her voice had a subdued tremor. The capricious elf, the tricksy sprite, +was melting away in the immortal soul, and the deep pathetic power of a +noble heart was being born. Some influence sprung of sorrow is necessary +always to perfect beauty in womanly nature. We feel its absence in many +whose sparkling wit and high spirits give grace and vivacity to life, +but in whom we vainly seek for some spot of quiet tenderness and +sympathetic repose. Sally was, ignorantly to herself, changing in the +expression of her face and the tone of her character, as she ministered +in the daily wants which sickness brings in a simple household. + +For the rest of the neighborhood, the shelves and larder of Mrs. Pennel +were constantly crowded with the tributes which one or another sent in +for the invalid. There was jelly of Iceland moss sent across by Miss +Emily, and brought by Mr. Sewell, whose calls were almost daily. There +were custards and preserves, and every form of cake and other +confections in which the housekeeping talent of the neighbors delighted, +and which were sent in under the old superstition that sick people must +be kept eating at all hazards. + +At church, Sunday after Sunday, the simple note requested the prayers of +the church and congregation for Mara Lincoln, who was, as the note +phrased it, drawing near her end, that she and all concerned might be +prepared for the great and last change. One familiar with New England +customs must have remembered with what a plaintive power the reading of +such a note, from Sunday to Sunday, has drawn the thoughts and +sympathies of a congregation to some chamber of sickness; and in a +village church, where every individual is known from childhood to every +other, the power of this simple custom is still greater. + +Then the prayers of the minister would dwell on the case, and thanks +would be rendered to God for the great light and peace with which he had +deigned to visit his young handmaid; and then would follow a prayer that +when these sad tidings should reach a distant friend who had gone down +to do business on the great waters, they might be sanctified to his +spiritual and everlasting good. Then on Sunday noons, as the people ate +their dinners together in a room adjoining the church, all that she said +and did was talked over and over,--how quickly she had gained the +victory of submission, the peace of a will united with God's, mixed with +harmless gossip of the sick chamber,--as to what she ate and how she +slept, and who had sent her gruel with raisins in it, and who jelly with +wine, and how she had praised this and eaten that twice with a relish, +but how the other had seemed to disagree with her. Thereafter would come +scraps of nursing information, recipes against coughing, specifics +against short breath, speculations about watchers, how soon she would +need them, and long legends of other death-beds where the fear of death +had been slain by the power of an endless life. + +Yet through all the gossip, and through much that might have been called +at other times commonplace cant of religion, there was spread a tender +earnestness, and the whole air seemed to be enchanted with the fragrance +of that fading rose. Each one spoke more gently, more lovingly to each, +for the thought of her. + +It was now a bright September morning, and the early frosts had changed +the maples in the pine-woods to scarlet, and touched the white birches +with gold, when one morning Miss Roxy presented herself at an early hour +at Captain Kittridge's. + +They were at breakfast, and Sally was dispensing the tea at the head of +the table, Mrs. Kittridge having been prevailed on to abdicate in her +favor. + +"It is such a fine morning," she said, looking out at the window, which +showed a waveless expanse of ocean. "I do hope Mara has had a good +night." + +"I'm a-goin' to make her some jelly this very forenoon," said Mrs. +Kittridge. "Aunt Roxy was a-tellin' me yesterday that she was a-goin' +down to stay at the house regular, for she needed so much done now." + +"It's 'most an amazin' thing we don't hear from Moses Pennel," said +Captain Kittridge. "If he don't make haste, he may never see her." + +"There's Aunt Roxy at this minute," said Sally. + +In truth, the door opened at this moment, and Aunt Roxy entered with a +little blue bandbox and a bundle tied up in a checked handkerchief. + +"Oh, Aunt Roxy," said Mrs. Kittridge, "you are on your way, are you? Do +sit down, right here, and get a cup of strong tea." + +"Thank you," said Aunt Roxy, "but Ruey gave me a humming cup before I +came away." + +"Aunt Roxy, have they heard anything from Moses?" said the Captain. + +"No, father, I know they haven't," said Sally. "Mara has written to him, +and so has Mr. Sewell, but it is very uncertain whether he ever got the +letters." + +"It's most time to be a-lookin' for him home," said the Captain. "I +shouldn't be surprised to see him any day." + +At this moment Sally, who sat where she could see from the window, gave +a sudden start and a half scream, and rising from the table, darted +first to the window and then to the door, whence she rushed out eagerly. + +"Well, what now?" said the Captain. + +"I am sure I don't know what's come over her," said Mrs. Kittridge, +rising to look out. + +"Why, Aunt Roxy, do look; I believe to my soul that ar's Moses Pennel!" + +And so it was. He met Sally, as she ran out, with a gloomy brow and +scarcely a look even of recognition; but he seized her hand and wrung it +in the stress of his emotion so that she almost screamed with the pain. + +"Tell me, Sally," he said, "tell me the truth. I dared not go home +without I knew. Those gossiping, lying reports are always exaggerated. +They are dreadful exaggerations,--they frighten a sick person into the +grave; but you have good sense and a hopeful, cheerful temper,--you must +see and know how things are. Mara is not so very--very"--He held Sally's +hand and looked at her with a burning eagerness. "Say, what do you think +of her?" + +"We all think that we cannot long keep her with us," said Sally. "And +oh, Moses, I am so glad you have come." + +"It's false,--it must be false," he said, violently; "nothing is more +deceptive than these ideas that doctors and nurses pile on when a +sensitive person is going down a little. I know Mara; everything depends +on the mind with her. I shall wake her up out of this dream. She is not +to die. She shall not die,--I come to save her." + +"Oh, if you could!" said Sally, mournfully. + +"It cannot be; it is not to be," he said again, as if to convince +himself. "No such thing is to be thought of. Tell me, Sally, have you +tried to keep up the cheerful side of things to her,--have you?" + +"Oh, you cannot tell, Moses, how it is, unless you see her. She is +cheerful, happy; the only really joyous one among us." + +"Cheerful! joyous! happy! She does not believe, then, these frightful +things? I thought she would keep up; she is a brave little thing." + +"No, Moses, she does believe. She has given up all hope of life,--all +wish to live; and oh, she is so lovely,--so sweet,--so dear." + +Sally covered her face with her hands and sobbed. Moses stood still, +looking at her a moment in a confused way, and then he answered,-- + +"Come, get your bonnet, Sally, and go with me. You must go in and tell +them; tell her that I am come, you know." + +"Yes, I will," said Sally, as she ran quickly back to the house. + +Moses stood listlessly looking after her. A moment after she came out of +the door again, and Miss Roxy behind. Sally hurried up to Moses. + +"Where's that black old raven going?" said Moses, in a low voice, +looking back on Miss Roxy, who stood on the steps. + +"What, Aunt Roxy?" said Sally; "why, she's going up to nurse Mara, and +take care of her. Mrs. Pennel is so old and infirm she needs somebody to +depend on." + +"I can't bear her," said Moses. "I always think of sick-rooms and +coffins and a stifling smell of camphor when I see her. I never could +endure her. She's an old harpy going to carry off my dove." + +"Now, Moses, you must _not_ talk so. She loves Mara dearly, the poor +old soul, and Mara loves her, and there is no earthly thing she would +not do for her. And she knows what to do for sickness better than you or +I. I have found out one thing, that it isn't mere love and good-will +that is needed in a sick-room; it needs knowledge and experience." + +Moses assented in gloomy silence, and they walked on together the way +that they had so often taken laughing and chatting. When they came +within sight of the house, Moses said,-- + +"Here she came running to meet us; do you remember?" + +"Yes," said Sally. + +"I was never half worthy of her. I never said half what I ought to," he +added. "She _must_ live! I must have one more chance." + +When they came up to the house, Zephaniah Pennel was sitting in the +door, with his gray head bent over the leaves of the great family Bible. + +He rose up at their coming, and with that suppression of all external +signs of feeling for which the New Englander is remarkable, simply shook +the hand of Moses, saying,-- + +"Well, my boy, we are glad you have come." + +Mrs. Pennel, who was busied in some domestic work in the back part of +the kitchen, turned away and hid her face in her apron when she saw him. +There fell a great silence among them, in the midst of which the old +clock ticked loudly and importunately, like the inevitable approach of +fate. + +"I will go up and see her, and get her ready," said Sally, in a whisper +to Moses. "I'll come and call you." + +Moses sat down and looked around on the old familiar scene; there was +the great fireplace where, in their childish days, they had sat together +winter nights,--her fair, spiritual face enlivened by the blaze, while +she knit and looked thoughtfully into the coals; there she had played +checkers, or fox and geese, with him; or studied with him the Latin +lessons; or sat by, grave and thoughtful, hemming his toyship sails, +while he cut the moulds for his anchors, or tried experiments on +pulleys; and in all these years he could not remember one selfish +action,--one unlovely word,--and he thought to himself, "I hoped to +possess this angel as a mortal wife! God forgive my presumption." + + + + +CHAPTER XL + +THE MEETING + + +Sally found Mara sitting in an easy-chair that had been sent to her by +the provident love of Miss Emily. It was wheeled in front of her room +window, from whence she could look out upon the wide expanse of the +ocean. It was a gloriously bright, calm morning, and the water lay clear +and still, with scarce a ripple, to the far distant pearly horizon. She +seemed to be looking at it in a kind of calm ecstasy, and murmuring the +words of a hymn:-- + + "Nor wreck nor ruin there is seen, + There not a wave of trouble rolls, + But the bright rainbow round the throne + Peals endless peace to all their souls." + +Sally came softly behind her on tiptoe to kiss her. "Good-morning, dear, +how do you find yourself?" + +"Quite well," was the answer. + +"Mara, is not there anything you want?" + +"There might be many things; but His will is mine." + +"You want to see Moses?" + +"Very much; but I shall see him as soon as it is best for us both." + +"Mara,--he is come." + +The quick blood flushed over the pale, transparent face as a virgin +glacier flushes at sunrise, and she looked up eagerly. "Come!" + +"Yes, he is below-stairs wanting to see you." + +She seemed about to speak eagerly, and then checked herself and mused a +moment. "Poor, poor boy!" she said. "Yes, Sally, let him come at once." + +There were a few dazzling, dreamy minutes when Moses first held that +frail form in his arms, which but for its tender, mortal warmth, might +have seemed to him a spirit. It was no spirit, but a woman whose heart +he could feel thrilling against his own; who seemed to him like some +frail, fluttering bird; but somehow, as he looked into her clear, +transparent face, and pressed her thin little hands in his, the +conviction stole over him overpoweringly that she was indeed fading away +and going from him,--drawn from him by that mysterious, irresistible +power against which human strength, even in the strongest, has no +chance. + +It is dreadful to a strong man who has felt the influence of his +strength,--who has always been ready with a resource for every +emergency, and a weapon for every battle,--when first he meets that +mighty invisible power by which a beloved life--a life he would give his +own blood to save--melts and dissolves like smoke before his eyes. + +"Oh, Mara, Mara," he groaned, "this is too dreadful, too cruel; it is +cruel." + +"You will think so at first, but not always," she said, soothingly. "You +will live to see a joy come out of this sorrow." + +"Never, Mara, never. I cannot believe that kind of talk. I see no love, +no mercy in it. Of course, if there is any life after death you will be +happy; if there is a heaven you will be there; but can this dim, +unsubstantial, cloudy prospect make you happy in leaving me and giving +up one's lover? Oh, Mara, you cannot love as I do, or you could not"-- + +"Moses, I have suffered,--oh, very, very much. It was many months ago +when I first thought that I must give everything up,--when I thought +that we must part; but Christ helped me; he showed me his wonderful +love,--the love that surrounds us all our life, that follows us in all +our wanderings, and sustains us in all our weaknesses,--and then I felt +that whatever He wills for us is in love; oh, believe it,--believe it +for my sake, for your own." + +"Oh, I cannot, I cannot," said Moses; but as he looked at the bright, +pale face, and felt how the tempest of his feelings shook the frail +form, he checked himself. "I do wrong to agitate you so, Mara. I will +try to be calm." + +"And to pray?" she said, beseechingly. + +He shut his lips in gloomy silence. + +"Promise me," she said. + +"I have prayed ever since I got your first letter, and I see it does no +good," he answered. "Our prayers cannot alter fate." + +"Fate! there is no fate," she answered; "there is a strong and loving +Father who guides the way, though we know it not. We cannot resist His +will; but it is all love,--pure, pure love." + +At this moment Sally came softly into the room. A gentle air of womanly +authority seemed to express itself in that once gay and giddy face, at +which Moses, in the midst of his misery, marveled. + +"You must not stay any longer now," she said; "it would be too much for +her strength; this is enough for this morning." + +Moses turned away, and silently left the room, and Sally said to Mara,-- + +"You must lie down now, and rest." + +"Sally," said Mara, "promise me one thing." + +"Well, Mara; of course I will." + +"Promise to love him and care for him when I am gone; he will be so +lonely." + +"I will do all I can, Mara," said Sally, soothingly; "so now you must +take a little wine and lie down. You know what you have so often said, +that all will yet be well with him." + +"Oh, I know it, I am sure," said Mara, "but oh, his sorrow shook my very +heart." + +"You must not talk another word about it," said Sally, peremptorily, "Do +you know Aunt Roxy is coming to see you? I see her out of the window +this very moment." + +And Sally assisted to lay her friend on the bed, and then, administering +a stimulant, she drew down the curtains, and, sitting beside her, began +repeating, in a soft monotonous tone, the words of a favorite hymn:-- + + "The Lord my shepherd is, + I shall be well supplied; + Since He is mine, and I am His, + What can I want beside?" + +Before she had finished, Mara was asleep. + + + + +CHAPTER XLI + +CONSOLATION + + +Moses came down from the chamber of Mara in a tempest of contending +emotions. He had all that constitutional horror of death and the +spiritual world which is an attribute of some particularly strong and +well-endowed physical natures, and he had all that instinctive +resistance of the will which such natures offer to anything which +strikes athwart their cherished hopes and plans. To be wrenched suddenly +from the sphere of an earthly life and made to confront the unclosed +doors of a spiritual world on the behalf of the one dearest to him, was +to him a dreary horror uncheered by one filial belief in God. He felt, +furthermore, that blind animal irritation which assails one under a +sudden blow, whether of the body or of the soul,--an anguish of +resistance, a vague blind anger. + +Mr. Sewell was sitting in the kitchen,--he had called to see Mara, and +waited for the close of the interview above. He rose and offered his +hand to Moses, who took it in gloomy silence, without a smile or word. + +"'My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord,'" said Mr. +Sewell. + +"I cannot bear that sort of thing," said Moses abruptly, and almost +fiercely. "I beg your pardon, sir, but it irritates me." + +"Do you not believe that afflictions are sent for our improvement?" said +Mr. Sewell. + +"No! how can I? What improvement will there be to me in taking from me +the angel who guided me to all good, and kept me from all evil; the one +pure motive and holy influence of my life? If you call this the +chastening of a loving father, I must say it looks more to me like the +caprice of an evil spirit." + +"Had you ever thanked the God of your life for this gift, or felt your +dependence on him to keep it? Have you not blindly idolized the creature +and forgotten Him who gave it?" said Mr. Sewell. + +Moses was silent a moment. + +"I cannot believe there is a God," he said. "Since this fear came on me +I have prayed,--yes, and humbled myself; for I know I have not always +been what I ought. I promised if he would grant me this one thing, I +would seek him in future; but it did no good,--it's of no use to pray. I +would have been good in this way, if she might be spared, and I cannot +in any other." + +"My son, our Lord and Master will have no such conditions from us," said +Mr. Sewell. "We must submit unconditionally. _She_ has done it, and her +peace is as firm as the everlasting hills. God's will is a great current +that flows in spite of us; if we go with it, it carries us to endless +rest,--if we resist, we only wear our lives out in useless struggles." + +Moses stood a moment in silence, and then, turning away without a word, +hurried from the house. He strode along the high rocky bluff, through +tangled junipers and pine thickets, till he came above the rocky cove +which had been his favorite retreat on so many occasions. He swung +himself down over the cliffs into the grotto, where, shut in by the high +tide, he felt himself alone. There he had read Mr. Sewell's letter, and +dreamed vain dreams of wealth and worldly success, now all to him so +void. He felt to-day, as he sat there and watched the ships go by, how +utterly nothing all the wealth in the world was, in the loss of that one +heart. Unconsciously, even to himself, sorrow was doing her ennobling +ministry within him, melting off in her fierce fires trivial ambitions +and low desires, and making him feel the sole worth and value of love. +That which in other days had seemed only as one good thing among many +now seemed the _only_ thing in life. And he who has learned the +paramount value of love has taken one step from an earthly to a +spiritual existence. + +But as he lay there on the pebbly shore, hour after hour glided by, his +whole past life lived itself over to his eye; he saw a thousand actions, +he heard a thousand words, whose beauty and significance never came to +him till now. And alas! he saw so many when, on his part, the responsive +word that should have been spoken, and the deed that should have been +done, was forever wanting. He had all his life carried within him a +vague consciousness that he had not been to Mara what he should have +been, but he had hoped to make amends for all in that future which lay +before him,--that future now, alas! dissolving and fading away like the +white cloud-islands which the wind was drifting from the sky. A voice +seemed saying in his ears, "Ye know that when he would have inherited a +blessing he was rejected; for he found no place for repentance, though +he sought it carefully with tears." Something that he had never felt +before struck him as appalling in the awful fixedness of all past deeds +and words,--the unkind words once said, which no tears could unsay,--the +kind ones suppressed, to which no agony of wishfulness could give a past +reality. There were particular times in their past history that he +remembered so vividly, when he saw her so clearly,--doing some little +thing for him, and shyly watching for the word of acknowledgment, which +he did not give. Some willful wayward demon withheld him at the moment, +and the light on the little wishful face slowly faded. True, all had +been a thousand times forgiven and forgotten between them, but it is the +ministry of these great vital hours of sorrow to teach us that nothing +in the soul's history ever dies or is forgotten, and when the beloved +one lies stricken and ready to pass away, comes the judgment-day of +love, and all the dead moments of the past arise and live again. + +He lay there musing and dreaming till the sun grew low in the afternoon +sky, and the tide that isolated the little grotto had gone far out into +the ocean, leaving long, low reefs of sunken rocks, all matted and +tangled with the yellow hair of the seaweed, with little crystal pools +of salt water between. He heard the sound of approaching footsteps, and +Captain Kittridge came slowly picking his way round among the shingle +and pebbles. + +"Wal', now, I thought I'd find ye here!" he said: "I kind o' thought I +wanted to see ye,--ye see." + +Moses looked up half moody, half astonished, while the Captain seated +himself upon a fragment of rock and began brushing the knees of his +trousers industriously, until soon the tears rained down from his eyes +upon his dry withered hands. + +"Wal', now ye see, I can't help it, darned if I can; knowed her ever +since she's that high. She's done me good, she has. Mis' Kittridge has +been pretty faithful. I've had folks here and there talk to me +consid'able, but Lord bless you, I never had nothin' go to my heart like +this 'ere--Why to look on her there couldn't nobody doubt but what there +was somethin' in religion. You never knew half what she did for you, +Moses Pennel, you didn't know that the night you was off down to the +long cove with Skipper Atkinson, that 'ere blessed child was a-follerin' +you, but she was, and she come to me next day to get me to do somethin' +for you. That was how your grand'ther and I got ye off to sea so quick, +and she such a little thing then; that ar child was the savin' of ye, +Moses Pennel." + +Moses hid his head in his hands with a sort of groan. + +"Wal', wal'," said the Captain, "I don't wonder now ye feel so,--I don't +see how ye can stan' it no ways--only by thinkin' o' where she's goin' +to--Them ar bells in the Celestial City must all be a-ringin' for +her,--there'll be joy that side o' the river I reckon, when she gets +acrost. If she'd jest leave me a hem o' her garment to get in by, I'd be +glad; but she was one o' the sort that was jest _made_ to go to heaven. +She only stopped a few days in our world, like the robins when they's +goin' south; but there'll be a good many fust and last that'll get into +the kingdom for love of her. She never said much to me, but she kind o' +drew me. Ef ever I should get in there, it'll be _she_ led me. But come, +now, Moses, ye oughtn't fur to be a-settin' here catchin' cold--jest +come round to our house and let Sally gin you a warm cup o' tea--do +come, now." + +"Thank you, Captain," said Moses, "but I will go home; I must see her +again to-night." + +"Wal', don't let her see you grieve too much, ye know; we must be a +little sort o' manly, ye know, 'cause her body's weak, if her heart is +strong." + +Now Moses was in a mood of dry, proud, fierce, self-consuming sorrow, +least likely to open his heart or seek sympathy from any one; and no +friend or acquaintance would probably have dared to intrude on his +grief. But there are moods of the mind which cannot be touched or +handled by one on an equal level with us that yield at once to the +sympathy of something below. A dog who comes with his great honest, +sorrowful face and lays his mute paw of inquiry on your knee, will +sometimes open floodgates of sober feeling, that have remained closed to +every human touch;--the dumb simplicity and ignorance of his sympathy +makes it irresistible. In like manner the downright grief of the +good-natured old Captain, and the child-like ignorance with which he +ventured upon a ministry of consolation from which a more cultivated +person would have shrunk away, were irresistibly touching. Moses grasped +the dry, withered hand and said, "Thank you, thank you, Captain +Kittridge; you're a true friend." + +"Wal', I be, that's a fact, Moses. Lord bless me, I ain't no great--I +ain't nobody--I'm jest an old last-year's mullein-stalk in the Lord's +vineyard; but that 'ere blessed little thing allers had a good word for +me. She gave me a hymn-book and marked some hymns in it, and read 'em to +me herself, and her voice was jest as sweet as the sea of a warm +evening. Them hymns come to me kind o' powerful when I'm at my work +planin' and sawin'. Mis' Kittridge, she allers talks to me as ef I was a +terrible sinner; and I suppose I be, but this 'ere blessed child, she's +so kind o' good and innocent, she thinks I'm good; kind o' takes it for +granted I'm one o' the Lord's people, ye know. It kind o' makes me want +to be, ye know." + +The Captain here produced from his coat-pocket a much worn hymn-book, +and showed Moses where leaves were folded down. "Now here's this 'ere," +he said; "you get her to say it to you," he added, pointing to the +well-known sacred idyl which has refreshed so many hearts:-- + + "There is a land of pure delight + Where saints immortal reign; + Eternal day excludes the night, + And pleasures banish pain. + + "There everlasting spring abides, + And never-fading flowers; + Death like a narrow sea divides + This happy land from ours." + +"Now that ar beats everything," said the Captain, "and we must kind o' +think of it for her, 'cause she's goin' to see all that, and ef it's our +loss it's her gain, ye know." + +"I know," said Moses; "our grief is selfish." + +"Jest so. Wal', we're selfish critters, we be," said the Captain; "but +arter all, 't ain't as ef we was heathen and didn't know where they was +a-goin' to. We jest ought to be a-lookin' about and tryin' to foller +'em, ye know." + +"Yes, yes, I do know," said Moses; "it's easy to say, but hard to do." + +"But law, man, she prays for you; she did years and years ago, when you +was a boy and she a girl. You know it tells in the Revelations how the +angels has golden vials full of odors which are the prayers of saints. I +tell ye Moses, you ought to get into heaven, if no one else does. I +expect you are pretty well known among the angels by this time. I tell +ye what 'tis, Moses, fellers think it a mighty pretty thing to be +a-steppin' high, and a-sayin' they don't believe the Bible, and all that +ar, so long as the world goes well. This 'ere old Bible--why it's jest +like yer mother,--ye rove and ramble, and cut up round the world without +her a spell, and mebbe think the old woman ain't so fashionable as some; +but when sickness and sorrow comes, why, there ain't nothin' else to go +back to. Is there, now?" + +Moses did not answer, but he shook the hand of the Captain and turned +away. + + + + +CHAPTER XLII + +LAST WORDS + + +The setting sun gleamed in at the window of Mara's chamber, tinted with +rose and violet hues from a great cloud-castle that lay upon the smooth +ocean over against the window. Mara was lying upon the bed, but she +raised herself upon her elbow to look out. + +"Dear Aunt Roxy," she said, "raise me up and put the pillows behind me, +so that I can see out--it is splendid." + +Aunt Roxy came and arranged the pillows, and lifted the girl with her +long, strong arms, then stooping over her a moment she finished her +arrangements by softly smoothing the hair from her forehead with a +caressing movement most unlike her usual precise business-like +proceedings. + +"I love you, Aunt Roxy," said Mara, looking up with a smile. + +Aunt Roxy made a strange wry face, which caused her to look harder than +usual. She was choked with tenderness, and had only this uncomely way of +showing it. + +"Law now, Mara, I don't see how ye can; I ain't nothin' but an old +burdock-bush; love ain't for me." + +"Yes it is too," said Mara, drawing her down and kissing her withered +cheek, "and you sha'n't call yourself an old burdock. God sees that you +are beautiful, and in the resurrection everybody will see it." + +"I was always homely as an owl," said Miss Roxy, unconsciously speaking +out what had lain like a stone at the bottom of even her sensible heart. +"I always had sense to know it, and knew my sphere. Homely folks would +like to say pretty things, and to have pretty things said to them, but +they never do. I made up my mind pretty early that my part in the +vineyard was to have hard work and no posies." + +"Well, you will have all the more in heaven; I love you dearly, and I +like your looks, too. You look kind and true and good, and that's beauty +in the country where we are going." + +Miss Roxy sprang up quickly from the bed, and turning her back began to +arrange the bottles on the table with great zeal. + +"Has Moses come in yet?" said Mara. + +"No, there ain't nobody seen a thing of him since he went out this +morning." + +"Poor boy!" said Mara, "it is too hard upon him. Aunt Roxy, please pick +some roses off the bush from under the window and put in the vases; +let's have the room as sweet and cheerful as we can. I hope God will let +me live long enough to comfort him. It is not so very terrible, if one +would only think so, to cross that river. All looks so bright to me now +that I have forgotten how sorrow seemed. Poor Moses! he will have a hard +struggle, but he will get the victory, too. I am very weak to-night, but +to-morrow I shall feel better, and I shall sit up, and perhaps I can +paint a little on that flower I was doing for him. We will not have +things look sickly or deathly. There, Aunt Roxy, he has come in; I hear +his step." + +"I didn't hear it," said Miss Roxy, surprised at the acute senses which +sickness had etherealized to an almost spirit-like intensity. "Shall I +call him?" + +"Yes, do," said Mara. "He can sit with me a little while to-night." + +The light in the room was a strange dusky mingling of gold and gloom, +when Moses stole softly in. The great cloud-castle that a little while +since had glowed like living gold from turret and battlement, now dim, +changed for the most part to a sombre gray, enlivened with a dull glow +of crimson; but there was still a golden light where the sun had sunk +into the sea. Moses saw the little thin hand stretched out to him. + +"Sit down," she said; "it has been such a beautiful sunset. Did you +notice it?" + +He sat down by the bed, leaning his forehead on his hand, but saying +nothing. + +She drew her fingers through his dark hair. "I am so glad to see you," +she said. "It is such a comfort to me that you have come; and I hope it +will be to you. You know I shall be better to-morrow than I am to-night, +and I hope we shall have some pleasant days together yet. We mustn't +reject what little we may have, because it cannot be more." + +"Oh, Mara," said Moses, "I would give my life, if I could take back the +past. I have never been worthy of you; never knew your worth; never made +you happy. You always lived for me, and I lived for myself. I deserve to +lose you, but it is none the less bitter." + +"Don't say lose. Why must you? I cannot think of losing you. I know I +shall not. God has given you to me. You will come to me and be mine at +last. I feel sure of it." + +"You don't know me," said Moses. + +"Christ does, though," she said; "and He has promised to care for you. +Yes, you will live to see many flowers grow out of my grave. You cannot +think so now; but it will be so--believe me." + +"Mara," said Moses, "I never lived through such a day as this. It seems +as if every moment of my life had been passing before me, and every +moment of yours. I have seen how true and loving in thought and word and +deed you have been, and I have been doing nothing but take. You have +given love as the skies give rain, and I have drunk it up like the hot +dusty earth." + +Mara knew in her own heart that this was all true, and she was too real +to use any of the terms of affected humiliation which many think a kind +of spiritual court language. She looked at him and answered, "Moses, I +always knew I loved most. It was my nature; God gave it to me, and it +was a gift for which I give him thanks--not a merit. I knew you had a +larger, wider nature than mine,--a wider sphere to live in, and that you +could not live in your heart as I did. Mine was all thought and feeling, +and the narrow little duties of this little home. Yours went all round +the world." + +"But, oh Mara--oh, my angel! to think I should lose you when I am just +beginning to know your worth. I always had a sort of superstitious +feeling,--a sacred presentiment about you,--that my spiritual life, if +ever I had any, would come through you. It seemed if there ever was such +a thing as God's providence, which some folks believe in, it was in +leading me to you, and giving you to me. And now, to have all +lashed--all destroyed--It makes me feel as if all was blind chance; no +guiding God; for if he wanted me to be good, he would spare you." + +Mara lay with her large eyes fixed on the now faded sky. The dusky +shadows had dropped like a black crape veil around her pale face. In a +few moments she repeated to herself, as if she were musing upon them, +those mysterious words of Him who liveth and was dead, "Except a corn of +wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; if it die, it +bringeth forth much fruit." + +"Moses," she said, "for all I know you have loved me dearly, yet I have +felt that in all that was deepest and dearest to me, I was alone. You +did not come near to me, nor touch me where I feel most deeply. If I had +lived to be your wife, I cannot say but this distance in our spiritual +nature might have widened. You know, what we live with we get used to; +it grows an old story. Your love to me might have grown old and worn +out. If we lived together in the commonplace toils of life, you would +see only a poor threadbare wife. I might have lost what little charm I +ever had for you; but I feel that if I die, this will not be. There is +something sacred and beautiful in death; and I may have more power over +you, when I seem to be gone, than I should have had living." + +"Oh, Mara, Mara, don't say that." + +"Dear Moses, it is so. Think how many lovers marry, and how few lovers +are left in middle life; and how few love and reverence living friends +as they do the dead. There are only a very few to whom it is given to do +that." + +Something in the heart of Moses told him that this was true. In this one +day--the sacred revealing light of approaching death--he had seen more +of the real spiritual beauty and significance of Mara's life than in +years before, and felt upspringing in his heart, from the deep pathetic +influence of the approaching spiritual world a new and stronger power of +loving. It may be that it is not merely a perception of love that we +were not aware of before, that wakes up when we approach the solemn +shadows with a friend. It may be that the soul has compressed and +unconscious powers which are stirred and wrought upon as it looks over +the borders into its future home,--its loves and its longings so swell +and beat, that they astonish itself. We are greater than we know, and +dimly feel it with every approach to the great hereafter. "It doth not +yet appear what we shall be." + + * * * * * + +"Now, I'll tell you what 'tis," said Aunt Roxy, opening the door, "all +the strength this 'ere girl spends a-talkin' to-night, will be so much +taken out o' the whole cloth to-morrow." + +Moses started up. "I ought to have thought of that, Mara." + +"Ye see," said Miss Roxy, "she's been through a good deal to-day, and +she must be got to sleep at some rate or other to-night. 'Lord, if he +sleep he shall do well,' the Bible says, and it's one of my best nussin' +maxims." + +"And a good one, too, Aunt Roxy," said Mara. "Good-night, dear boy; you +see we must all mind Aunt Roxy." + +Moses bent down and kissed her, and felt her arms around his neck. + +"Let not your heart be troubled," she whispered. In spite of himself +Moses felt the storm that had risen in his bosom that morning soothed by +the gentle influences which Mara breathed upon it. There is a +sympathetic power in all states of mind, and they who have reached the +deep secret of eternal rest have a strange power of imparting calm to +others. + +It was in the very crisis of the battle that Christ said to his +disciples, "_My peace I give unto you_," and they that are made one with +him acquire like precious power of shedding round them repose, as +evening flowers shed odors. Moses went to his pillow sorrowful and +heart-stricken, but bitter or despairing he could not be with the +consciousness of that present angel in the house. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIII + +THE PEARL + + +The next morning rose calm and bright with that wonderful and mystical +stillness and serenity which glorify autumn days. It was impossible that +such skies could smile and such gentle airs blow the sea into one great +waving floor of sparkling sapphires without bringing cheerfulness to +human hearts. You must be very despairing indeed, when Nature is doing +her best, to look her in the face sullen and defiant. So long as there +is a drop of good in your cup, a penny in your exchequer of happiness, a +bright day reminds you to look at it, and feel that all is not gone yet. + +So felt Moses when he stood in the door of the brown house, while Mrs. +Pennel was clinking plates and spoons as she set the breakfast-table, +and Zephaniah Pennel in his shirt-sleeves was washing in the back-room, +while Miss Roxy came downstairs in a business-like fashion, bringing +sundry bowls, plates, dishes, and mysterious pitchers from the +sick-room. + +"Well, Aunt Roxy, you ain't one that lets the grass grow under your +feet," said Mrs. Pennel. "How is the dear child, this morning?" + +"Well, she had a better night than one could have expected," said Miss +Roxy, "and by the time she's had her breakfast, she expects to sit up a +little and see her friends." Miss Roxy said this in a cheerful tone, +looking encouragingly at Moses, whom she began to pity and patronize, +now she saw how real was his affliction. + +After breakfast Moses went to see her; she was sitting up in her white +dressing-gown, looking so thin and poorly, and everything in the room +was fragrant with the spicy smell of the monthly roses, whose late buds +and blossoms Miss Roxy had gathered for the vases. She seemed so +natural, so calm and cheerful, so interested in all that went on around +her, that one almost forgot that the time of her stay must be so short. +She called Moses to come and look at her drawings, and paintings of +flowers and birds,--full of reminders they were of old times,--and then +she would have her pencils and colors, and work a little on a bunch of +red rock-columbine, that she had begun to do for him; and she chatted of +all the old familiar places where flowers grew, and of the old talks +they had had there, till Moses quite forgot himself; forgot that he was +in a sick room, till Aunt Roxy, warned by the deepening color on Mara's +cheeks, interposed her "nussing" authority, that she must do no more +that day. + +Then Moses laid her down, and arranged her pillows so that she could +look out on the sea, and sat and read to her till it was time for her +afternoon nap; and when the evening shadows drew on, he marveled with +himself how the day had gone. + +Many such there were, all that pleasant month of September, and he was +with her all the time, watching her wants and doing her +bidding,--reading over and over with a softened modulation her favorite +hymns and chapters, arranging her flowers, and bringing her home wild +bouquets from all her favorite wood-haunts, which made her sick-room +seem like some sylvan bower. Sally Kittridge was there too, almost every +day, with always some friendly offering or some helpful deed of +kindness, and sometimes they two together would keep guard over the +invalid while Miss Roxy went home to attend to some of her own more +peculiar concerns. Mara seemed to rule all around her with calm +sweetness and wisdom, speaking unconsciously only the speech of heaven, +talking of spiritual things, not in an excited rapture or wild ecstasy, +but with the sober certainty of waking bliss. She seemed like one of the +sweet friendly angels one reads of in the Old Testament, so lovingly +companionable, walking and talking, eating and drinking, with mortals, +yet ready at any unknown moment to ascend with the flame of some +sacrifice and be gone. There are those (a few at least) whose blessing +it has been to have kept for many days, in bonds of earthly fellowship, +a perfected spirit in whom the work of purifying love was wholly done, +who lived in calm victory over sin and sorrow and death, ready at any +moment to be called to the final mystery of joy. + +Yet it must come at last, the moment when heaven claims its own, and it +came at last in the cottage on Orr's Island. There came a day when the +room so sacredly cheerful was hushed to a breathless stillness; the bed +was then all snowy white, and that soft still sealed face, the parted +waves of golden hair, the little hands folded over the white robe, all +had a sacred and wonderful calm, a rapture of repose that seemed to say +"it is done." + +They who looked on her wondered; it was a look that sunk deep into every +heart; it hushed down the common cant of those who, according to country +custom, went to stare blindly at the great mystery of death,--for all +that came out of that chamber smote upon their breasts and went away in +silence, revolving strangely whence might come that unearthly beauty, +that celestial joy. + +Once more, in that very room where James and Naomi Lincoln had lain side +by side in their coffins, sleeping restfully, there was laid another +form, shrouded and coffined, but with such a fairness and tender purity, +such a mysterious fullness of joy in its expression, that it seemed more +natural to speak of that rest as some higher form of life than of +death. + +Once more were gathered the neighborhood; all the faces known in this +history shone out in one solemn picture, of which that sweet restful +form was the centre. Zephaniah Pennel and Mary his wife, Moses and +Sally, the dry form of Captain Kittridge and the solemn face of his +wife, Aunt Roxy and Aunt Ruey, Miss Emily and Mr. Sewell; but their +faces all wore a tender brightness, such as we see falling like a thin +celestial veil over all the faces in an old Florentine painting. The +room was full of sweet memories, of words of cheer, words of assurance, +words of triumph, and the mysterious brightness of that young face +forbade them to weep. Solemnly Mr. Sewell read,-- + +"He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord God will wipe away +tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of his people shall he take +away from off all the earth; for the Lord hath spoken it. And it shall +be said in that day, Lo this is our God; we have waited for him, and he +will save us; this is the Lord; we have waited for him, we will be glad +and rejoice in his salvation." + +Then the prayer trembled up to heaven with thanksgiving, for the early +entrance of that fair young saint into glory, and then the same old +funeral hymn, with its mournful triumph:-- + + "Why should we mourn departed friends, + Or shake at death's alarms, + 'Tis but the voice that Jesus sends + To call them to his arms." + +Then in a few words Mr. Sewell reminded them how that hymn had been sung +in this room so many years ago, when that frail, fluttering orphan soul +had been baptized into the love and care of Jesus, and how her whole +life, passing before them in its simplicity and beauty, had come to so +holy and beautiful a close; and when, pointing to the calm sleeping face +he asked, "Would we call her back?" there was not a heart at that moment +that dared answer, Yes. Even he that should have been her bridegroom +could not at that moment have unsealed the holy charm, and so they bore +her away, and laid the calm smiling face beneath the soil, by the side +of poor Dolores. + + * * * * * + +"I had a beautiful dream last night," said Zephaniah Pennel, the next +morning after the funeral, as he opened his Bible to conduct family +worship. + +"What was it?" said Miss Roxy. + +"Well, ye see, I thought I was out a-walkin' up and down, and lookin' +and lookin' for something that I'd lost. What it was I couldn't quite +make out, but my heart felt heavy as if it would break, and I was +lookin' all up and down the sands by the seashore, and somebody said I +was like the merchantman, seeking goodly pearls. I said I had lost my +pearl--my pearl of great price--and then I looked up, and far off on the +beach, shining softly on the wet sands, lay my pearl. I thought it was +Mara, but it seemed a great pearl with a soft moonlight on it; and I was +running for it when some one said 'hush,' and I looked and I saw _Him_ +a-coming--Jesus of Nazareth, jist as he walked by the sea of Galilee. It +was all dark night around Him, but I could see Him by the light that +came from his face, and the long hair was hanging down on his shoulders. +He came and took up my pearl and put it on his forehead, and it shone +out like a star, and shone into my heart, and I felt happy; and he +looked at me steadily, and rose and rose in the air, and melted in the +clouds, and I awoke so happy, and so calm!" + + + + +CHAPTER XLIV + +FOUR YEARS AFTER + + +It was a splendid evening in July, and the sky was filled high with +gorgeous tabernacles of purple and gold, the remains of a grand +thunder-shower which had freshened the air and set a separate jewel on +every needle leaf of the old pines. + +Four years had passed since the fair Pearl of Orr's Island had been laid +beneath the gentle soil, which every year sent monthly tributes of +flowers to adorn her rest, great blue violets, and starry flocks of +ethereal eye-brights in spring, and fringy asters, and goldenrod in +autumn. In those days, the tender sentiment which now makes the +burial-place a cultivated garden was excluded by the rigid spiritualism +of the Puritan life, which, ever jealous of that which concerned the +body, lest it should claim what belonged to the immortal alone, had +frowned on all watching of graves, as an earthward tendency, and +enjoined the flight of faith with the spirit, rather than the yearning +for its cast-off garments. + +But Sally Kittridge, being lonely, found something in her heart which +could only be comforted by visits to that grave. So she had planted +there roses and trailing myrtle, and tended and watered them; a +proceeding which was much commented on Sunday noons, when people were +eating their dinners and discussing their neighbors. + +It is possible good Mrs. Kittridge might have been much scandalized by +it, had she been in a condition to think on the matter at all; but a +very short time after the funeral she was seized with a paralytic +shock, which left her for a while as helpless as an infant; and then she +sank away into the grave, leaving Sally the sole care of the old +Captain. + +A cheerful home she made, too, for his old age, adorning the house with +many little tasteful fancies unknown in her mother's days; reading the +Bible to him and singing Mara's favorite hymns, with a voice as sweet as +the spring blue-bird. The spirit of the departed friend seemed to hallow +the dwelling where these two worshiped her memory, in simple-hearted +love. Her paintings, framed in quaint woodland frames of moss and +pine-cones by Sally's own ingenuity, adorned the walls. Her books were +on the table, and among them many that she had given to Moses. + +"I am going to be a wanderer for many years," he said in parting, "keep +these for me until I come back." + +And so from time to time passed long letters between the two +friends,--each telling to the other the same story,--that they were +lonely, and that their hearts yearned for the communion of one who could +no longer be manifest to the senses. And each spoke to the other of a +world of hopes and memories buried with her, "Which," each so constantly +said, "no one could understand but you." Each, too, was firm in the +faith that buried love must have no earthly resurrection. Every letter +strenuously insisted that they should call each other brother and +sister, and under cover of those names the letters grew longer and more +frequent, and with every chance opportunity came presents from the +absent brother, which made the little old cottage quaintly suggestive +with smell of spice and sandal-wood. + +But, as we said, this is a glorious July evening,--and you may discern +two figures picking their way over those low sunken rocks, yellowed with +seaweed, of which we have often spoken. They are Moses and Sally going +on an evening walk to that favorite grotto retreat, which has so often +been spoken of in the course of this history. + +Moses has come home from long wanderings. It is four years since they +parted, and now they meet and have looked into each other's eyes, not as +of old, when they met in the first giddy flush of youth, but as fully +developed man and woman. Moses and Sally had just risen from the +tea-table, where she had presided with a thoughtful housewifery gravity, +just pleasantly dashed with quaint streaks of her old merry willfulness, +while the old Captain, warmed up like a rheumatic grasshopper in a fine +autumn day, chirruped feebly, and told some of his old stories, which +now he told every day, forgetting that they had ever been heard before. +Somehow all three had been very happy; the more so, from a shadowy sense +of some sympathizing presence which was rejoicing to see them together +again, and which, stealing soft-footed and noiseless everywhere, touched +and lighted up every old familiar object with sweet memories. + +And so they had gone out together to walk; to walk towards the grotto +where Sally had caused a seat to be made, and where she declared she had +passed hours and hours, knitting, sewing, or reading. + +"Sally," said Moses, "do you know I am tired of wandering? I am coming +home now. I begin to want a home of my own." This he said as they sat +together on the rustic seat and looked off on the blue sea. + +"Yes, you must," said Sally. "How lovely that ship looks, just coming in +there." + +"Yes, they are beautiful," said Moses abstractedly; and Sally rattled on +about the difference between sloops and brigs; seeming determined that +there should be no silence, such as often comes in ominous gaps between +two friends who have long been separated, and have each many things to +say with which the other is not familiar. + +"Sally!" said Moses, breaking in with a deep voice on one of these +monologues. "Do you remember some presumptuous things I once said to +you, in this place?" + +Sally did not answer, and there was a dead silence in which they could +hear the tide gently dashing on the weedy rocks. + +"You and I are neither of us what we were then, Sally," said Moses. "We +are as different as if we were each another person. We have been trained +in another life,--educated by a great sorrow,--is it not so?" + +"I know it," said Sally. + +"And why should we two, who have a world of thoughts and memories which +no one can understand but the other,--why should we, each of us, go on +alone? If we must, why then, Sally, I must leave you, and I must write +and receive no more letters, for I have found that you are becoming so +wholly necessary to me, that if any other should claim you, I could not +feel as I ought. Must I go?" + +Sally's answer is not on record; but one infers what it was from the +fact that they sat there very late, and before they knew it, the tide +rose up and shut them in, and the moon rose up in full glory out of the +water, and still they sat and talked, leaning on each other, till a +cracked, feeble voice called down through the pine-trees above, like a +hoarse old cricket,-- + +"Children, be you there?" + +"Yes, father," said Sally, blushing and conscious. + +"Yes, all right," said the deep bass of Moses. "I'll bring her back when +I've done with her, Captain." + +"Wal',--wal'; I was gettin' consarned; but I see I don't need to. I hope +you won't get no colds nor nothin'." + +They did not; but in the course of a month there was a wedding at the +brown house of the old Captain, which everybody in the parish was glad +of, and was voted without dissent to be just the thing. + +Miss Roxy, grimly approbative, presided over the preparations, and all +the characters of our story appeared, and more, having on their +wedding-garments. Nor was the wedding less joyful, that all felt the +presence of a heavenly guest, silent and loving, seeing and blessing +all, whose voice seemed to say in every heart,-- + +"He turneth the shadow of death into morning." + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Pearl of Orr's Island, by Harriet Beecher Stowe + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND *** + +***** This file should be named 31522-8.txt or 31522-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/1/5/2/31522/ + +Produced by David Edwards, Jane Hyland and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This +book was produced from scanned images of public domain +material from the Google Print project.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/31522-8.zip b/31522-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..f1ae223 --- /dev/null +++ b/31522-8.zip diff --git a/31522-h.zip b/31522-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..66827fe --- /dev/null +++ b/31522-h.zip diff --git a/31522-h/31522-h.htm b/31522-h/31522-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6853816 --- /dev/null +++ b/31522-h/31522-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,16397 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Pearl of Orr's Island, by Harriet Beecher Stowe. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + td {padding-left: 1em;} + td.right {text-align: right;} + + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + .pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /*visibility: hidden;*/ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + } /* page numbers */ + + .blockquot{margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;} + + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .caption {font-weight: bold;} + + .figcenter {margin: 3em auto 3em auto; text-align: center;} + + .bbox {border: 1px solid; padding: 1em; margin-bottom: 5em;} + + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +Project Gutenberg's The Pearl of Orr's Island, by Harriet Beecher Stowe + +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: The Pearl of Orr's Island + A Story of the Coast of Maine + +Author: Harriet Beecher Stowe + +Release Date: March 6, 2010 [EBook #31522] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND *** + + + + +Produced by David Edwards, Jane Hyland and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This +book was produced from scanned images of public domain +material from the Google Print project.) + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_i" id="Page_i">[Pg i-ii]</a></span></p> +<h2>THE</h2> + +<h1>PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND</h1> + + +<h3>A Story of the Coast of Maine</h3> + + +<h3>BY</h3> + +<h2>HARRIET BEECHER STOWE<br /><br /></h2> + +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/frontispiece.jpg" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<h4>BOSTON AND NEW YORK<br /> +HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY<br /><br /> +The Riverside Press, Cambridge<br /> +1896</h4> + +<div><a name="vignette" id="vignette"></a></div> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 315px;"> +<img src="images/vignette.jpg" width="315" height="600" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ii" id="Page_ii">[Pg iii-iv]</a></span><br /><br /></p> + +<p class="center">Copyright, 1862 and 1890,<br /> +<span class="smcap">By</span> HARRIET BEECHER STOWE.<br /><br /><br /></p> + +<p class="center">Copyright, 1896,<br /> +<span class="smcap">By</span> HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.<br /></p> + +<p class="center"><i>All rights reserved.</i><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<p class="center"><i>The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U.S.A.<br /></i> +Electrotyped and Printed by H.O. Houghton & Co.</p> + +<div><a name="frontis" id="frontis"></a></div> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 383px;"> +<img src="images/frontis.jpg" width="383" height="600" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[Pg v]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h2> + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="toc"> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap"><a href="#INTRODUCTORY_NOTE">Introductory Note</a></span></td><td align='left'> </td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>CHAPTER</td><td align='left'> </td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_I">I.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Naomi</span></td> +<td align='right'>1</td> +</tr> +<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_II">II.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Mara</span></td> +<td align='right'>5</td> +</tr> +<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_III">III.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Baptism and the Burial</span></td> +<td align='right'>9</td> +</tr> +<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">IV.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Aunt Roxy and Aunt Ruey</span></td> +<td align='right'>15</td> +</tr> +<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_V">V.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Kittridges</span></td> +<td align='right'>25</td> +</tr> +<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">VI.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Grandparents</span></td> +<td align='right'>36</td> +</tr> +<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">VII.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">From the Sea</span></td> +<td align='right'>47</td> +</tr> +<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">VIII.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Seen and the Unseen</span></td> +<td align='right'>58</td> +</tr> +<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">IX.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Moses</span></td> +<td align='right'>74</td> +</tr> +<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_X">X.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Minister</span></td> +<td align='right'>85</td> +</tr> +<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">XI.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Little Adventurers</span></td> +<td align='right'>99</td> +</tr> +<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">XII.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Sea Tales</span></td> +<td align='right'>110</td> +</tr> +<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">XIII.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Boy and Girl</span></td> +<td align='right'>120</td> +</tr> +<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">XIV.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Enchanted Island</span></td> +<td align='right'>132</td> +</tr> +<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">XV.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Home Coming</span></td> +<td align='right'>143</td> +</tr> +<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">XVI.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Natural and the Spiritual</span></td> +<td align='right'>154</td> +</tr> +<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">XVII.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Lessons</span></td> +<td align='right'>165</td> +</tr> +<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">XVIII.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Sally</span></td> +<td align='right'>175</td> +</tr> +<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">XIX.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Eighteen</span></td> +<td align='right'>179</td> +</tr> +<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XX">XX.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Rebellion</span></td> +<td align='right'>186</td> +</tr> +<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">XXI.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Tempter</span></td> +<td align='right'>198</td> +</tr> +<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">XXII.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Friend in Need</span></td> +<td align='right'>208</td> +</tr> +<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">XXIII.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Beginning of the Story</span></td> +<td align='right'>218</td> +</tr> +<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">XXIV.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Desires and Dreams</span></td> +<td align='right'>229</td> +</tr> +<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXV">XXV.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Miss Emily</span></td> +<td align='right'>235</td> +</tr> +<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI">XXVI.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Dolores</span></td> +<td align='right'>245</td> +</tr> +<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII">XXVII.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Hidden Things</span></td> +<td align='right'>258</td> +</tr> +<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII">XXVIII.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Coquette</span></td> +<td align='right'>270</td> +</tr> +<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX">XXIX.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Night Talks</span></td> +<td align='right'>279</td> +</tr> +<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXX">XXX.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Launch of the Ariel</span></td> +<td align='right'>290</td> +</tr> +<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXI">XXXI.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Greek meets Greek</span></td> +<td align='right'>303</td> +</tr> +<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXII">XXXII.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Betrothal</span></td> +<td align='right'>315</td> +</tr> +<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIII">XXXIII.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">At a Quilting</span></td> +<td align='right'>323</td> +</tr> +<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIV">XXXIV.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Friends</span></td> +<td align='right'>329</td> +</tr> +<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXV">XXXV.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Toothacre Cottage</span></td> +<td align='right'>335</td> +</tr> +<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVI">XXXVI.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Shadow of Death</span></td> +<td align='right'>339</td> +</tr> +<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVII">XXXVII.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Victory</span></td> +<td align='right'>351</td> +</tr> +<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVIII">XXXVIII.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Open Vision</span></td> +<td align='right'>358</td> +</tr> +<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIX">XXXIX.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Land of Beulah</span></td> +<td align='right'>368</td> +</tr> +<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XL">XL.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Meeting</span></td> +<td align='right'>376</td> +</tr> +<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XLI">XLI.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Consolation</span></td> +<td align='right'>380</td> +</tr> +<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XLII">XLII.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Last Words</span></td> +<td align='right'>387</td> +</tr> +<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XLIII">XLIII.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Pearl</span></td> +<td align='right'>393</td> +</tr> +<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XLIV">XLIV.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Four Years After</span></td> +<td align='right'>398</td> +</tr> +</table></div> + +<p><a name="tn" id="tn"></a>The <a href="#frontis">frontispiece</a> (Mara, page <a href="#Page_376">376</a>) was drawn by W.L. Taylor. The +<a href="#vignette">vignette</a> was etched by Charles H. Woodbury.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="INTRODUCTORY_NOTE" id="INTRODUCTORY_NOTE"></a>INTRODUCTORY NOTE</h2> + + +<p>The publication of <i>Uncle Tom's Cabin</i>, though much<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</a></span> +more than an incident in an author's career, seems to have +determined Mrs. Stowe more surely in her purpose to devote +herself to literature. During the summer following +its appearance, she was in Andover, making over the house +which she and her husband were to occupy upon leaving +Brunswick; and yet, busy as she was, she was writing articles +for <i>The Independent</i> and <i>The National Era</i>. The +following extract from a letter written at that time, July +29, 1852, intimates that she already was sketching the +outline of the story which later grew into <i>The Pearl of +Orr's Island</i>:—</p> + +<p>"I seem to have so much to fill my time, and yet there +is my Maine story waiting. However, I am composing it +every day, only I greatly need living studies for the filling +in of my sketches. There is old Jonas, my "fish father," +a sturdy, independent fisherman farmer, who in his youth +sailed all over the world and made up his mind about +everything. In his old age he attends prayer-meetings and +reads the <i>Missionary Herald</i>. He also has plenty of money +in an old brown sea-chest. He is a great heart with an +inflexible will and iron muscles. I must go to Orr's Island +and see him again." The story seems to have remained in +her mind, for we are told by her son that she worked upon +it by turns with <i>The Minister's Wooing</i>.</p> + +<p>It was not, however, until eight years later, after <i>The +Minister's Wooing</i> had been published and <i>Agnes of Sorrento</i> +was well begun, that she took up her old story in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[Pg viii]</a></span> +earnest and set about making it into a short serial. It +would seem that her first intention was to confine herself +to a sketch of the childhood of her chief characters, with a +view to delineating the influences at work upon them; but, +as she herself expressed it, "Out of the simple history of +the little Pearl of Orr's Island as it had shaped itself in her +mind, rose up a Captain Kittridge with his garrulous yarns, +and Misses Roxy and Ruey, given to talk, and a whole +pigeon roost of yet undreamed of fancies and dreams which +would insist on being written." So it came about that the +story as originally planned came to a stopping place at the +end of Chapter XVII., as the reader may see when he reaches +that place. The childish life of her characters ended there, +and a lapse of ten years was assumed before their story was +taken up again in the next chapter. The book when published +had no chapter headings. These have been supplied +in the present edition.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_PEARL_OF_ORRS_ISLAND" id="THE_PEARL_OF_ORRS_ISLAND"></a>THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2> + +<h3>NAOMI</h3> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span>On the road to the Kennebec, below the town of Bath, +in the State of Maine, might have been seen, on a certain +autumnal afternoon, a one-horse wagon, in which two persons +were sitting. One was an old man, with the peculiarly +hard but expressive physiognomy which characterizes the +seafaring population of the New England shores. A clear +blue eye, evidently practiced in habits of keen observation, +white hair, bronzed, weather-beaten cheeks, and a face +deeply lined with the furrows of shrewd thought and anxious +care, were points of the portrait that made themselves +felt at a glance.</p> + +<p>By his side sat a young woman of two-and-twenty, of a +marked and peculiar personal appearance. Her hair was +black, and smoothly parted on a broad forehead, to which +a pair of penciled dark eyebrows gave a striking and definite +outline. Beneath, lay a pair of large black eyes, remarkable +for tremulous expression of melancholy and timidity. +The cheek was white and bloodless as a snowberry, though +with the clear and perfect oval of good health; the mouth +was delicately formed, with a certain sad quiet in its lines, +which indicated a habitually repressed and sensitive nature.</p> + +<p>The dress of this young person, as often happens in New +England, was, in refinement and even elegance, a marked<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span> +contrast to that of her male companion and to the humble +vehicle in which she rode. There was not only the most +fastidious neatness, but a delicacy in the choice of colors, +an indication of elegant tastes in the whole arrangement, +and the quietest suggestion in the world of an acquaintance +with the usages of fashion, which struck one oddly +in those wild and dreary surroundings. On the whole, she +impressed one like those fragile wild-flowers which in April +cast their fluttering shadows from the mossy crevices of +the old New England granite,—an existence in which +colorless delicacy is united to a sort of elastic hardihood +of life, fit for the rocky soil and harsh winds it is born to +encounter.</p> + +<p>The scenery of the road along which the two were riding +was wild and bare. Only savins and mulleins, with their +dark pyramids or white spires of velvet leaves, diversified +the sandy wayside; but out at sea was a wide sweep of +blue, reaching far to the open ocean, which lay rolling, +tossing, and breaking into white caps of foam in the +bright sunshine. For two or three days a northeast storm +had been raging, and the sea was in all the commotion +which such a general upturning creates.</p> + +<p>The two travelers reached a point of elevated land, +where they paused a moment, and the man drew up the +jogging, stiff-jointed old farm-horse, and raised himself +upon his feet to look out at the prospect.</p> + +<p>There might be seen in the distance the blue Kennebec +sweeping out toward the ocean through its picturesque +rocky shores, docked with cedars and other dusky evergreens, +which were illuminated by the orange and flame-colored +trees of Indian summer. Here and there scarlet +creepers swung long trailing garlands over the faces of the +dark rock, and fringes of goldenrod above swayed with +the brisk blowing wind that was driving the blue waters +seaward, in face of the up-coming ocean tide,—a conflict<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> +which caused them to rise in great foam-crested waves. +There are two channels into this river from the open sea, +navigable for ships which are coming in to the city of +Bath; one is broad and shallow, the other narrow and +deep, and these are divided by a steep ledge of rocks.</p> + +<p>Where the spectators of this scene were sitting, they +could see in the distance a ship borne with tremendous +force by the rising tide into the mouth of the river, and +encountering a northwest wind which had succeeded the +gale, as northwest winds often do on this coast. The +ship, from what might be observed in the distance, seemed +struggling to make the wider channel, but was constantly +driven off by the baffling force of the wind.</p> + +<p>"There she is, Naomi," said the old fisherman, eagerly, +to his companion, "coming right in." The young woman +was one of the sort that never start, and never exclaim, +but with all deeper emotions grow still. The color slowly +mounted into her cheek, her lips parted, and her eyes +dilated with a wide, bright expression; her breathing came +in thick gasps, but she said nothing.</p> + +<p>The old fisherman stood up in the wagon, his coarse, +butternut-colored coat-flaps fluttering and snapping in the +breeze, while his interest seemed to be so intense in the +efforts of the ship that he made involuntary and eager +movements as if to direct her course. A moment passed, +and his keen, practiced eye discovered a change in her +movements, for he cried out involuntarily,—</p> + +<p>"<i>Don't</i> take the narrow channel to-day!" and a moment +after, "O Lord! O Lord! have mercy,—there they +go! Look! look! look!"</p> + +<p>And, in fact, the ship rose on a great wave clear out of +the water, and the next second seemed to leap with a desperate +plunge into the narrow passage; for a moment there +was a shivering of the masts and the rigging, and she went +down and was gone.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span></p> + +<p>"They're split to pieces!" cried the fisherman. "Oh, +my poor girl—my poor girl—they're gone! O Lord, +have mercy!"</p> + +<p>The woman lifted up no voice, but, as one who has been +shot through the heart falls with no cry, she fell back,—a +mist rose up over her great mournful eyes,—she had +fainted.</p> + +<p>The story of this wreck of a home-bound ship just entering +the harbor is yet told in many a family on this +coast. A few hours after, the unfortunate crew were +washed ashore in all the joyous holiday rig in which they +had attired themselves that morning to go to their sisters, +wives, and mothers.</p> + +<p>This is the first scene in our story.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> + +<h3>MARA</h3> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span>Down near the end of Orr's Island, facing the open +ocean, stands a brown house of the kind that the natives +call "lean-to," or "linter,"—one of those large, comfortable +structures, barren in the ideal, but rich in the practical, +which the workingman of New England can always +command. The waters of the ocean came up within a rod +of this house, and the sound of its moaning waves was +even now filling the clear autumn starlight. Evidently +something was going on within, for candles fluttered and +winked from window to window, like fireflies in a dark +meadow, and sounds as of quick footsteps, and the flutter +of brushing garments, might be heard.</p> + +<p>Something unusual is certainly going on within the +dwelling of Zephaniah Pennel to-night.</p> + +<p>Let us enter the dark front-door. We feel our way to +the right, where a solitary ray of light comes from the +chink of a half-opened door. Here is the front room of +the house, set apart as its place of especial social hilarity +and sanctity,—the "best room," with its low studded +walls, white dimity window-curtains, rag carpet, and polished +wood chairs. It is now lit by the dim gleam of a +solitary tallow candle, which seems in the gloom to make +only a feeble circle of light around itself, leaving all the +rest of the apartment in shadow.</p> + +<p>In the centre of the room, stretched upon a table, and +covered partially by a sea-cloak, lies the body of a man of +twenty-five,—lies, too, evidently as one of whom it is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> +written, "He shall return to his house no more, neither +shall his place know him any more." A splendid manhood +has suddenly been called to forsake that lifeless form, leaving +it, like a deserted palace, beautiful in its desolation. +The hair, dripping with the salt wave, curled in glossy +abundance on the finely-formed head; the flat, broad brow; +the closed eye, with its long black lashes; the firm, manly +mouth; the strongly-moulded chin,—all, all were sealed +with that seal which is never to be broken till the great +resurrection day.</p> + +<p>He was lying in a full suit of broadcloth, with a white +vest and smart blue neck-tie, fastened with a pin, in which +was some braided hair under a crystal. All his clothing, +as well as his hair, was saturated with sea-water, which +trickled from time to time, and struck with a leaden and +dropping sound into a sullen pool which lay under the +table.</p> + +<p>This was the body of James Lincoln, ship-master of the +brig Flying Scud, who that morning had dressed himself +gayly in his state-room to go on shore and meet his wife,—singing +and jesting as he did so.</p> + +<p>This is all that you have to learn in the room below; +but as we stand there, we hear a trampling of feet in the +apartment above,—the quick yet careful opening and +shutting of doors,—and voices come and go about the +house, and whisper consultations on the stairs. Now comes +the roll of wheels, and the Doctor's gig drives up to the +door; and, as he goes creaking up with his heavy boots, +we will follow and gain admission to the dimly-lighted +chamber.</p> + +<p>Two gossips are sitting in earnest, whispering conversation +over a small bundle done up in an old flannel petticoat. +To them the doctor is about to address himself +cheerily, but is repelled by sundry signs and sounds which +warn him not to speak. Moderating his heavy boots as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> +well as he is able to a pace of quiet, he advances for a +moment, and the petticoat is unfolded for him to glance at +its contents; while a low, eager, whispered conversation, +attended with much head-shaking, warns him that his first +duty is with somebody behind the checked curtains of a +bed in the farther corner of the room. He steps on tiptoe, +and draws the curtain; and there, with closed eye, and +cheek as white as wintry snow, lies the same face over +which passed the shadow of death when that ill-fated ship +went down.</p> + +<p>This woman was wife to him who lies below, and within +the hour has been made mother to a frail little human +existence, which the storm of a great anguish has driven +untimely on the shores of life,—a precious pearl cast up +from the past eternity upon the wet, wave-ribbed sand of +the present. Now, weary with her moanings, and beaten +out with the wrench of a double anguish, she lies with +closed eyes in that passive apathy which precedes deeper +shadows and longer rest.</p> + +<p>Over against her, on the other side of the bed, sits an +aged woman in an attitude of deep dejection, and the old +man we saw with her in the morning is standing with an +anxious, awestruck face at the foot of the bed.</p> + +<p>The doctor feels the pulse of the woman, or rather lays +an inquiring finger where the slightest thread of vital current +is scarcely throbbing, and shakes his head mournfully. +The touch of his hand rouses her,—her large wild, melancholy +eyes fix themselves on him with an inquiring glance, +then she shivers and moans,—</p> + +<p>"Oh, Doctor, Doctor!—Jamie, Jamie!"</p> + +<p>"Come, come!" said the doctor, "cheer up, my girl, +you've got a fine little daughter,—the Lord mingles mercies +with his afflictions."</p> + +<p>Her eyes closed, her head moved with a mournful but +decided dissent.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span></p> + +<p>A moment after she spoke in the sad old words of the +Hebrew Scripture,—</p> + +<p>"Call her not Naomi; call her Mara, for the Almighty +hath dealt very bitterly with me."</p> + +<p>And as she spoke, there passed over her face the sharp +frost of the last winter; but even as it passed there broke +out a smile, as if a flower had been thrown down from +Paradise, and she said,—</p> + +<p>"Not my will, but thy will," and so was gone.</p> + +<p>Aunt Roxy and Aunt Ruey were soon left alone in the +chamber of death.</p> + +<p>"She'll make a beautiful corpse," said Aunt Roxy, surveying +the still, white form contemplatively, with her head +in an artistic attitude.</p> + +<p>"She was a pretty girl," said Aunt Ruey; "dear me, +what a Providence! I 'member the wedd'n down in that +lower room, and what a handsome couple they were."</p> + +<p>"They were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in +their deaths they were not divided," said Aunt Roxy, sententiously.</p> + +<p>"What was it she said, did ye hear?" said Aunt Ruey.</p> + +<p>"She called the baby 'Mary.'"</p> + +<p>"Ah! sure enough, her mother's name afore her. What +a still, softly-spoken thing she always was!"</p> + +<p>"A pity the poor baby didn't go with her," said Aunt +Roxy; "seven-months' children are so hard to raise."</p> + +<p>"'Tis a pity," said the other.</p> + +<p>But babies will live, and all the more when everybody +says that it is a pity they should. Life goes on as inexorably +in this world as death. It was ordered by <span class="smcap">the Will</span> +above that out of these two graves should spring one frail, +trembling autumn flower,—the "Mara" whose poor little +roots first struck deep in the salt, bitter waters of our +mortal life.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2> + +<h3>THE BAPTISM AND THE BURIAL</h3> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span>Now, I cannot think of anything more unlikely and +uninteresting to make a story of than that old brown "linter" +house of Captain Zephaniah Pennel, down on the +south end of Orr's Island.</p> + +<p>Zephaniah and Mary Pennel, like Zacharias and Elizabeth, +are a pair of worthy, God-fearing people, walking in +all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless; +but that is no great recommendation to a world gaping +for sensation and calling for something stimulating. +This worthy couple never read anything but the Bible, the +"Missionary Herald," and the "Christian Mirror,"—never +went anywhere except in the round of daily business. +He owned a fishing-smack, in which he labored after the +apostolic fashion; and she washed, and ironed, and scrubbed, +and brewed, and baked, in her contented round, week in +and out. The only recreation they ever enjoyed was the +going once a week, in good weather, to a prayer-meeting in +a little old brown school-house, about a mile from their +dwelling; and making a weekly excursion every Sunday, +in their fishing craft, to the church opposite, on Harpswell +Neck.</p> + +<p>To be sure, Zephaniah had read many wide leaves of +God's great book of Nature, for, like most Maine sea-captains, +he had been wherever ship can go,—to all usual +and unusual ports. His hard, shrewd, weather-beaten visage +had been seen looking over the railings of his brig in +the port of Genoa, swept round by its splendid crescent of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> +palaces and its snow-crested Apennines. It had looked out +in the Lagoons of Venice at that wavy floor which in evening +seems a sea of glass mingled with fire, and out of which +rise temples, and palaces, and churches, and distant silvery +Alps, like so many fabrics of dreamland. He had been +through the Skagerrack and Cattegat,—into the Baltic, +and away round to Archangel, and there chewed a bit of +chip, and considered and calculated what bargains it was +best to make. He had walked the streets of Calcutta in +his shirt-sleeves, with his best Sunday vest, backed with +black glazed cambric, which six months before came from +the hands of Miss Roxy, and was pronounced by her to be +as good as any tailor could make; and in all these places +he was just Zephaniah Pennel,—a chip of old Maine,—thrifty, +careful, shrewd, honest, God-fearing, and carrying +an instinctive knowledge of men and things under a face of +rustic simplicity.</p> + +<p>It was once, returning from one of his voyages, that he +found his wife with a black-eyed, curly-headed little creature, +who called him papa, and climbed on his knee, nestled +under his coat, rifled his pockets, and woke him every +morning by pulling open his eyes with little fingers, and +jabbering unintelligible dialects in his ears.</p> + +<p>"We will call this child Naomi, wife," he said, after +consulting his old Bible; "for that means pleasant, and +I'm sure I never see anything beat her for pleasantness. +I never knew as children was so engagin'!"</p> + +<p>It was to be remarked that Zephaniah after this made +shorter and shorter voyages, being somehow conscious of +a string around his heart which pulled him harder and +harder, till one Sunday, when the little Naomi was five +years old, he said to his wife,—</p> + +<p>"I hope I ain't a-pervertin' Scriptur' nor nuthin', but +I can't help thinkin' of one passage, 'The kingdom of +heaven is like a merchantman seeking goodly pearls, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> +when he hath found one pearl of great price, for joy thereof +he goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that +pearl.' Well, Mary, I've been and sold my brig last +week," he said, folding his daughter's little quiet head +under his coat, "'cause it seems to me the Lord's given us +this pearl of great price, and it's enough for us. I don't +want to be rambling round the world after riches. We'll +have a little farm down on Orr's Island, and I'll have a +little fishing-smack, and we'll live and be happy together."</p> + +<p>And so Mary, who in those days was a pretty young +married woman, felt herself rich and happy,—no duchess +richer or happier. The two contentedly delved and toiled, +and the little Naomi was their princess. The wise men of +the East at the feet of an infant, offering gifts, gold, frankincense, +and myrrh, is just a parable of what goes on in +every house where there is a young child. All the hard +and the harsh, and the common and the disagreeable, is for +the parents,—all the bright and beautiful for their child.</p> + +<p>When the fishing-smack went to Portland to sell mackerel, +there came home in Zephaniah's fishy coat pocket +strings of coral beads, tiny gaiter boots, brilliant silks and +ribbons for the little fairy princess,—his Pearl of the +Island; and sometimes, when a stray party from the neighboring +town of Brunswick came down to explore the romantic +scenery of the solitary island, they would be startled +by the apparition of this still, graceful, dark-eyed child +exquisitely dressed in the best and brightest that the shops +of a neighboring city could afford,—sitting like some tropical +bird on a lonely rock, where the sea came dashing up +into the edges of arbor vitæ, or tripping along the wet +sands for shells and seaweed.</p> + +<p>Many children would have been spoiled by such unlimited +indulgence; but there are natures sent down into this +harsh world so timorous, and sensitive, and helpless in +themselves, that the utmost stretch of indulgence and kind<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span>ness +is needed for their development,—like plants which +the warmest shelf of the green-house and the most careful +watch of the gardener alone can bring into flower. The +pale child, with her large, lustrous, dark eyes, and sensitive +organization, was nursed and brooded into a beautiful +womanhood, and then found a protector in a high-spirited, +manly young ship-master, and she became his wife.</p> + +<p>And now we see in the best room—the walls lined with +serious faces—men, women, and children, that have come +to pay the last tribute of sympathy to the living and the +dead. The house looked so utterly alone and solitary in +that wild, sea-girt island, that one would have as soon expected +the sea-waves to rise and walk in, as so many neighbors; +but they had come from neighboring points, crossing +the glassy sea in their little crafts, whose white sails looked +like millers' wings, or walking miles from distant parts of +the island.</p> + +<p>Some writer calls a funeral one of the amusements of +a New England population. Must we call it an amusement +to go and see the acted despair of Medea? or the dying +agonies of poor Adrienne Lecouvreur? It is something of +the same awful interest in life's tragedy, which makes an +untaught and primitive people gather to a funeral,—a +tragedy where there is no acting,—and one which each +one feels must come at some time to his own dwelling.</p> + +<p>Be that as it may, here was a roomful. Not only Aunt +Roxy and Aunt Ruey, who by a prescriptive right presided +over all the births, deaths, and marriages of the neighborhood, +but there was Captain Kittridge, a long, dry, weather-beaten +old sea-captain, who sat as if tied in a double bow-knot, +with his little fussy old wife, with a great Leghorn +bonnet, and eyes like black glass beads shining through +in the bows of her horn spectacles, and her hymn-book in +her hand ready to lead the psalm. There were aunts, +uncles, cousins, and brethren of the deceased; and in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> +midst stood two coffins, where the two united in death lay +sleeping tenderly, as those to whom rest is good. All was +still as death, except a chance whisper from some busy +neighbor, or a creak of an old lady's great black fan, or the +fizz of a fly down the window-pane, and then a stifled +sound of deep-drawn breath and weeping from under a +cloud of heavy black crape veils, that were together in the +group which country-people call the mourners.</p> + +<p>A gleam of autumn sunlight streamed through the white +curtains, and fell on a silver baptismal vase that stood on +the mother's coffin, as the minister rose and said, "The +ordinance of baptism will now be administered." A few +moments more, and on a baby brow had fallen a few drops +of water, and the little pilgrim of a new life had been +called Mara in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy +Ghost,—the minister slowly repeating thereafter those +beautiful words of Holy Writ, "A father of the fatherless +is God in his holy habitation,"—as if the baptism of that +bereaved one had been a solemn adoption into the infinite +heart of the Lord.</p> + +<p>With something of the quaint pathos which distinguishes +the primitive and Biblical people of that lonely shore, the +minister read the passage in Ruth from which the name of +the little stranger was drawn, and which describes the return +of the bereaved Naomi to her native land. His voice +trembled, and there were tears in many eyes as he read, +"And it came to pass as she came to Bethlehem, all the +city was moved about them; and they said, Is this Naomi? +And she said unto them, Call me not Naomi; call me +Mara; for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with +me. I went out full, and the Lord hath brought me home +again empty: why then call ye me Naomi, seeing the Lord +hath testified against me, and the Almighty hath afflicted +me?"</p> + +<p>Deep, heavy sobs from the mourners were for a few<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> +moments the only answer to these sad words, till the minister +raised the old funeral psalm of New England,—</p> + +<p style="margin-left:2em"> +"Why do we mourn departing friends,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Or shake at Death's alarms?</span><br /> +'Tis but the voice that Jesus sends<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To call them to his arms.</span><br /> +<br /> +"Are we not tending upward too,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">As fast as time can move?</span><br /> +And should we wish the hours more slow<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That bear us to our love?"</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The words rose in old "China,"—that strange, wild +warble, whose quaintly blended harmonies might have been +learned of moaning seas or wailing winds, so strange and +grand they rose, full of that intense pathos which rises +over every defect of execution; and as they sung, Zephaniah +Pennel straightened his tall form, before bowed on +his hands, and looked heavenward, his cheeks wet with +tears, but something sublime and immortal shining upward +through his blue eyes; and at the last verse he came forward +involuntarily, and stood by his dead, and his voice +rose over all the others as he sung,—</p> + +<p style="margin-left:2em"> +"Then let the last loud trumpet sound,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And bid the dead arise!</span><br /> +Awake, ye nations under ground!<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ye saints, ascend the skies!"</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The sunbeam through the window-curtain fell on his silver +hair, and they that looked beheld his face as it were the +face of an angel; he had gotten a sight of the city whose +foundation is jasper, and whose every gate is a separate +pearl.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2> + +<h3>AUNT ROXY AND AUNT RUEY</h3> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span>The sea lay like an unbroken mirror all around the pine-girt, +lonely shores of Orr's Island. Tall, kingly spruces +wore their regal crowns of cones high in air, sparkling with +diamonds of clear exuded gum; vast old hemlocks of primeval +growth stood darkling in their forest shadows, their +branches hung with long hoary moss; while feathery +larches, turned to brilliant gold by autumn frosts, lighted +up the darker shadows of the evergreens. It was one of +those hazy, calm, dissolving days of Indian summer, when +everything is so quiet that the faintest kiss of the wave on +the beach can be heard, and white clouds seem to faint into +the blue of the sky, and soft swathing bands of violet vapor +make all earth look dreamy, and give to the sharp, clear-cut +outlines of the northern landscape all those mysteries +of light and shade which impart such tenderness to Italian +scenery.</p> + +<p>The funeral was over; the tread of many feet, bearing +the heavy burden of two broken lives, had been to the +lonely graveyard, and had come back again,—each footstep +lighter and more unconstrained as each one went his +way from the great old tragedy of Death to the common +cheerful walks of Life.</p> + +<p>The solemn black clock stood swaying with its eternal +"tick-tock, tick-tock," in the kitchen of the brown house +on Orr's Island. There was there that sense of a stillness +that can be felt,—such as settles down on a dwelling +when any of its inmates have passed through its doors for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> +the last time, to go whence they shall not return. The +best room was shut up and darkened, with only so much +light as could fall through a little heart-shaped hole in the +window-shutter,—for except on solemn visits, or prayer +meetings, or weddings, or funerals, that room formed no +part of the daily family scenery.</p> + +<p>The kitchen was clean and ample, with a great open fireplace +and wide stone hearth, and oven on one side, and +rows of old-fashioned splint-bottomed chairs against the +wall. A table scoured to snowy whiteness, and a little +work-stand whereon lay the Bible, the "Missionary Herald" +and the "Weekly Christian Mirror," before named, formed +the principal furniture. One feature, however, must not +be forgotten,—a great sea-chest, which had been the companion +of Zephaniah through all the countries of the earth. +Old, and battered, and unsightly it looked, yet report said +that there was good store within of that which men for the +most part respect more than anything else; and, indeed, it +proved often when a deed of grace was to be done,—when +a woman was suddenly made a widow in a coast gale, or +a fishing-smack was run down in the fogs off the banks, +leaving in some neighboring cottage a family of orphans,—in +all such cases, the opening of this sea-chest was an +event of good omen to the bereaved; for Zephaniah had +a large heart and a large hand, and was apt to take it out +full of silver dollars when once it went in. So the ark of +the covenant could not have been looked on with more +reverence than the neighbors usually showed to Captain +Pennel's sea-chest.</p> + +<p>The afternoon sun is shining in a square of light through +the open kitchen-door, whence one dreamily disposed might +look far out to sea, and behold ships coming and going in +every variety of shape and size.</p> + +<p>But Aunt Roxy and Aunt Ruey, who for the present +were sole occupants of the premises, were not people of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> +dreamy kind, and consequently were not gazing off to sea, +but attending to very terrestrial matters that in all cases +somebody must attend to. The afternoon was warm and +balmy, but a few smouldering sticks were kept in the great +chimney, and thrust deep into the embers was a mongrel +species of snub-nosed tea-pot, which fumed strongly of catnip-tea, +a little of which gracious beverage Miss Roxy was +preparing in an old-fashioned cracked India china tea-cup, +tasting it as she did so with the air of a connoisseur.</p> + +<p>Apparently this was for the benefit of a small something +in long white clothes, that lay face downward under a little +blanket of very blue new flannel, and which something +Aunt Roxy, when not otherwise engaged, constantly patted +with a gentle tattoo, in tune to the steady trot of her knee. +All babies knew Miss Roxy's tattoo on their backs, and +never thought of taking it in ill part. On the contrary, it +had a vital and mesmeric effect of sovereign force against +colic, and all other disturbers of the nursery; and never +was infant known so pressed with those internal troubles +which infants cry about, as not speedily to give over and +sink to slumber at this soothing appliance.</p> + +<p>At a little distance sat Aunt Ruey, with a quantity of +black crape strewed on two chairs about her, very busily +employed in getting up a mourning-bonnet, at which she +snipped, and clipped, and worked, zealously singing, in a +high cracked voice, from time to time, certain verses of a +funeral psalm.</p> + +<p>Miss Roxy and Miss Ruey Toothacre were two brisk old +bodies of the feminine gender and singular number, well +known in all the region of Harpswell Neck and Middle +Bay, and such was their fame that it had even reached the +town of Brunswick, eighteen miles away.</p> + +<p>They were of that class of females who might be denominated, +in the Old Testament language, "cunning women,"—that +is, gifted with an infinite diversity of practical<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> +"faculty," which made them an essential requisite in every +family for miles and miles around. It was impossible to +say what they could not do: they could make dresses, and +make shirts and vests and pantaloons, and cut out boys' +jackets, and braid straw, and bleach and trim bonnets, and +cook and wash, and iron and mend, could upholster and +quilt, could nurse all kinds of sicknesses, and in default of +a doctor, who was often miles away, were supposed to be +infallible medical oracles. Many a human being had been +ushered into life under their auspices,—trotted, chirruped +in babyhood on their knees, clothed by their handiwork in +garments gradually enlarging from year to year, watched by +them in the last sickness, and finally arrayed for the long +repose by their hands.</p> + +<p>These universally useful persons receive among us the +title of "aunt" by a sort of general consent, showing the +strong ties of relationship which bind them to the whole +human family. They are nobody's aunts in particular, but +aunts to human nature generally. The idea of restricting +their usefulness to any one family, would strike dismay +through a whole community. Nobody would be so unprincipled +as to think of such a thing as having their services +more than a week or two at most. Your country factotum +knows better than anybody else how absurd it would be</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"To give to a part what was meant for mankind."</p></div> + +<p>Nobody knew very well the ages of these useful sisters. +In that cold, clear, severe climate of the North, the roots of +human existence are hard to strike; but, if once people do +take to living, they come in time to a place where they +seem never to grow any older, but can always be found, +like last year's mullein stalks, upright, dry, and seedy, +warranted to last for any length of time.</p> + +<p>Miss Roxy Toothacre, who sits trotting the baby, is a +tall, thin, angular woman, with sharp black eyes, and hair<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> +once black, but now well streaked with gray. These ravages +of time, however, were concealed by an ample mohair +frisette of glossy blackness woven on each side into a heap +of stiff little curls, which pushed up her cap border in +rather a bristling and decisive way. In all her movements +and personal habits, even to her tone of voice and manner +of speaking, Miss Roxy was vigorous, spicy, and decided. +Her mind on all subjects was made up, and she spoke generally +as one having authority; and who should, if she +should not? Was she not a sort of priestess and sibyl in +all the most awful straits and mysteries of life? How +many births, and weddings, and deaths had come and gone +under her jurisdiction! And amid weeping or rejoicing, +was not Miss Roxy still the master-spirit,—consulted, +referred to by all?—was not her word law and precedent? +Her younger sister, Miss Ruey, a pliant, cozy, easy-to-be-entreated +personage, plump and cushiony, revolved around +her as a humble satellite. Miss Roxy looked on Miss Ruey +as quite a frisky young thing, though under her ample +frisette of carroty hair her head might be seen white with +the same snow that had powdered that of her sister. Aunt +Ruey had a face much resembling the kind of one you may +see, reader, by looking at yourself in the convex side of a +silver milk-pitcher. If you try the experiment, this description +will need no further amplification.</p> + +<p>The two almost always went together, for the variety +of talent comprised in their stock could always find employment +in the varying wants of a family. While one +nursed the sick, the other made clothes for the well; and +thus they were always chippering and chatting to each +other, like a pair of antiquated house-sparrows, retailing +over harmless gossips, and moralizing in that gentle jogtrot +which befits serious old women. In fact, they had +talked over everything in Nature, and said everything they +could think of to each other so often, that the opinions of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> +one were as like those of the other as two sides of a pea-pod. +But as often happens in cases of the sort, this was +not because the two were in all respects exactly alike, but +because the stronger one had mesmerized the weaker into +consent.</p> + +<p>Miss Roxy was the master-spirit of the two, and, like +the great coining machine of a mint, came down with her +own sharp, heavy stamp on every opinion her sister put +out. She was matter-of-fact, positive, and declarative to +the highest degree, while her sister was naturally inclined +to the elegiac and the pathetic, indulging herself in sentimental +poetry, and keeping a store thereof in her thread-case, +which she had cut from the "Christian Mirror." Miss +Roxy sometimes, in her brusque way, popped out observations +on life and things, with a droll, hard quaintness that +took one's breath a little, yet never failed to have a sharp +crystallization of truth,—frosty though it were. She was +one of those sensible, practical creatures who tear every +veil, and lay their fingers on every spot in pure business-like +good-will; and if we shiver at them at times, as at +the first plunge of a cold bath, we confess to an invigorating +power in them after all.</p> + +<p>"Well, now," said Miss Roxy, giving a decisive push to +the tea-pot, which buried it yet deeper in the embers, +"ain't it all a strange kind o' providence that this 'ere little +thing is left behind so; and then their callin' on her +by such a strange, mournful kind of name,—Mara. I +thought sure as could be 'twas Mary, till the minister read +the passage from Scriptur'. Seems to me it's kind o' odd. +I'd call it Maria, or I'd put an Ann on to it. Mara-ann, +now, wouldn't sound so strange."</p> + +<p>"It's a Scriptur' name, sister," said Aunt Ruey, "and +that ought to be enough for us."</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't know," said Aunt Roxy. "Now there +was Miss Jones down on Mure P'int called her twins Tig<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span>lath-Pileser +and Shalmaneser,—Scriptur' names both, but +I never liked 'em. The boys used to call 'em, Tiggy and +Shally, so no mortal could guess they was Scriptur'."</p> + +<p>"Well," said Aunt Ruey, drawing a sigh which caused +her plump proportions to be agitated in gentle waves, +"'tain't much matter, after all, <i>what</i> they call the little +thing, for 'tain't 'tall likely it's goin' to live,—cried +and worried all night, and kep' a-suckin' my cheek and +my night-gown, poor little thing! This 'ere's a baby that +won't get along without its mother. What Mis' Pennel's +a-goin' to do with it when we is gone, I'm sure I don't +know. It comes kind o' hard on old people to be broke +o' their rest. If it's goin' to be called home, it's a pity, +as I said, it didn't go with its mother"—</p> + +<p>"And save the expense of another funeral," said Aunt +Roxy. "Now when Mis' Pennel's sister asked her what +she was going to do with Naomi's clothes, I couldn't help +wonderin' when she said she should keep 'em for the +child."</p> + +<p>"She had a sight of things, Naomi did," said Aunt +Ruey. "Nothin' was never too much for her. I don't +believe that Cap'n Pennel ever went to Bath or Portland +without havin' it in his mind to bring Naomi somethin'."</p> + +<p>"Yes, and she had a faculty of puttin' of 'em on," said +Miss Roxy, with a decisive shake of the head. "Naomi +was a still girl, but her faculty was uncommon; and I tell +you, Ruey, 'tain't everybody hes faculty as hes things."</p> + +<p>"The poor Cap'n," said Miss Ruey, "he seemed greatly +supported at the funeral, but he's dreadful broke down +since. I went into Naomi's room this morning, and there +the old man was a-sittin' by her bed, and he had a pair of +her shoes in his hand,—you know what a leetle bit of a +foot she had. I never saw nothin' look so kind o' solitary +as that poor old man did!"</p> + +<p>"Well," said Miss Roxy, "she was a master-hand for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> +keepin' things, Naomi was; her drawers is just a sight; +she's got all the little presents and things they ever give +her since she was a baby, in one drawer. There's a little +pair of red shoes there that she had when she wa'n't more'n +five year old. You 'member, Ruey, the Cap'n brought 'em +over from Portland when we was to the house a-makin' +Mis' Pennel's figured black silk that he brought from Calcutty. +You 'member they cost just five and sixpence; +but, law! the Cap'n he never grudged the money when +'twas for Naomi. And so she's got all her husband's +keepsakes and things just as nice as when he give 'em to +her."</p> + +<p>"It's real affectin'," said Miss Ruey, "I can't all the +while help a-thinkin' of the Psalm,—</p> + +<p style="margin-left:2em"> +"'So fades the lovely blooming flower,—<br /> +Frail, smiling solace of an hour;<br /> +So quick our transient comforts fly,<br /> +And pleasure only blooms to die.'"<br /> +</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Miss Roxy; "and, Ruey, I was a-thinkin' +whether or no it wa'n't best to pack away them things, +'cause Naomi hadn't fixed no baby drawers, and we seem +to want some."</p> + +<p>"I was kind o' hintin' that to Mis' Pennel this morning," +said Ruey, "but she can't seem to want to have 'em +touched."</p> + +<p>"Well, we may just as well come to such things first as +last," said Aunt Roxy; "'cause if the Lord takes our +friends, he does take 'em; and we can't lose 'em and have +'em too, and we may as well give right up at first, and +done with it, that they are gone, and we've got to do without +'em, and not to be hangin' on to keep things just as +they was."</p> + +<p>"So I was a-tellin' Mis' Pennel," said Miss Ruey, "but +she'll come to it by and by. I wish the baby might live, +and kind o' grow up into her mother's place."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Well," said Miss Roxy, "I wish it might, but there'd +be a sight o' trouble fetchin' on it up. Folks can do pretty +well with children when they're young and spry, if they +do get 'em up nights; but come to grandchildren, it's +pretty tough."</p> + +<p>"I'm a-thinkin', sister," said Miss Ruey, taking off her +spectacles and rubbing her nose thoughtfully, "whether or +no cow's milk ain't goin' to be too hearty for it, it's such +a pindlin' little thing. Now, Mis' Badger she brought up +a seven-months' child, and she told me she gave it nothin' +but these 'ere little seed cookies, wet in water, and it +throve nicely,—and the seed is good for wind."</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't tell me none of Mis' Badger's stories," said +Miss Roxy, "I don't believe in 'em. Cows is the Lord's +ordinances for bringing up babies that's lost their mothers; +it stands to reason they should be,—and babies that can't +eat milk, why they can't be fetched up; but babies can eat +milk, and this un will if it lives, and if it can't it won't +live." So saying, Miss Roxy drummed away on the little +back of the party in question, authoritatively, as if to +pound in a wholesome conviction at the outset.</p> + +<p>"I hope," said Miss Ruey, holding up a strip of black +crape, and looking through it from end to end so as to test +its capabilities, "I hope the Cap'n and Mis' Pennel'll get +some support at the prayer-meetin' this afternoon."</p> + +<p>"It's the right place to go to," said Miss Roxy, with +decision.</p> + +<p>"Mis' Pennel said this mornin' that she was just beat +out tryin' to submit; and the more she said, 'Thy will be +done,' the more she didn't seem to feel it."</p> + +<p>"Them's common feelin's among mourners, Ruey. +These 'ere forty years that I've been round nussin', and +layin'-out, and tendin' funerals, I've watched people's exercises. +People's sometimes supported wonderfully just at +the time, and maybe at the funeral; but the three or four<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> +weeks after, most everybody, if they's to say what they +feel, is unreconciled."</p> + +<p>"The Cap'n, he don't say nothin'," said Miss Ruey.</p> + +<p>"No, he don't, but he looks it in his eyes," said Miss +Roxy; "he's one of the kind o' mourners as takes it deep; +that kind don't cry; it's a kind o' dry, deep pain; them's +the worst to get over it,—sometimes they just says nothin', +and in about six months they send for you to nuss +'em in consumption or somethin'. Now, Mis' Pennel, she +can cry and she can talk,—well, she'll get over it; but +<i>he</i> won't get no support unless the Lord reaches right +down and lifts him up over the world. I've seen that +happen sometimes, and I tell you, Ruey, that sort makes +powerful Christians."</p> + +<p>At that moment the old pair entered the door. Zephaniah +Pennel came and stood quietly by the pillow where +the little form was laid, and lifted a corner of the blanket. +The tiny head was turned to one side, showing the soft, +warm cheek, and the little hand was holding tightly a morsel +of the flannel blanket. He stood swallowing hard for +a few moments. At last he said, with deep humility, to +the wise and mighty woman who held her, "I'll tell you +what it is, Miss Roxy, I'll give all there is in my old chest +yonder if you'll only make her—live."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2> + +<h3>THE KITTRIDGES</h3> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span>It did live. The little life, so frail, so unprofitable in +every mere material view, so precious in the eyes of love, +expanded and flowered at last into fair childhood. Not +without much watching and weariness. Many a night the +old fisherman walked the floor with the little thing in his +arms, talking to it that jargon of tender nonsense which +fairies bring as love-gifts to all who tend a cradle. Many +a day the good little old grandmother called the aid of gossips +about her, trying various experiments of catnip, and +sweet fern, and bayberry, and other teas of rustic reputation +for baby frailties.</p> + +<p>At the end of three years, the two graves in the lonely +graveyard were sodded and cemented down by smooth velvet +turf, and playing round the door of the brown houses +was a slender child, with ways and manners so still and +singular as often to remind the neighbors that she was not +like other children,—a bud of hope and joy,—but the +outcome of a great sorrow,—a pearl washed ashore by a +mighty, uprooting tempest. They that looked at her remembered +that her father's eye had never beheld her, and +her baptismal cup had rested on her mother's coffin.</p> + +<p>She was small of stature, beyond the wont of children of +her age, and moulded with a fine waxen delicacy that won +admiration from all eyes. Her hair was curly and golden, +but her eyes were dark like her mother's, and the lids +drooped over them in that manner which gives a peculiar +expression of dreamy wistfulness. Every one of us must<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> +remember eyes that have a strange, peculiar expression of +pathos and desire, as if the spirit that looked out of them +were pressed with vague remembrances of a past, or but +dimly comprehended the mystery of its present life. Even +when the baby lay in its cradle, and its dark, inquiring +eyes would follow now one object and now another, the +gossips would say the child was longing for something, and +Miss Roxy would still further venture to predict that that +child always would long and never would know exactly +what she was after.</p> + +<p>That dignitary sits at this minute enthroned in the +kitchen corner, looking majestically over the press-board +on her knee, where she is pressing the next year's Sunday +vest of Zephaniah Pennel. As she makes her heavy tailor's +goose squeak on the work, her eyes follow the little delicate +fairy form which trips about the kitchen, busily and +silently arranging a little grotto of gold and silver shells +and seaweed. The child sings to herself as she works in +a low chant, like the prattle of a brook, but ever and anon +she rests her little arms on a chair and looks through the +open kitchen-door far, far off where the horizon line of the +blue sea dissolves in the blue sky.</p> + +<p>"See that child now, Roxy," said Miss Ruey, who sat +stitching beside her; "do look at her eyes. She's as handsome +as a pictur', but 't ain't an ordinary look she has +neither; she seems a contented little thing; but what +makes her eyes always look so kind o' wishful?"</p> + +<p>"Wa'n't her mother always a-longin' and a-lookin' to +sea, and watchin' the ships, afore she was born?" said +Miss Roxy; "and didn't her heart break afore she was +born? Babies like that is marked always. They don't +know what ails 'em, nor nobody."</p> + +<p>"It's her mother she's after," said Miss Ruey.</p> + +<p>"The Lord only knows," said Miss Roxy; "but them +kind o' children always seem homesick to go back where<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> +they come from. They're mostly grave and old-fashioned +like this 'un. If they gets past seven years, why they +live; but it's always in 'em to long; they don't seem to be +really unhappy neither, but if anything's ever the matter +with 'em, it seems a great deal easier for 'em to die than +to live. Some say it's the mothers longin' after 'em makes +'em feel so, and some say it's them longin' after their +mothers; but dear knows, Ruey, what anything is or what +makes anything. Children's mysterious, that's my mind."</p> + +<p>"Mara, dear," said Miss Ruey, interrupting the child's +steady lookout, "what you thinking of?"</p> + +<p>"Me want somefin'," said the little one.</p> + +<p>"That's what she's always sayin'," said Miss Roxy.</p> + +<p>"Me want somebody to pay wis'," continued the little +one.</p> + +<p>"Want somebody to play with," said old Dame Pennel, +as she came in from the back-room with her hands yet +floury with kneading bread; "sure enough, she does. Our +house stands in such a lonesome place, and there ain't any +children. But I never saw such a quiet little thing—always +still and always busy."</p> + +<p>"I'll take her down with me to Cap'n Kittridge's," +said Miss Roxy, "and let her play with their little girl; +she'll chirk her up, I'll warrant. She's a regular little +witch, Sally is, but she'll chirk her up. It ain't good for +children to be so still and old-fashioned; children ought to +be children. Sally takes to Mara just 'cause she's so different."</p> + +<p>"Well, now, you may," said Dame Pennel; "to be sure +<i>he</i> can't bear her out of his sight a minute after he comes +in; but after all, old folks can't be company for children."</p> + +<p>Accordingly, that afternoon, the little Mara was arrayed +in a little blue flounced dress, which stood out like a balloon, +made by Miss Roxy in first-rate style, from a French +fashion-plate; her golden hair was twined in manifold curls<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> +by Dame Pennel, who, restricted in her ideas of ornamentation, +spared, nevertheless, neither time nor money to +enhance the charms of this single ornament to her dwelling. +Mara was her picture-gallery, who gave her in the twenty-four +hours as many Murillos or Greuzes as a lover of art +could desire; and as she tied over the child's golden curls +a little flat hat, and saw her go dancing off along the sea-sands, +holding to Miss Roxy's bony finger, she felt she had +in her what galleries of pictures could not buy.</p> + +<p>It was a good mile to the one story, gambrel-roofed +cottage where lived Captain Kittridge,—the long, lean, +brown man, with his good wife of the great Leghorn bonnet, +round, black bead eyes, and psalm-book, whom we +told you of at the funeral. The Captain, too, had followed +the sea in his early life, but being not, as he expressed it, +"very rugged," in time changed his ship for a tight little +cottage on the seashore, and devoted himself to boat-building, +which he found sufficiently lucrative to furnish his +brown cottage with all that his wife's heart desired, besides +extra money for knick-knacks when she chose to go +up to Brunswick or over to Portland to shop.</p> + +<p>The Captain himself was a welcome guest at all the firesides +round, being a chatty body, and disposed to make the +most of his foreign experiences, in which he took the usual +advantages of a traveler. In fact, it was said, whether +slanderously or not, that the Captain's yarns were spun to +order; and as, when pressed to relate his foreign adventures, +he always responded with, "What would you like +to hear?" it was thought that he fabricated his article to +suit his market. In short, there was no species of experience, +finny, fishy, or aquatic,—no legend of strange and +unaccountable incident of fire or flood,—no romance of +foreign scenery and productions, to which his tongue was +not competent, when he had once seated himself in a double +bow-knot at a neighbor's evening fireside.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span></p> + +<p>His good wife, a sharp-eyed, literal body, and a vigorous +church-member, felt some concern of conscience on the +score of these narrations; for, being their constant auditor, +she, better than any one else, could perceive the variations +and discrepancies of text which showed their mythical +character, and oftentimes her black eyes would snap and +her knitting-needles rattle with an admonitory vigor as he +went on, and sometimes she would unmercifully come in +at the end of a narrative with,—</p> + +<p>"Well, now, the Cap'n's told them ar stories till he +begins to b'lieve 'em himself, I think."</p> + +<p>But works of fiction, as we all know, if only well gotten +up, have always their advantages in the hearts of listeners +over plain, homely truth; and so Captain Kittridge's yarns +were marketable fireside commodities still, despite the skepticisms +which attended them.</p> + +<p>The afternoon sunbeams at this moment are painting the +gambrel-roof with a golden brown. It is September again, +as it was three years ago when our story commenced, and +the sea and sky are purple and amethystine with its Italian +haziness of atmosphere.</p> + +<p>The brown house stands on a little knoll, about a hundred +yards from the open ocean. Behind it rises a ledge +of rocks, where cedars and hemlocks make deep shadows +into which the sun shoots golden shafts of light, illuminating +the scarlet feathers of the sumach, which throw themselves +jauntily forth from the crevices; while down below, +in deep, damp, mossy recesses, rise ferns which autumn +has just begun to tinge with yellow and brown. The little +knoll where the cottage stood had on its right hand a +tiny bay, where the ocean water made up amid picturesque +rocks—shaggy and solemn. Here trees of the primeval +forest, grand and lordly, looked down silently into the +waters which ebbed and flowed daily into this little pool. +Every variety of those beautiful evergreens which feather<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> +the coast of Maine, and dip their wings in the very spray +of its ocean foam, found here a representative. There were +aspiring black spruces, crowned on the very top with heavy +coronets of cones; there were balsamic firs, whose young +buds breathe the scent of strawberries; there were cedars, +black as midnight clouds, and white pines with their swaying +plumage of needle-like leaves, strewing the ground beneath +with a golden, fragrant matting; and there were the +gigantic, wide-winged hemlocks, hundreds of years old, +and with long, swaying, gray beards of moss, looking white +and ghostly under the deep shadows of their boughs. And +beneath, creeping round trunk and matting over stones, +were many and many of those wild, beautiful things which +embellish the shadows of these northern forests. Long, +feathery wreaths of what are called ground-pines ran here +and there in little ruffles of green, and the prince's pine +raised its oriental feather, with a mimic cone on the top, as +if it conceived itself to be a grown-up tree. Whole patches +of partridge-berry wove their evergreen matting, dotted +plentifully with brilliant scarlet berries. Here and there, +the rocks were covered with a curiously inwoven tapestry +of moss, overshot with the exquisite vine of the Linnea +borealis, which in early spring rings its two fairy bells on +the end of every spray; while elsewhere the wrinkled +leaves of the mayflower wove themselves through and +through deep beds of moss, meditating silently thoughts of +the thousand little cups of pink shell which they had it in +hand to make when the time of miracles should come round +next spring.</p> + +<p>Nothing, in short, could be more quaintly fresh, wild, +and beautiful than the surroundings of this little cove +which Captain Kittridge had thought fit to dedicate to his +boat-building operations,—where he had set up his tar-kettle +between two great rocks above the highest tide-mark, +and where, at the present moment, he had a boat upon the +stocks.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span></p> + +<p>Mrs. Kittridge, at this hour, was sitting in her clean +kitchen, very busily engaged in ripping up a silk dress, +which Miss Roxy had engaged to come and make into a +new one; and, as she ripped, she cast now and then an eye +at the face of a tall, black clock, whose solemn tick-tock +was the only sound that could be heard in the kitchen.</p> + +<p>By her side, on a low stool, sat a vigorous, healthy girl +of six years, whose employment evidently did not please +her, for her well-marked black eyebrows were bent in a +frown, and her large black eyes looked surly and wrathful, +and one versed in children's grievances could easily see +what the matter was,—she was turning a sheet! Perhaps, +happy young female reader, you don't know what +that is,—most likely not; for in these degenerate days +the strait and narrow ways of self-denial, formerly thought +so wholesome for little feet, are quite grass-grown with +neglect. Childhood nowadays is unceasingly fêted and caressed, +the principal difficulty of the grown people seeming +to be to discover what the little dears want,—a thing not +always clear to the little dears themselves. But in old +times, turning sheets was thought a most especial and +wholesome discipline for young girls; in the first place, +because it took off the hands of their betters a very uninteresting +and monotonous labor; and in the second place, +because it was such a long, straight, unending turnpike, +that the youthful travelers, once started thereupon, could +go on indefinitely, without requiring guidance and direction +of their elders. For these reasons, also, the task was +held in special detestation by children in direct proportion +to their amount of life, and their ingenuity and love of +variety. A dull child took it tolerably well; but to a +lively, energetic one, it was a perfect torture.</p> + +<p>"I don't see the use of sewing up sheets one side, and +ripping up the other," at last said Sally, breaking the monotonous +tick-tock of the clock by an observation which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> +has probably occurred to every child in similar circumstances.</p> + +<p>"Sally Kittridge, if you say another word about that ar +sheet, I'll whip you," was the very explicit rejoinder; +and there was a snap of Mrs. Kittridge's black eyes, that +seemed to make it likely that she would keep her word. +It was answered by another snap from the six-year-old eyes, +as Sally comforted herself with thinking that when she was +a woman she'd speak her mind out in pay for all this.</p> + +<p>At this moment a burst of silvery child-laughter rang +out, and there appeared in the doorway, illuminated by +the afternoon sunbeams, the vision of Miss Roxy's tall, +lank figure, with the little golden-haired, blue-robed fairy, +hanging like a gay butterfly upon the tip of a thorn-bush. +Sally dropped the sheet and clapped her hands, unnoticed +by her mother, who rose to pay her respects to the "cunning +woman" of the neighborhood.</p> + +<p>"Well, now, Miss Roxy, I was 'mazin' afraid you +wer'n't a-comin'. I'd just been an' got my silk ripped +up, and didn't know how to get a step farther without +you."</p> + +<p>"Well, I was finishin' up Cap'n Pennel's best pantaloons," +said Miss Roxy; "and I've got 'em along so, Ruey +can go on with 'em; and I told Mis' Pennel I must come +to you, if 'twas only for a day; and I fetched the little +girl down, 'cause the little thing's so kind o' lonesome +like. I thought Sally could play with her, and chirk her +up a little."</p> + +<p>"Well, Sally," said Mrs. Kittridge, "stick in your +needle, fold up your sheet, put your thimble in your work-pocket, +and then you may take the little Mara down to the +cove to play; but be sure you don't let her go near the tar, +nor wet her shoes. D'ye hear?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, ma'am," said Sally, who had sprung up in light +and radiance, like a translated creature, at this unexpected<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> +turn of fortune, and performed the welcome orders with a +celerity which showed how agreeable they were; and then, +stooping and catching the little one in her arms, disappeared +through the door, with the golden curls fluttering +over her own crow-black hair.</p> + +<p>The fact was, that Sally, at that moment, was as happy +as human creature could be, with a keenness of happiness +that children who have never been made to turn sheets of +a bright afternoon can never realize. The sun was yet an +hour high, as she saw, by the flash of her shrewd, time-keeping +eye, and she could bear her little prize down to +the cove, and collect unknown quantities of gold and silver +shells, and starfish, and salad-dish shells, and white pebbles +for her, besides quantities of well turned shavings, +brown and white, from the pile which constantly was falling +under her father's joiner's bench, and with which she +would make long extemporaneous tresses, so that they +might play at being mermaids, like those that she had +heard her father tell about in some of his sea-stories.</p> + +<p>"Now, railly, Sally, what you got there?" said Captain +Kittridge, as he stood in his shirt-sleeves peering over his +joiner's bench, to watch the little one whom Sally had +dumped down into a nest of clean white shavings. "Wal', +wal', I should think you'd a-stolen the big doll I see in a +shop-window the last time I was to Portland. So this is +Pennel's little girl?—poor child!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, father, and we want some nice shavings."</p> + +<p>"Stay a bit, I'll make ye a few a-purpose," said the old +man, reaching his long, bony arm, with the greatest ease, +to the farther part of his bench, and bringing up a board, +from which he proceeded to roll off shavings in fine satin +rings, which perfectly delighted the hearts of the children, +and made them dance with glee; and, truth to say, reader, +there are coarser and homelier things in the world than a +well turned shaving.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span></p> + +<p>"There, go now," he said, when both of them stood +with both hands full; "go now and play; and mind you +don't let the baby wet her feet, Sally; them shoes o' hern +must have cost five-and-sixpence at the very least."</p> + +<p>That sunny hour before sundown seemed as long to Sally +as the whole seam of the sheet; for childhood's joys are +all pure gold; and as she ran up and down the white +sands, shouting at every shell she found, or darted up into +the overhanging forest for checkerberries and ground-pine, +all the sorrows of the morning came no more into her +remembrance.</p> + +<p>The little Mara had one of those sensitive, excitable +natures, on which every external influence acts with immediate +power. Stimulated by the society of her energetic, +buoyant little neighbor, she no longer seemed wishful or +pensive, but kindled into a perfect flame of wild delight, +and gamboled about the shore like a blue and gold-winged +fly; while her bursts of laughter made the squirrels and +blue jays look out inquisitively from their fastnesses in the +old evergreens. Gradually the sunbeams faded from the +pines, and the waves of the tide in the little cove came +in, solemnly tinted with purple, flaked with orange and +crimson, borne in from a great rippling sea of fire, into +which the sun had just sunk.</p> + +<p>"Mercy on us—them children!" said Miss Roxy.</p> + +<p>"<i>He's</i> bringin' 'em along," said Mrs. Kittridge, as she +looked out of the window and saw the tall, lank form of +the Captain, with one child seated on either shoulder, and +holding on by his head.</p> + +<p>The two children were both in the highest state of excitement, +but never was there a more marked contrast of +nature. The one seemed a perfect type of well-developed +childish health and vigor, good solid flesh and bones, with +glowing skin, brilliant eyes, shining teeth, well-knit, supple +limbs,—vigorously and healthily beautiful; while the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> +other appeared one of those aerial mixtures of cloud and fire, +whose radiance seems scarcely earthly. A physiologist, +looking at the child, would shake his head, seeing one of +those perilous organizations, all nerve and brain, which +come to life under the clear, stimulating skies of America, +and, burning with the intensity of lighted phosphorus, +waste themselves too early.</p> + +<p>The little Mara seemed like a fairy sprite, possessed +with a wild spirit of glee. She laughed and clapped her +hands incessantly, and when set down on the kitchen-floor +spun round like a little elf; and that night it was late and +long before her wide, wakeful eyes could be veiled in +sleep.</p> + +<p>"Company jist sets this 'ere child crazy," said Miss +Roxy; "it's jist her lonely way of livin'; a pity Mis' +Pennel hadn't another child to keep company along with +her."</p> + +<p>"Mis' Pennel oughter be trainin' of her up to work," +said Mrs. Kittridge. "Sally could oversew and hem when +she wa'n't more'n three years old; nothin' straightens out +children like work. Mis' Pennel she just keeps that ar +child to look at."</p> + +<p>"All children ain't alike, Mis' Kittridge," said Miss +Roxy, sententiously. "This 'un ain't like your Sally. +'A hen and a bumble-bee can't be fetched up alike, fix it +how you will!'"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2> + +<h3>GRANDPARENTS</h3> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span>Zephaniah Pennel came back to his house in the +evening, after Miss Roxy had taken the little Mara away. +He looked for the flowery face and golden hair as he came +towards the door, and put his hand in his vest-pocket, +where he had deposited a small store of very choice shells +and sea curiosities, thinking of the widening of those dark, +soft eyes when he should present them.</p> + +<p>"Where's Mara?" was the first inquiry after he had +crossed the threshold.</p> + +<p>"Why, Roxy's been an' taken her down to Cap'n Kittridge's +to spend the night," said Miss Ruey. "Roxy's +gone to help Mis' Kittridge to turn her spotted gray and +black silk. We was talking this mornin' whether 'no +'t would turn, 'cause <i>I</i> thought the spot was overshot, and +wouldn't make up on the wrong side; but Roxy she says +it's one of them ar Calcutty silks that has two sides to +'em, like the one you bought Miss Pennel, that we made +up for her, you know;" and Miss Ruey arose and gave a +finishing snap to the Sunday pantaloons, which she had +been left to "finish off,"—which snap said, as plainly as +words could say that there was a good job disposed of.</p> + +<p>Zephaniah stood looking as helpless as animals of the +male kind generally do when appealed to with such prolixity +on feminine details; in reply to it all, only he asked +meekly,—</p> + +<p>"Where's Mary?"</p> + +<p>"Mis' Pennel? Why, she's up chamber. She'll be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> +down in a minute, she said; she thought she'd have time +afore supper to get to the bottom of the big chist, and see +if that 'ere vest pattern ain't there, and them sticks o' +twist for the button-holes, 'cause Roxy she says she never +see nothin' so rotten as that 'ere twist we've been a-workin' +with, that Mis' Pennel got over to Portland; it's a clear +cheat, and Mis' Pennel she give more'n half a cent a stick +more for 't than what Roxy got for her up to Brunswick; +so you see these 'ere Portland stores charge up, and their +things want lookin' after."</p> + +<p>Here Mrs. Pennel entered the room, "the Captain" addressing +her eagerly,—</p> + +<p>"How came you to let Aunt Roxy take Mara off so far, +and be gone so long?"</p> + +<p>"Why, law me, Captain Pennel! the little thing seems +kind o' lonesome. Chil'en want chil'en; Miss Roxy says +she's altogether too sort o' still and old-fashioned, and +must have child's company to chirk her up, and so she +took her down to play with Sally Kittridge; there's no +manner of danger or harm in it, and she'll be back to-morrow +afternoon, and Mara will have a real good time."</p> + +<p>"Wal', now, really," said the good man, "but it's +'mazin' lonesome."</p> + +<p>"Cap'n Pennel, you're gettin' to make an idol of that +'ere child," said Miss Ruey. "We have to watch our +hearts. It minds me of the hymn,—</p> + +<p style="margin-left:2em"> +"'The fondness of a creature's love,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">How strong it strikes the sense,—</span><br /> +Thither the warm affections move,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nor can we call them hence.'"</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Miss Ruey's mode of getting off poetry, in a sort of high-pitched +canter, with a strong thump on every accented syllable, +might have provoked a smile in more sophisticated +society, but Zephaniah listened to her with deep gravity, +and answered,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span>—</p> + +<p>"I'm 'fraid there's truth in what you say, Aunt Ruey. +When her mother was called away, I thought that was a +warning I never should forget; but now I seem to be like +Jonah,—I'm restin' in the shadow of my gourd, and my +heart is glad because of it. I kind o' trembled at the +prayer meetin' when we was a-singin',—</p> + +<p style="margin-left:2em"> +"'The dearest idol I have known,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Whate'er that idol be,</span><br /> +Help me to tear it from Thy throne,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And worship only Thee.'"</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Miss Ruey, "Roxy says if the Lord should +take us up short on our prayers, it would make sad work +with us sometimes."</p> + +<p>"Somehow," said Mrs. Pennel, "it seems to me just her +mother over again. She don't look like her. I think her +hair and complexion comes from the Badger blood; my +mother had that sort o' hair and skin,—but then she has +ways like Naomi,—and it seems as if the Lord had kind +o' given Naomi back to us; so I hope she's goin' to be +spared to us."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Pennel had one of those natures—gentle, trustful, +and hopeful, because not very deep; she was one of the +little children of the world whose faith rests on child-like +ignorance, and who know not the deeper needs of deeper +natures; such see only the sunshine and forget the storm.</p> + +<p>This conversation had been going on to the accompaniment +of a clatter of plates and spoons and dishes, and the +fizzling of sausages, prefacing the evening meal, to which +all now sat down after a lengthened grace from Zephaniah.</p> + +<p>"There's a tremendous gale a-brewin'," he said, as they +sat at table. "I noticed the clouds to-night as I was comin' +home, and somehow I felt kind o' as if I wanted all +our folks snug in-doors."</p> + +<p>"Why, law, husband, Cap'n Kittridge's house is as good +as ours, if it does blow. You never can seem to remember<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> +that houses don't run aground or strike on rocks in +storms."</p> + +<p>"The Cap'n puts me in mind of old Cap'n Jeduth +Scranton," said Miss Ruey, "that built that queer house +down by Middle Bay. The Cap'n he would insist on +havin' on't jist like a ship, and the closet-shelves had +holes for the tumblers and dishes, and he had all his tables +and chairs battened down, and so when it came a gale, they +say the old Cap'n used to sit in his chair and hold on to +hear the wind blow."</p> + +<p>"Well, I tell you," said Captain, "those that has followed +the seas hears the wind with different ears from +lands-people. When you lie with only a plank between +you and eternity, and hear the voice of the Lord on the +waters, it don't sound as it does on shore."</p> + +<p>And in truth, as they were speaking, a fitful gust swept +by the house, wailing and screaming and rattling the windows, +and after it came the heavy, hollow moan of the surf +on the beach, like the wild, angry howl of some savage +animal just beginning to be lashed into fury.</p> + +<p>"Sure enough, the wind is rising," said Miss Ruey, getting +up from the table, and flattening her snub nose against +the window-pane. "Dear me, how dark it is! Mercy on +us, how the waves come in!—all of a sheet of foam. I +pity the ships that's comin' on coast such a night."</p> + +<p>The storm seemed to have burst out with a sudden fury, +as if myriads of howling demons had all at once been +loosened in the air. Now they piped and whistled with +eldritch screech round the corners of the house—now they +thundered down the chimney—and now they shook the +door and rattled the casement—and anon mustering their +forces with wild ado, seemed to career over the house, and +sail high up into the murky air. The dash of the rising +tide came with successive crash upon crash like the discharge +of heavy artillery, seeming to shake the very house,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> +and the spray borne by the wind dashed whizzing against +the window-panes.</p> + +<p>Zephaniah, rising from supper, drew up the little stand +that had the family Bible on it, and the three old time-worn +people sat themselves as seriously down to evening +worship as if they had been an extensive congregation. +They raised the old psalm-tune which our fathers called +"Complaint," and the cracked, wavering voices of the +women, with the deep, rough bass of the old sea-captain, +rose in the uproar of the storm with a ghostly, strange +wildness, like the scream of the curlew or the wailing of +the wind:—</p> + +<p style="margin-left:2em"> +"Spare us, O Lord, aloud we pray,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nor let our sun go down at noon:</span><br /> +Thy years are an eternal day,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And must thy children die so soon!"</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Miss Ruey valued herself on singing a certain weird and +exalted part which in ancient days used to be called counter, +and which wailed and gyrated in unimaginable heights +of the scale, much as you may hear a shrill, fine-voiced +wind over a chimney-top; but altogether, the deep and +earnest gravity with which the three filled up the pauses +in the storm with their quaint minor key, had something +singularly impressive. When the singing was over, +Zephaniah read to the accompaniment of wind and sea, +the words of poetry made on old Hebrew shores, in the +dim, gray dawn of the world:—</p> + +<p>"The voice of the Lord is upon the waters; the God of +glory thundereth; the Lord is upon many waters. The +voice of the Lord shaketh the wilderness; the Lord shaketh +the wilderness of Kadesh. The Lord sitteth upon the +floods, yea, the Lord sitteth King forever. The Lord will +give strength to his people; yea, the Lord will bless his +people with peace."</p> + +<p>How natural and home-born sounded this old piece of +Oriental poetry in the ears of the three! The wilderness<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> +of Kadesh, with its great cedars, was doubtless Orr's Island, +where even now the goodly fellowship of black-winged +trees were groaning and swaying, and creaking as the breath +of the Lord passed over them.</p> + +<p>And the three old people kneeling by their smouldering +fireside, amid the general uproar, Zephaniah began in the +words of a prayer which Moses the man of God made long +ago under the shadows of Egyptian pyramids: "Lord, thou +hast been our dwelling-place in all generations. Before +the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst +formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to +everlasting, thou art God."</p> + +<p>We hear sometimes in these days that the Bible is no +more inspired of God than many other books of historic +and poetic merit. It is a fact, however, that the Bible answers +a strange and wholly exceptional purpose by thousands +of firesides on all shores of the earth; and, till some +other book can be found to do the same thing, it will not +be surprising if a belief of its Divine origin be one of the +ineffaceable ideas of the popular mind. It will be a long +while before a translation from Homer or a chapter in the +Koran, or any of the beauties of Shakespeare, will be read +in a stormy night on Orr's Island with the same sense of +a Divine presence as the Psalms of David, or the prayer of +Moses, the man of God.</p> + +<p>Boom! boom! "What's that?" said Zephaniah, starting, +as they rose up from prayer. "Hark! again, that's +a gun,—there's a ship in distress."</p> + +<p>"Poor souls," said Miss Ruey; "it's an awful night!"</p> + +<p>The captain began to put on his sea-coat.</p> + +<p>"You ain't a-goin' out?" said his wife.</p> + +<p>"I must go out along the beach a spell, and see if I can +hear any more of that ship."</p> + +<p>"Mercy on us; the wind'll blow you over!" said Aunt +Ruey.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I rayther think I've stood wind before in my day," said +Zephaniah, a grim smile stealing over his weather-beaten +cheeks. In fact, the man felt a sort of secret relationship +to the storm, as if it were in some manner a family connection—a +wild, roystering cousin, who drew him out by a +rough attraction of comradeship.</p> + +<p>"Well, at any rate," said Mrs. Pennel, producing a +large tin lantern perforated with many holes, in which she +placed a tallow candle, "take this with you, and don't stay +out long."</p> + +<p>The kitchen door opened, and the first gust of wind took +off the old man's hat and nearly blew him prostrate. He +came back and shut the door. "I ought to have known +better," he said, knotting his pocket-handkerchief over his +head, after which he waited for a momentary lull, and went +out into the storm.</p> + +<p>Miss Ruey looked through the window-pane, and saw +the light go twinkling far down into the gloom, and ever +and anon came the mournful boom of distant guns.</p> + +<p>"Certainly there is a ship in trouble somewhere," she +said.</p> + +<p>"He never can be easy when he hears these guns," said +Mrs. Pennel; "but what can he do, or anybody, in such +a storm, the wind blowing right on to shore?"</p> + +<p>"I shouldn't wonder if Cap'n Kittridge should be out +on the beach, too," said Miss Ruey; "but laws, he ain't +much more than one of these 'ere old grasshoppers you see +after frost comes. Well, any way, there <i>ain't</i> much help +in man if a ship comes ashore in such a gale as this, such +a dark night too."</p> + +<p>"It's kind o' lonesome to have poor little Mara away +such a night as this is," said Mrs. Pennel; "but who +would a-thought it this afternoon, when Aunt Roxy took +her?"</p> + +<p>"I 'member my grandmother had a silver cream-pitcher<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> +that come ashore in a storm on Mare P'int," said Miss +Ruey, as she sat trotting her knitting-needles. "Grand'ther +found it, half full of sand, under a knot of seaweed +way up on the beach. It had a coat of arms on it,—might +have belonged to some grand family, that pitcher; +in the Toothacre family yet."</p> + +<p>"I remember when I was a girl," said Mrs. Pennel, +"seeing the hull of a ship that went on Eagle Island; it +run way up in a sort of gully between two rocks, and lay +there years. They split pieces off it sometimes to make +fires, when they wanted to make a chowder down on the +beach."</p> + +<p>"My aunt, Lois Toothacre, that lives down by Middle +Bay," said Miss Ruey, "used to tell about a dreadful +blow they had once in time of the equinoctial storm; and +what was remarkable, she insisted that she heard a baby +cryin' out in the storm,—she heard it just as plain as +could be."</p> + +<p>"Laws a-mercy," said Mrs. Pennel, nervously, "it was +nothing but the wind,—it always screeches like a child +crying; or maybe it was the seals; seals will cry just like +babes."</p> + +<p>"So they told her; but no,—she insisted she knew the +difference,—it <i>was</i> a baby. Well, what do you think, +when the storm cleared off, they found a baby's cradle +washed ashore sure enough!"</p> + +<p>"But they didn't find any baby," said Mrs. Pennel, +nervously.</p> + +<p>"No; they searched the beach far and near, and that +cradle was all they found. Aunt Lois took it in—it was +a very good cradle, and she took it to use, but every time +there came up a gale, that ar cradle would rock, rock, jist +as if somebody was a-sittin' by it; and you could stand +across the room and see there wa'n't nobody there."</p> + +<p>"You make me all of a shiver," said Mrs. Pennel.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span></p> + +<p>This, of course, was just what Miss Ruey intended, and +she went on:—</p> + +<p>"Wal', you see they kind o' got used to it; they found +there wa'n't no harm come of its rockin', and so they +didn't mind; but Aunt Lois had a sister Cerinthy that +was a weakly girl, and had the janders. Cerinthy was one +of the sort that's born with veils over their faces, and can +see sperits; and one time Cerinthy was a-visitin' Lois after +her second baby was born, and there came up a blow, and +Cerinthy comes out of the keepin'-room, where the cradle +was a-standin', and says, 'Sister,' says she, 'who's that +woman sittin' rockin' the cradle?' and Aunt Lois says she, +'Why, there ain't nobody. That ar cradle always will +rock in a gale, but I've got used to it, and don't mind it.' +'Well,' says Cerinthy, 'jist as true as you live, I just saw +a woman with a silk gown on, and long black hair a-hangin' +down, and her face was pale as a sheet, sittin' rockin' that +ar cradle, and she looked round at me with her great black +eyes kind o' mournful and wishful, and then she stooped +down over the cradle.' 'Well,' says Lois, 'I ain't goin' +to have no such doin's in my house,' and she went right +in and took up the baby, and the very next day she jist +had the cradle split up for kindlin'; and that night, if +you'll believe, when they was a-burnin' of it, they heard, +jist as plain as could be, a baby scream, scream, screamin' +round the house; but after that they never heard it no +more."</p> + +<p>"I don't like such stories," said Dame Pennel, "'specially +to-night, when Mara's away. I shall get to hearing +all sorts of noises in the wind. I wonder when Cap'n +Pennel will be back."</p> + +<p>And the good woman put more wood on the fire, and +as the tongues of flame streamed up high and clear, she +approached her face to the window-pane and started back +with half a scream, as a pale, anxious visage with sad dark<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> +eyes seemed to approach her. It took a moment or two +for her to discover that she had seen only the reflection of +her own anxious, excited face, the pitchy blackness without +having converted the window into a sort of dark mirror.</p> + +<p>Miss Ruey meanwhile began solacing herself by singing, +in her chimney-corner, a very favorite sacred melody, which +contrasted oddly enough with the driving storm and howling +sea:—</p> + +<p style="margin-left:2em"> +"Haste, my beloved, haste away,<br /> +Cut short the hours of thy delay;<br /> +Fly like the bounding hart or roe,<br /> +Over the hills where spices grow."<br /> +</p> + +<p>The tune was called "Invitation,"—one of those profusely +florid in runs, and trills, and quavers, which delighted +the ears of a former generation; and Miss Ruey, +innocently unconscious of the effect of old age on her voice, +ran them up and down, and out and in, in a way that would +have made a laugh, had there been anybody there to notice +or to laugh.</p> + +<p>"I remember singin' that ar to Mary Jane Wilson the +very night she died," said Aunt Ruey, stopping. "She +wanted me to sing to her, and it was jist between two and +three in the mornin'; there was jist the least red streak of +daylight, and I opened the window and sat there and sung, +and when I come to 'over the hills where spices grow,' I +looked round and there was a change in Mary Jane, and I +went to the bed, and says she very bright, 'Aunt Ruey, +the Beloved has come,' and she was gone afore I could +raise her up on her pillow. I always think of Mary Jane +at them words; if ever there was a broken-hearted crittur +took home, it was her."</p> + +<p>At this moment Mrs. Pennel caught sight through the +window of the gleam of the returning lantern, and in a +moment Captain Pennel entered, dripping with rain and +spray.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Why, Cap'n! you're e'en a'most drowned," said Aunt +Ruey.</p> + +<p>"How long have you been gone? You must have been +a great ways," said Mrs. Pennel.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I have been down to Cap'n Kittridge's. I met +Kittridge out on the beach. We heard the guns plain +enough, but couldn't see anything. I went on down to +Kittridge's to get a look at little Mara."</p> + +<p>"Well, she's all well enough?" said Mrs. Pennel, anxiously.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, well enough. Miss Roxy showed her to me +in the trundle-bed, 'long with Sally. The little thing was +lying smiling in her sleep, with her cheek right up against +Sally's. I took comfort looking at her. I couldn't help +thinking: 'So he giveth his beloved sleep!'"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2> + +<h3>FROM THE SEA</h3> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span>During the night and storm, the little Mara had lain +sleeping as quietly as if the cruel sea, that had made her +an orphan from her birth, were her kind-tempered old +grandfather singing her to sleep, as he often did,—with +a somewhat hoarse voice truly, but with ever an undertone +of protecting love. But toward daybreak, there came very +clear and bright into her childish mind a dream, having +that vivid distinctness which often characterizes the dreams +of early childhood.</p> + +<p>She thought she saw before her the little cove where she +and Sally had been playing the day before, with its broad +sparkling white beach of sand curving round its blue sea-mirror, +and studded thickly with gold and silver shells. +She saw the boat of Captain Kittridge upon the stocks, and +his tar-kettle with the smouldering fires flickering under +it; but, as often happens in dreams, a certain rainbow +vividness and clearness invested everything, and she and +Sally were jumping for joy at the beautiful things they +found on the beach.</p> + +<p>Suddenly, there stood before them a woman, dressed in +a long white garment. She was very pale, with sweet, +serious dark eyes, and she led by the hand a black-eyed +boy, who seemed to be crying and looking about as for +something lost. She dreamed that she stood still, and the +woman came toward her, looking at her with sweet, sad +eyes, till the child seemed to feel them in every fibre of +her frame. The woman laid her hand on her head as if<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> +in blessing, and then put the boy's hand in hers, and said, +"Take him, Mara, he is a playmate for you;" and with +that the little boy's face flashed out into a merry laugh. +The woman faded away, and the three children remained +playing together, gathering shells and pebbles of a wonderful +brightness. So vivid was this vision, that the little +one awoke laughing with pleasure, and searched under her +pillows for the strange and beautiful things that she had +been gathering in dreamland.</p> + +<p>"What's Mara looking after?" said Sally, sitting up in +her trundle-bed, and speaking in the patronizing motherly +tone she commonly used to her little playmate.</p> + +<p>"All gone, pitty boy—all gone!" said the child, looking +round regretfully, and shaking her golden head; "pitty +lady all gone!"</p> + +<p>"How queer she talks!" said Sally, who had awakened +with the project of building a sheet-house with her fairy +neighbor, and was beginning to loosen the upper sheet and +dispose the pillows with a view to this species of architecture. +"Come, Mara, let's make a pretty house!" she +said.</p> + +<p>"Pitty boy out dere—out dere!" said the little one, +pointing to the window, with a deeper expression than ever +of wishfulness in her eyes.</p> + +<p>"Come, Sally Kittridge, get up this minute!" said the +voice of her mother, entering the door at this moment; +"and here, put these clothes on to Mara, the child mustn't +run round in her best; it's strange, now, Mary Pennel +never thinks of such things."</p> + +<p>Sally, who was of an efficient temperament, was preparing +energetically to second these commands of her mother, +and endue her little neighbor with a coarse brown stuff +dress, somewhat faded and patched, which she herself had +outgrown when of Mara's age; with shoes, which had been +coarsely made to begin with, and very much battered by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> +time; but, quite to her surprise, the child, generally so +passive and tractable, opposed a most unexpected and desperate +resistance to this operation. She began to cry and +to sob and shake her curly head, throwing her tiny hands +out in a wild species of freakish opposition, which had, +notwithstanding, a quaint and singular grace about it, +while she stated her objections in all the little English at +her command.</p> + +<p>"Mara don't want—Mara want pitty boo des—and +<i>pitty</i> shoes."</p> + +<p>"Why, was ever anything like it?" said Mrs. Kittridge +to Miss Roxy, as they both were drawn to the door by the +outcry; "here's this child won't have decent every-day +clothes put on her,—she must be kept dressed up like a +princess. Now, that ar's French calico!" said Mrs. Kittridge, +holding up the controverted blue dress, "and that +ar never cost a cent under five-and-sixpence a yard; it +takes a yard and a half to make it, and it must have been +a good day's work to make it up; call that three-and-sixpence +more, and with them pearl buttons and thread and +all, that ar dress never cost less than a dollar and seventy-five, +and here she's goin' to run out every day in it!"</p> + +<p>"Well, well!" said Miss Roxy, who had taken the sobbing +fair one in her lap, "you know, Mis' Kittridge, this +'ere's a kind o' pet lamb, an old-folks' darling, and things +be with her as they be, and we can't make her over, and +she's such a nervous little thing we mustn't cross her." +Saying which, she proceeded to dress the child in her own +clothes.</p> + +<p>"If you had a good large checked apron, I wouldn't +mind putting that on her!" added Miss Roxy, after she +had arrayed the child.</p> + +<p>"Here's one," said Mrs. Kittridge; "that may save her +clothes some."</p> + +<p>Miss Roxy began to put on the wholesome garment;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> +but, rather to her mortification, the little fairy began to +weep again in a most heart-broken manner.</p> + +<p>"Don't want che't apon."</p> + +<p>"Why don't Mara want nice checked apron?" said Miss +Roxy, in that extra cheerful tone by which children are to +be made to believe they have mistaken their own mind.</p> + +<p>"Don't want it!" with a decided wave of the little +hand; "I's too pitty to wear che't apon."</p> + +<p>"Well! well!" said Mrs. Kittridge, rolling up her eyes, +"did I ever! no, I never did. If there ain't depraved +natur' a-comin' out early. Well, if she says she's pretty +now, what'll it be when she's fifteen?"</p> + +<p>"She'll learn to tell a lie about it by that time," said +Miss Roxy, "and say she thinks she's horrid. The child +<i>is</i> pretty, and the truth comes uppermost with her now."</p> + +<p>"Haw! haw! haw!" burst with a great crash from Captain +Kittridge, who had come in behind, and stood silently +listening during this conversation; "that's musical now; +come here, my little maid, you <i>are</i> too pretty for checked +aprons, and no mistake;" and seizing the child in his long +arms, he tossed her up like a butterfly, while her sunny +curls shone in the morning light.</p> + +<p>"There's one comfort about the child, Miss Kittridge," +said Aunt Roxy: "she's one of them that dirt won't stick +to. I never knew her to stain or tear her clothes,—she +always come in jist so nice."</p> + +<p>"She ain't much like Sally, then!" said Mrs. Kittridge. +"That girl'll run through more clothes! Only last week +she walked the crown out of my old black straw bonnet, +and left it hanging on the top of a blackberry-bush."</p> + +<p>"Wal', wal'," said Captain Kittridge, "as to dressin' +this 'ere child,—why, ef Pennel's a mind to dress her in +cloth of gold, it's none of our business! He's rich enough +for all he wants to do, and so let's eat our breakfast and +mind our own business."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span></p> + +<p>After breakfast Captain Kittridge took the two children +down to the cove, to investigate the state of his boat and +tar-kettle, set high above the highest tide-mark. The sun +had risen gloriously, the sky was of an intense, vivid blue, +and only great snowy islands of clouds, lying in silver +banks on the horizon, showed vestiges of last night's storm. +The whole wide sea was one glorious scene of forming and +dissolving mountains of blue and purple, breaking at the +crest into brilliant silver. All round the island the waves +were constantly leaping and springing into jets and columns +of brilliant foam, throwing themselves high up, in +silvery cataracts, into the very arms of the solemn evergreen +forests which overhung the shore.</p> + +<p>The sands of the little cove seemed harder and whiter +than ever, and were thickly bestrewn with the shells and +seaweed which the upturnings of the night had brought +in. There lay what might have been fringes and fragments +of sea-gods' vestures,—blue, crimson, purple, and +orange seaweeds, wreathed in tangled ropes of kelp and +sea-grass, or lying separately scattered on the sands. The +children ran wildly, shouting as they began gathering sea-treasures; +and Sally, with the air of an experienced hand +in the business, untwisted the coils of rosy seaweed, from +which every moment she disengaged some new treasure, +in some rarer shell or smoother pebble.</p> + +<p>Suddenly, the child shook out something from a knotted +mass of sea-grass, which she held up with a perfect shriek +of delight. It was a bracelet of hair, fastened by a brilliant +clasp of green, sparkling stones, such as she had never +seen before. She redoubled her cries of delight, as she +saw it sparkle between her and the sun, calling upon her +father.</p> + +<p>"Father! father! do come here, and see what I've +found!"</p> + +<p>He came quickly, and took the bracelet from the child's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> +hand; but, at the same moment, looking over her head, he +caught sight of an object partially concealed behind a projecting +rock. He took a step forward, and uttered an +exclamation,—</p> + +<p>"Well, well! sure enough! poor things!"</p> + +<p>There lay, bedded in sand and seaweed, a woman with +a little boy clasped in her arms! Both had been carefully +lashed to a spar, but the child was held to the bosom of +the woman, with a pressure closer than any knot that mortal +hands could tie. Both were deep sunk in the sand, +into which had streamed the woman's long, dark hair, +which sparkled with glittering morsels of sand and pebbles, +and with those tiny, brilliant, yellow shells which are so +numerous on that shore.</p> + +<p>The woman was both young and beautiful. The forehead, +damp with ocean-spray, was like sculptured marble,—the +eyebrows dark and decided in their outline; but the +long, heavy, black fringes had shut down, as a solemn curtain, +over all the history of mortal joy or sorrow that those +eyes had looked upon. A wedding-ring gleamed on the +marble hand; but the sea had divorced all human ties, and +taken her as a bride to itself. And, in truth, it seemed +to have made to her a worthy bed, for she was all folded +and inwreathed in sand and shells and seaweeds, and a +great, weird-looking leaf of kelp, some yards in length, lay +twined around her like a shroud. The child that lay in +her bosom had hair, and face, and eyelashes like her own, +and his little hands were holding tightly a portion of the +black dress which she wore.</p> + +<p>"Cold,—cold,—stone dead!" was the muttered exclamation +of the old seaman, as he bent over the woman.</p> + +<p>"She must have struck her head there," he mused, as +he laid his finger on a dark, bruised spot on her temple. +He laid his hand on the child's heart, and put one finger +under the arm to see if there was any lingering vital heat,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> +and then hastily cut the lashings that bound the pair to the +spar, and with difficulty disengaged the child from the cold +clasp in which dying love had bound him to a heart which +should beat no more with mortal joy or sorrow.</p> + +<p>Sally, after the first moment, had run screaming toward +the house, with all a child's forward eagerness, to be the +bearer of news; but the little Mara stood, looking anxiously, +with a wishful earnestness of face.</p> + +<p>"Pitty boy,—pitty boy,—come!" she said often; but +the old man was so busy, he scarcely regarded her.</p> + +<p>"Now, Cap'n Kittridge, do tell!" said Miss Roxy, +meeting him in all haste, with a cap-border stiff in air, +while Dame Kittridge exclaimed,—</p> + +<p>"Now, you don't! Well, well! didn't I say that was +a ship last night? And what a solemnizing thought it was +that souls might be goin' into eternity!"</p> + +<p>"We must have blankets and hot bottles, right away," +said Miss Roxy, who always took the earthly view of matters, +and who was, in her own person, a personified humane +society. "Miss Kittridge, you jist dip out your dishwater +into the smallest tub, and we'll put him in. Stand away, +Mara! Sally, you take her out of the way! We'll fetch +this child to, perhaps. I've fetched 'em to, when they's +seemed to be dead as door-nails!"</p> + +<p>"Cap'n Kittridge, you're sure the woman's dead?"</p> + +<p>"Laws, yes; she had a blow right on her temple here. +There's no bringing her to till the resurrection."</p> + +<p>"Well, then, you jist go and get Cap'n Pennel to come +down and help you, and get the body into the house, and +we'll attend to layin' it out by and by. Tell Ruey to +come down."</p> + +<p>Aunt Roxy issued her orders with all the military vigor +and precision of a general in case of a sudden attack. It +was her habit. Sickness and death were her opportunities; +where they were, she felt herself at home, and she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> +addressed herself to the task before her with undoubting +faith.</p> + +<p>Before many hours a pair of large, dark eyes slowly +emerged from under the black-fringed lids of the little +drowned boy,—they rolled dreamily round for a moment, +and dropped again in heavy languor.</p> + +<p>The little Mara had, with the quiet persistence which +formed a trait in her baby character, dragged stools and +chairs to the back of the bed, which she at last succeeded +in scaling, and sat opposite to where the child lay, grave +and still, watching with intense earnestness the process that +was going on. At the moment when the eyes had opened, +she stretched forth her little arms, and said, eagerly, +"Pitty boy, come,"—and then, as they closed again, she +dropped her hands with a sigh of disappointment. Yet, +before night, the little stranger sat up in bed, and laughed +with pleasure at the treasures of shells and pebbles which +the children spread out on the bed before him.</p> + +<p>He was a vigorous, well-made, handsome child, with +brilliant eyes and teeth, but the few words that he spoke +were in a language unknown to most present. Captain +Kittridge declared it to be Spanish, and that a call which +he most passionately and often repeated was for his mother. +But he was of that happy age when sorrow can be easily +effaced, and the efforts of the children called forth joyous +smiles. When his playthings did not go to his liking, he +showed sparkles of a fiery, irascible spirit.</p> + +<p>The little Mara seemed to appropriate him in feminine +fashion, as a chosen idol and graven image. She gave him +at once all her slender stock of infantine treasures, and +seemed to watch with an ecstatic devotion his every movement,—often +repeating, as she looked delightedly around, +"Pitty boy, come."</p> + +<p>She had no words to explain the strange dream of +the morning; it lay in her, struggling for expression, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> +giving her an interest in the new-comer as in something +belonging to herself. Whence it came,—whence come +multitudes like it, which spring up as strange, enchanted +flowers, every now and then in the dull, material pathway +of life,—who knows? It may be that our present faculties +have among them a rudimentary one, like the germs +of wings in the chrysalis, by which the spiritual world +becomes sometimes an object of perception; there may be +natures in which the walls of the material are so fine and +translucent that the spiritual is seen through them as +through a glass darkly. It may be, too, that the love +which is stronger than death has a power sometimes to +make itself heard and felt through the walls of our mortality, +when it would plead for the defenseless ones it has +left behind. All these things <i>may</i> be,—who knows?</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>"There," said Miss Roxy, coming out of the keeping-room +at sunset; "I wouldn't ask to see a better-lookin' +corpse. That ar woman was a sight to behold this morning. +I guess I shook a double handful of stones and them +little shells out of her hair,—now she reely looks beautiful. +Captain Kittridge has made a coffin out o' some +cedar-boards he happened to have, and I lined it with +bleached cotton, and stuffed the pillow nice and full, and +when we come to get her in, she reely will look lovely."</p> + +<p>"I s'pose, Mis' Kittridge, you'll have the funeral to-morrow,—it's +Sunday."</p> + +<p>"Why, yes, Aunt Roxy,—I think everybody must +want to improve such a dispensation. Have you took little +Mara in to look at the corpse?"</p> + +<p>"Well, no," said Miss Roxy; "Mis' Pennel's gettin' +ready to take her home."</p> + +<p>"I think it's an opportunity we ought to improve," said +Mrs. Kittridge, "to learn children what death is. I think +we can't begin to solemnize their minds too young."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span></p> + +<p>At this moment Sally and the little Mara entered the +room.</p> + +<p>"Come here, children," said Mrs. Kittridge, taking a +hand of either one, and leading them to the closed door of +the keeping-room; "I've got somethin' to show you."</p> + +<p>The room looked ghostly and dim,—the rays of light +fell through the closed shutter on an object mysteriously +muffled in a white sheet.</p> + +<p>Sally's bright face expressed only the vague curiosity of +a child to see something new; but the little Mara resisted +and hung back with all her force, so that Mrs. Kittridge +was obliged to take her up and hold her.</p> + +<p>She folded back the sheet from the chill and wintry +form which lay so icily, lonely, and cold. Sally walked +around it, and gratified her curiosity by seeing it from +every point of view, and laying her warm, busy hand on +the lifeless and cold one; but Mara clung to Mrs. Kittridge, +with eyes that expressed a distressed astonishment. +The good woman stooped over and placed the child's little +hand for a moment on the icy forehead. The little one +gave a piercing scream, and struggled to get away; and as +soon as she was put down, she ran and hid her face in +Aunt Roxy's dress, sobbing bitterly.</p> + +<p>"That child'll grow up to follow vanity," said Mrs. +Kittridge; "her little head is full of dress now, and she +hates anything serious,—it's easy to see that."</p> + +<p>The little Mara had no words to tell what a strange, +distressful chill had passed up her arm and through her +brain, as she felt that icy cold of death,—that cold so +different from all others. It was an impression of fear and +pain that lasted weeks and months, so that she would start +out of sleep and cry with a terror which she had not yet a +sufficiency of language to describe.</p> + +<p>"You seem to forget, Mis' Kittridge, that this 'ere child +ain't rugged like our Sally," said Aunt Roxy, as she raised<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> +the little Mara in her arms. "She was a seven-months' +baby, and hard to raise at all, and a shivery, scary little +creature."</p> + +<p>"Well, then, she ought to be hardened," said Dame +Kittridge. "But Mary Pennel never had no sort of idea +of bringin' up children; 'twas jist so with Naomi,—the +girl never had no sort o' resolution, and she just died for +want o' resolution,—that's what came of it. I tell ye, +children's got to learn to take the world as it is; and 'tain't +no use bringin' on 'em up too tender. Teach 'em to begin +as they've got to go out,—that's my maxim."</p> + +<p>"Mis' Kittridge," said Aunt Roxy, "there's reason in +all things, and there's difference in children. 'What's +one's meat's another's pison.' You couldn't fetch up Mis' +Pennel's children, and she couldn't fetch up your'n,—so +let's say no more 'bout it."</p> + +<p>"I'm always a-tellin' my wife that ar," said Captain +Kittridge; "she's always wantin' to make everybody over +after her pattern."</p> + +<p>"Cap'n Kittridge, I don't think <i>you</i> need to speak," +resumed his wife. "When such a loud providence is +a-knockin' at <i>your</i> door, I think you'd better be a-searchin' +your own heart,—here it is the eleventh hour, and you +hain't come into the Lord's vineyard yet."</p> + +<p>"Oh! come, come, Mis' Kittridge, don't twit a feller +afore folks," said the Captain. "I'm goin' over to Harpswell +Neck this blessed minute after the minister to 'tend +the funeral,—so we'll let <i>him</i> preach."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2> + +<h3>THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN</h3> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span>Life on any shore is a dull affair,—ever degenerating +into commonplace; and this may account for the eagerness +with which even a great calamity is sometimes accepted in +a neighborhood, as affording wherewithal to stir the deeper +feelings of our nature. Thus, though Mrs. Kittridge was +by no means a hard-hearted woman, and would not for the +world have had a ship wrecked on her particular account, +yet since a ship had been wrecked and a body floated +ashore at her very door, as it were, it afforded her no +inconsiderable satisfaction to dwell on the details and to +arrange for the funeral.</p> + +<p>It was something to talk about and to think of, and +likely to furnish subject-matter for talk for years to come +when she should go out to tea with any of her acquaintances +who lived at Middle Bay, or Maquoit, or Harpswell Neck. +For although in those days,—the number of light-houses +being much smaller than it is now,—it was no uncommon +thing for ships to be driven on shore in storms, yet this +incident had undeniably more that was stirring and romantic +in it than any within the memory of any tea-table +gossip in the vicinity. Mrs. Kittridge, therefore, looked +forward to the funeral services on Sunday afternoon as to +a species of solemn fête, which imparted a sort of consequence +to her dwelling and herself. Notice of it was to be +given out in "meeting" after service, and she might expect +both keeping-room and kitchen to be full. Mrs. Pennel +had offered to do her share of Christian and neighborly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> +kindness, in taking home to her own dwelling the little +boy. In fact, it became necessary to do so in order to +appease the feelings of the little Mara, who clung to the +new acquisition with most devoted fondness, and wept +bitterly when he was separated from her even for a few +moments. Therefore, in the afternoon of the day when +the body was found, Mrs. Pennel, who had come down to +assist, went back in company with Aunt Ruey and the two +children.</p> + +<p>The September evening set in brisk and chill, and the +cheerful fire that snapped and roared up the ample chimney +of Captain Kittridge's kitchen was a pleasing feature. The +days of our story were before the advent of those sullen +gnomes, the "air-tights," or even those more sociable and +cheery domestic genii, the cooking-stoves. They were the +days of the genial open kitchen-fire, with the crane, the +pot-hooks, and trammels,—where hissed and boiled the +social tea-kettle, where steamed the huge dinner-pot, in +whose ample depths beets, carrots, potatoes, and turnips +boiled in jolly sociability with the pork or corned beef +which they were destined to flank at the coming meal.</p> + +<p>On the present evening, Miss Roxy sat bolt upright, as +was her wont, in one corner of the fireplace, with her spectacles +on her nose, and an unwonted show of candles on +the little stand beside her, having resumed the task of the +silk dress which had been for a season interrupted. Mrs. +Kittridge, with her spectacles also mounted, was carefully +and warily "running-up breadths," stopping every few +minutes to examine her work, and to inquire submissively +of Miss Roxy if "it will do?"</p> + +<p>Captain Kittridge sat in the other corner busily whittling +on a little boat which he was shaping to please Sally, +who sat on a low stool by his side with her knitting, evidently +more intent on what her father was producing than +on the evening task of "ten bouts," which her mother<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> +exacted before she could freely give her mind to anything +on her own account. As Sally was rigorously sent to bed +exactly at eight o'clock, it became her to be diligent if she +wished to do anything for her own amusement before that +hour.</p> + +<p>And in the next room, cold and still, was lying that +faded image of youth and beauty which the sea had so +strangely given up. Without a name, without a history, +without a single accompaniment from which her past could +even be surmised,—there she lay, sealed in eternal silence.</p> + +<p>"It's strange," said Captain Kittridge, as he whittled +away,—"it's very strange we don't find anything more +of that ar ship. I've been all up and down the beach +a-lookin'. There was a spar and some broken bits of +boards and timbers come ashore down on the beach, but +nothin' to speak of."</p> + +<p>"It won't be known till the sea gives up its dead," said +Miss Roxy, shaking her head solemnly, "and there'll be +a great givin' up then, I'm a-thinkin'."</p> + +<p>"Yes, indeed," said Mrs. Kittridge, with an emphatic +nod.</p> + +<p>"Father," said Sally, "how many, many things there +must be at the bottom of the sea,—so many ships are +sunk with all their fine things on board. Why don't people +contrive some way to go down and get them?"</p> + +<p>"They do, child," said Captain Kittridge; "they have +diving-bells, and men go down in 'em with caps over their +faces, and long tubes to get the air through, and they walk +about on the bottom of the ocean."</p> + +<p>"Did you ever go down in one, father?"</p> + +<p>"Why, yes, child, to be sure; and strange enough it +was, to be sure. There you could see great big sea critters, +with ever so many eyes and long arms, swimming +right up to catch you, and all you could do would be to +muddy the water on the bottom, so they couldn't see you."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I never heard of that, Cap'n Kittridge," said his wife, +drawing herself up with a reproving coolness.</p> + +<p>"Wal', Mis' Kittridge, you hain't heard of everything +that ever happened," said the Captain, imperturbably, +"though you <i>do</i> know a sight."</p> + +<p>"And how does the bottom of the ocean look, father?" +said Sally.</p> + +<p>"Laws, child, why trees and bushes grow there, just as +they do on land; and great plants,—blue and purple and +green and yellow, and lots of great pearls lie round. I've +seen 'em big as chippin'-birds' eggs."</p> + +<p>"Cap'n Kittridge!" said his wife.</p> + +<p>"I have, and big as robins' eggs, too, but them was off +the coast of Ceylon and Malabar, and way round the Equator," +said the Captain, prudently resolved to throw his +romance to a sufficient distance.</p> + +<p>"It's a pity you didn't get a few of them pearls," said +his wife, with an indignant appearance of scorn.</p> + +<p>"I did get lots on 'em, and traded 'em off to the Nabobs +in the interior for Cashmere shawls and India silks and +sich," said the Captain, composedly; "and brought 'em +home and sold 'em at a good figure, too."</p> + +<p>"Oh, father!" said Sally, earnestly, "I wish you had +saved just one or two for us."</p> + +<p>"Laws, child, I wish now I had," said the Captain, +good-naturedly. "Why, when I was in India, I went up +to Lucknow, and Benares, and round, and saw all the Nabobs +and Biggums,—why, they don't make no more of +gold and silver and precious stones than we do of the shells +we find on the beach. Why, I've seen one of them fellers +with a diamond in his turban as big as my fist."</p> + +<p>"Cap'n Kittridge, what are you telling?" said his wife +once more.</p> + +<p>"Fact,—as big as my fist," said the Captain, obdurately; +"and all the clothes he wore was jist a stiff crust<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> +of pearls and precious stones. I tell you, he looked like +something in the Revelations,—a real New Jerusalem +look he had."</p> + +<p>"I call that ar talk wicked, Cap'n Kittridge, usin' Scriptur' +that ar way," said his wife.</p> + +<p>"Why, don't it tell about all sorts of gold and precious +stones in the Revelations?" said the Captain; "that's all +I meant. Them ar countries off in Asia ain't like our'n,—stands +to reason they shouldn't be; them's Scripture +countries, and everything is different there."</p> + +<p>"Father, didn't you ever get any of those splendid +things?" said Sally.</p> + +<p>"Laws, yes, child. Why, I had a great green ring, an +emerald, that one of the princes giv' me, and ever so many +pearls and diamonds. I used to go with 'em rattlin' loose +in my vest pocket. I was young and gay in them days, +and thought of bringin' of 'em home for the gals, but +somehow I always got opportunities for swappin' of 'em +off for goods and sich. That ar shawl your mother keeps +in her camfire chist was what I got for one on 'em."</p> + +<p>"Well, well," said Mrs. Kittridge, "there's never any +catchin' you, 'cause you've been where we haven't."</p> + +<p>"You've caught me once, and that ought'r do," said +the Captain, with unruffled good-nature. "I tell you, +Sally, your mother was the handsomest gal in Harpswell +in them days."</p> + +<p>"I should think you was too old for such nonsense, +Cap'n," said Mrs. Kittridge, with a toss of her head, and +a voice that sounded far less inexorable than her former +admonition. In fact, though the old Captain was as unmanageable +under his wife's fireside <i>régime</i> as any brisk old +cricket that skipped and sang around the hearth, and though +he hopped over all moral boundaries with a cheerful alertness +of conscience that was quite discouraging, still there +was no resisting the spell of his inexhaustible good-nature.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span></p> + +<p>By this time he had finished the little boat, and to +Sally's great delight, began sailing it for her in a pail of +water.</p> + +<p>"I wonder," said Mrs. Kittridge, "what's to be done +with that ar child. I suppose the selectmen will take care +on't; it'll be brought up by the town."</p> + +<p>"I shouldn't wonder," said Miss Roxy, "if Cap'n Pennel +should adopt it."</p> + +<p>"You don't think so," said Mrs. Kittridge. "'Twould +be taking a great care and expense on their hands at their +time of life."</p> + +<p>"I wouldn't want no better fun than to bring up that +little shaver," said Captain Kittridge; "he's a bright un, +I promise you."</p> + +<p>"You, Cap'n Kittridge! I wonder you can talk so," said +his wife. "It's an awful responsibility, and I wonder you +don't think whether or no you're fit for it."</p> + +<p>"Why, down here on the shore, I'd as lives undertake +a boy as a Newfoundland pup," said the Captain. "Plenty +in the sea to eat, drink, and wear. That ar young un may +be the staff of their old age yet."</p> + +<p>"You see," said Miss Roxy, "I think they'll adopt it +to be company for little Mara; they're bound up in her, +and the little thing pines bein' alone."</p> + +<p>"Well, they make a real graven image of that ar child," +said Mrs. Kittridge, "and fairly bow down to her and worship +her."</p> + +<p>"Well, it's natural," said Miss Roxy. "Besides, the +little thing is cunnin'; she's about the cunnin'est little +crittur that I ever saw, and has such enticin' ways."</p> + +<p>The fact was, as the reader may perceive, that Miss +Roxy had been thawed into an unusual attachment for the +little Mara, and this affection was beginning to spread a +warming element though her whole being. It was as if a +rough granite rock had suddenly awakened to a passionate<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> +consciousness of the beauty of some fluttering white anemone +that nestled in its cleft, and felt warm thrills running +through all its veins at every tender motion and +shadow. A word spoken against the little one seemed to +rouse her combativeness. Nor did Dame Kittridge bear +the child the slightest ill-will, but she was one of those +naturally care-taking people whom Providence seems to +design to perform the picket duties for the rest of society, +and who, therefore, challenge everybody and everything to +stand and give an account of themselves. Miss Roxy herself +belonged to this class, but sometimes found herself so +stoutly overhauled by the guns of Mrs. Kittridge's battery, +that she could only stand modestly on the defensive.</p> + +<p>One of Mrs. Kittridge's favorite hobbies was education, +or, as she phrased it, the "fetchin' up" of children, which +she held should be performed to the letter of the old stiff +rule. In this manner she had already trained up six sons, +who were all following their fortunes upon the seas, and, +on this account, she had no small conceit of her abilities; +and when she thought she discerned a lamb being left to +frisk heedlessly out of bounds, her zeal was stirred to bring +it under proper sheepfold regulations.</p> + +<p>"Come, Sally, it's eight o'clock," said the good woman.</p> + +<p>Sally's dark brows lowered over her large, black eyes, +and she gave an appealing look to her father.</p> + +<p>"Law, mother, let the child sit up a quarter of an hour +later, jist for once."</p> + +<p>"Cap'n Kittridge, if I was to hear to you, there'd never +be no rule in this house. Sally, you go 'long this minute, +and be sure you put your knittin' away in its place."</p> + +<p>The Captain gave a humorous nod of submissive good-nature +to his daughter as she went out. In fact, putting +Sally to bed was taking away his plaything, and leaving +him nothing to do but study faces in the coals, or watch<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> +the fleeting sparks which chased each other in flocks up +the sooty back of the chimney.</p> + +<p>It was Saturday night, and the morrow was Sunday,—never +a very pleasant prospect to the poor Captain, who, +having, unfortunately, no spiritual tastes, found it very +difficult to get through the day in compliance with his +wife's views of propriety, for he, alas! soared no higher in +his aims.</p> + +<p>"I b'lieve, on the hull, Polly, I'll go to bed, too," +said he, suddenly starting up.</p> + +<p>"Well, father, your clean shirt is in the right-hand corner +of the upper drawer, and your Sunday clothes on the +back of the chair by the bed."</p> + +<p>The fact was that the Captain promised himself the +pleasure of a long conversation with Sally, who nestled in +the trundle-bed under the paternal couch, to whom he +could relate long, many-colored yarns, without the danger +of interruption from her mother's sharp, truth-seeking voice.</p> + +<p>A moralist might, perhaps, be puzzled exactly what +account to make of the Captain's disposition to romancing +and embroidery. In all real, matter-of-fact transactions, +as between man and man, his word was as good as another's, +and he was held to be honest and just in his dealings. +It was only when he mounted the stilts of foreign +travel that his paces became so enormous. Perhaps, after +all, a rude poetic and artistic faculty possessed the man. +He might have been a humbler phase of the "mute, inglorious +Milton." Perhaps his narrations required the privileges +and allowances due to the inventive arts generally. +Certain it was that, in common with other artists, he required +an atmosphere of sympathy and confidence in which +to develop himself fully; and, when left alone with children, +his mind ran such riot, that the bounds between the +real and unreal became foggier than the banks of Newfoundland.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span></p> + +<p>The two women sat up, and the night wore on apace, +while they kept together that customary vigil which it was +thought necessary to hold over the lifeless casket from +which an immortal jewel had recently been withdrawn.</p> + +<p>"I re'lly did hope," said Mrs. Kittridge, mournfully, +"that this 'ere solemn Providence would have been sent +home to the Cap'n's mind; but he seems jist as light and +triflin' as ever."</p> + +<p>"There don't nobody see these 'ere things unless they's +effectually called," said Miss Roxy, "and the Cap'n's time +ain't come."</p> + +<p>"It's gettin' to be t'ward the eleventh hour," said Mrs. +Kittridge, "as I was a-tellin' him this afternoon."</p> + +<p>"Well," said Miss Roxy, "you know</p> + +<p> +"'While the lamp holds out to burn,<br /> +The vilest sinner may return.'"<br /> +</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know that," said Mrs. Kittridge, rising and +taking up the candle. "Don't you think, Aunt Roxy, we +may as well give a look in there at the corpse?"</p> + +<p>It was past midnight as they went together into the +keeping-room. All was so still that the clash of the rising +tide and the ticking of the clock assumed that solemn and +mournful distinctness which even tones less impressive take +on in the night-watches. Miss Roxy went mechanically +through with certain arrangements of the white drapery +around the cold sleeper, and uncovering the face and bust +for a moment, looked critically at the still, unconscious +countenance.</p> + +<p>"Not one thing to let us know who or what she is," she +said; "that boy, if he lives, would give a good deal to +know, some day."</p> + +<p>"What is it one's duty to do about this bracelet?" +said Mrs. Kittridge, taking from a drawer the article in +question, which had been found on the beach in the morning.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Well, I s'pose it belongs to the child, whatever it's +worth," said Miss Roxy.</p> + +<p>"Then if the Pennels conclude to take him, I may as +well give it to them," said Mrs. Kittridge, laying it back +in the drawer.</p> + +<p>Miss Roxy folded the cloth back over the face, and the +two went out into the kitchen. The fire had sunk low—the +crickets were chirruping gleefully. Mrs. Kittridge +added more wood, and put on the tea-kettle that their +watching might be refreshed by the aid of its talkative and +inspiring beverage. The two solemn, hard-visaged women +drew up to each other by the fire, and insensibly their +very voices assumed a tone of drowsy and confidential +mystery.</p> + +<p>"If this 'ere poor woman was hopefully pious, and could +see what was goin' on here," said Mrs. Kittridge, "it +would seem to be a comfort to her that her child has fallen +into such good hands. It seems a'most a pity she couldn't +know it."</p> + +<p>"How do you know she don't?" said Miss Roxy, +brusquely.</p> + +<p>"Why, you know the hymn," said Mrs. Kittridge, quoting +those somewhat saddusaical lines from the popular +psalm-book:—</p> + +<p style="margin-left:2em"> +"'The living know that they must die,<br /> +But all the dead forgotten lie—<br /> +<i>Their memory and their senses gone,<br /> +Alike unknowing and unknown</i>.'"<br /> +</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't know 'bout that," said Miss Roxy, flavoring +her cup of tea; "hymn-book ain't Scriptur', and I'm +pretty sure that ar ain't true always;" and she nodded her +head as if she could say more if she chose.</p> + +<p>Now Miss Roxy's reputation of vast experience in all +the facts relating to those last fateful hours, which are the +only certain event in every human existence, caused her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> +to be regarded as a sort of Delphic oracle in such matters, +and therefore Mrs. Kittridge, not without a share of the +latent superstition to which each human heart must confess +at some hours, drew confidentially near to Miss Roxy, and +asked if she had anything particular on her mind.</p> + +<p>"Well, Mis' Kittridge," said Miss Roxy, "I ain't one +of the sort as likes to make a talk of what I've seen, but +mebbe if I was, I've seen some things <i>as</i> remarkable as +anybody. I tell you, Mis' Kittridge, folks don't tend the +sick and dyin' bed year in and out, at all hours, day and +night, and not see some remarkable things; that's my +opinion."</p> + +<p>"Well, Miss Roxy, did you ever see a sperit?"</p> + +<p>"I won't say as I have, and I won't say as I haven't," +said Miss Roxy; "only as I have seen some remarkable +things."</p> + +<p>There was a pause, in which Mrs. Kittridge stirred her +tea, looking intensely curious, while the old kitchen-clock +seemed to tick with one of those fits of loud insistence +which seem to take clocks at times when all is still, as +if they had something that they were getting ready to say +pretty soon, if nobody else spoke.</p> + +<p>But Miss Roxy evidently had something to say, and so +she began:—</p> + +<p>"Mis' Kittridge, this 'ere's a very particular subject to +be talkin' of. I've had opportunities to observe that most +haven't, and I don't care if I jist say to you, that I'm +pretty sure spirits that has left the body do come to their +friends sometimes."</p> + +<p>The clock ticked with still more <i>empressement</i>, and +Mrs. Kittridge glared through the horn bows of her glasses +with eyes of eager curiosity.</p> + +<p>"Now, you remember Cap'n Titcomb's wife, that died +fifteen years ago when her husband had gone to Archangel; +and you remember that he took her son John out with him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span>—and +of all her boys, John was the one she was particular +sot on."</p> + +<p>"Yes, and John died at Archangel; I remember that."</p> + +<p>"Jes' so," said Miss Roxy, laying her hand on Mrs. +Kittridge's; "he died at Archangel the very day his mother +died, and jist the hour, for the Cap'n had it down in his +log-book."</p> + +<p>"You don't say so!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I do. Well, now," said Miss Roxy, sinking her +voice, "this 'ere was remarkable. Mis' Titcomb was one +of the fearful sort, tho' one of the best women that ever +lived. Our minister used to call her 'Mis' Muchafraid'—you +know, in the 'Pilgrim's Progress'—but he was satisfied +with her evidences, and told her so; she used to say +she was 'afraid of the dark valley,' and she told our minister +so when he went out, that ar last day he called; and +his last words, as he stood with his hand on the knob of +the door, was 'Mis' Titcomb, the Lord will find ways to +bring you thro' the dark valley.' Well, she sunk away +about three o'clock in the morning. I remember the time, +'cause the Cap'n's chronometer watch that he left with her +lay on the stand for her to take her drops by. I heard her +kind o' restless, and I went up, and I saw she was struck +with death, and she looked sort o' anxious and distressed.</p> + +<p>"'Oh, Aunt Roxy,' says she, 'it's so dark, who will go +with me?' and in a minute her whole face brightened up, +and says she, 'John is going with me,' and she jist gave +the least little sigh and never breathed no more—she jist +died as easy as a bird. I told our minister of it next morning, +and he asked if I'd made a note of the hour, and I +told him I had, and says he, 'You did right, Aunt Roxy.'"</p> + +<p>"What did he seem to think of it?"</p> + +<p>"Well, he didn't seem inclined to speak freely. 'Miss +Roxy,' says he, 'all natur's in the Lord's hands, and +there's no saying why he uses this or that; them that's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> +strong enough to go by faith, he lets 'em, but there's no +saying what he won't do for the weak ones.'"</p> + +<p>"Wa'n't the Cap'n overcome when you told him?" said +Mrs. Kittridge.</p> + +<p>"Indeed he was; he was jist as white as a sheet."</p> + +<p>Miss Roxy now proceeded to pour out another cup of +tea, and having mixed and flavored it, she looked in a +weird and sibylline manner across it, and inquired,—</p> + +<p>"Mis' Kittridge, do you remember that ar Mr. Wadkins +that come to Brunswick twenty years ago, in President +Averill's days?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I remember the pale, thin, long-nosed gentleman +that used to sit in President Averill's pew at church. +Nobody knew who he was, or where he came from. The +college students used to call him Thaddeus of Warsaw. +Nobody knew who he was but the President, 'cause he +could speak all the foreign tongues—one about as well as +another; but the President he knew his story, and said he +was a good man, and he used to stay to the sacrament regular, +I remember."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Miss Roxy, "he used to live in a room all +alone, and keep himself. Folks said he was quite a gentleman, +too, and fond of reading."</p> + +<p>"I heard Cap'n Atkins tell," said Mrs. Kittridge, "how +they came to take him up on the shores of Holland. You +see, when he was somewhere in a port in Denmark, some +men come to him and offered him a pretty good sum of +money if he'd be at such a place on the coast of Holland +on such a day, and take whoever should come. So the +Cap'n he went, and sure enough on that day there come +a troop of men on horseback down to the beach with this +man, and they all bid him good-by, and seemed to make +much of him, but he never told 'em nothin' on board ship, +only he seemed kind o' sad and pinin'."</p> + +<p>"Well," said Miss Roxy; "Ruey and I we took care o'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> +that man in his last sickness, and we watched with him +the night he died, and there was something quite remarkable."</p> + +<p>"Do tell now," said Mrs. Kittridge.</p> + +<p>"Well, you see," said Miss Roxy, "he'd been low and +poorly all day, kind o' tossin' and restless, and a little +light-headed, and the Doctor said he thought he wouldn't +last till morning, and so Ruey and I we set up with him, +and between twelve and one Ruey said she thought she'd +jist lop down a few minutes on the old sofa at the foot of +the bed, and I made me a cup of tea like as I'm a-doin' +now, and set with my back to him."</p> + +<p>"Well?" said Mrs. Kittridge, eagerly.</p> + +<p>"Well, you see he kept a-tossin' and throwin' off the +clothes, and I kept a-gettin' up to straighten 'em; and +once he threw out his arms, and something bright fell out +on to the pillow, and I went and looked, and it was a likeness +that he wore by a ribbon round his neck. It was a +woman—a real handsome one—and she had on a low-necked +black dress, of the cut they used to call Marie +Louise, and she had a string of pearls round her neck, and +her hair curled with pearls in it, and very wide blue eyes. +Well, you see, I didn't look but a minute before he seemed +to wake up, and he caught at it and hid it in his clothes. +Well, I went and sat down, and I grew kind o' sleepy +over the fire; but pretty soon I heard him speak out very +clear, and kind o' surprised, in a tongue I didn't understand, +and I looked round."</p> + +<p>Miss Roxy here made a pause, and put another lump of +sugar into her tea.</p> + +<p>"Well?" said Mrs. Kittridge, ready to burst with curiosity.</p> + +<p>"Well, now, I don't like to tell about these 'ere things, +and you mustn't never speak about it; but as sure as you +live, Polly Kittridge, I see that ar very woman standin'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> +at the back of the bed, right in the partin' of the curtains, +jist as she looked in the pictur'—blue eyes and curly hair +and pearls on her neck, and black dress."</p> + +<p>"What did you do?" said Mrs. Kittridge.</p> + +<p>"Do? Why, I jist held my breath and looked, and in +a minute it kind o' faded away, and I got up and went to +the bed, but the man was gone. He lay there with the +pleasantest smile on his face that ever you see; and I woke +up Ruey, and told her about it."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Kittridge drew a long breath. "What do you +think it was?"</p> + +<p>"Well," said Miss Roxy, "I know what I think, but I +don't think best to tell. I told Doctor Meritts, and he +said there were more things in heaven and earth than folks +knew about—and so I think."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Meanwhile, on this same evening, the little Mara frisked +like a household fairy round the hearth of Zephaniah Pennel.</p> + +<p>The boy was a strong-limbed, merry-hearted little urchin, +and did full justice to the abundant hospitalities of Mrs. +Pennel's tea-table; and after supper little Mara employed +herself in bringing apronful after apronful of her choicest +treasures, and laying them down at his feet. His great +black eyes flashed with pleasure, and he gamboled about +the hearth with his new playmate in perfect forgetfulness, +apparently, of all the past night of fear and anguish.</p> + +<p>When the great family Bible was brought out for prayers, +and little Mara composed herself on a low stool by her +grandmother's side, he, however, did not conduct himself +as a babe of grace. He resisted all Miss Ruey's efforts to +make him sit down beside her, and stood staring with his +great, black, irreverent eyes during the Bible-reading, and +laughed out in the most inappropriate manner when the +psalm-singing began, and seemed disposed to mingle incoherent +remarks of his own even in the prayers.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span></p> + +<p>"This is a pretty self-willed youngster," said Miss Ruey, +as they rose from the exercises, "and I shouldn't think +he'd been used to religious privileges."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps not," said Zephaniah Pennel; "but who can +say but what this providence is a message of the Lord to +us—such as Pharaoh's daughter sent about Moses, 'Take +this child, and bring him up for me'?"</p> + +<p>"I'd like to take him, if I thought I was capable," said +Mrs. Pennel, timidly. "It seems a real providence to give +Mara some company; the poor child pines so for want +of it."</p> + +<p>"Well, then, Mary, if you say so, we will bring him up +with our little Mara," said Zephaniah, drawing the child +toward him. "May the Lord bless him!" he added, laying +his great brown hands on the shining black curls of +the child.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2> + +<h3>MOSES</h3> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span>Sunday morning rose clear and bright on Harpswell +Bay. The whole sea was a waveless, blue looking-glass, +streaked with bands of white, and flecked with sailing +cloud-shadows from the skies above. Orr's Island, with +its blue-black spruces, its silver firs, its golden larches, its +scarlet sumachs, lay on the bosom of the deep like a great +many-colored gem on an enchanted mirror. A vague, +dreamlike sense of rest and Sabbath stillness seemed to +brood in the air. The very spruce-trees seemed to know +that it was Sunday, and to point solemnly upward with +their dusky fingers; and the small tide-waves that chased +each other up on the shelly beach, or broke against projecting +rocks, seemed to do it with a chastened decorum, +as if each blue-haired wave whispered to his brother, "Be +still—be still."</p> + +<p>Yes, Sunday it was along all the beautiful shores of +Maine—netted in green and azure by its thousand islands, +all glorious with their majestic pines, all musical and silvery +with the caresses of the sea-waves, that loved to wander +and lose themselves in their numberless shelly coves +and tiny beaches among their cedar shadows.</p> + +<p>Not merely as a burdensome restraint, or a weary endurance, +came the shadow of that Puritan Sabbath. It +brought with it all the sweetness that belongs to rest, all +the sacredness that hallows home, all the memories of patient +thrift, of sober order, of chastened yet intense family +feeling, of calmness, purity, and self-respecting dignity<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> +which distinguish the Puritan household. It seemed a +solemn pause in all the sights and sounds of earth. And +he whose moral nature was not yet enough developed to +fill the blank with visions of heaven was yet wholesomely +instructed by his weariness into the secret of his own +spiritual poverty.</p> + +<p>Zephaniah Pennel, in his best Sunday clothes, with his +hard visage glowing with a sort of interior tenderness, ministered +this morning at his family-altar—one of those +thousand priests of God's ordaining that tend the sacred +fire in as many families of New England. He had risen +with the morning star and been forth to meditate, and +came in with his mind softened and glowing. The trance-like +calm of earth and sea found a solemn answer with +him, as he read what a poet wrote by the sea-shores of the +Mediterranean, ages ago: "Bless the Lord, O my soul. O +Lord my God, thou art very great; thou art clothed with +honor and majesty. Who coverest thyself with light as +with a garment: who stretchest out the heavens like a +curtain: who layeth the beams of his chambers in the +waters: who maketh the clouds his chariot: who walketh +upon the wings of the wind. The trees of the Lord are +full of sap; the cedars of Lebanon, which he hath planted; +where the birds make their nests; as for the stork, the +fir-trees are her house. O Lord, how manifold are thy +works! in wisdom hast thou made them all."</p> + +<p>Ages ago the cedars that the poet saw have rotted into +dust, and from their cones have risen generations of others, +wide-winged and grand. But the words of that poet have +been wafted like seed to our days, and sprung up in +flowers of trust and faith in a thousand households.</p> + +<p>"Well, now," said Miss Ruey, when the morning rite +was over, "Mis' Pennel, I s'pose you and the Cap'n will +be wantin' to go to the meetin', so don't you gin yourse'ves +a mite of trouble about the children, for I'll stay at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> +home with 'em. The little feller was starty and fretful in +his sleep last night, and didn't seem to be quite well."</p> + +<p>"No wonder, poor dear," said Mrs. Pennel; "it's a +wonder children can forget as they do."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Miss Ruey; "you know them lines in the +'English Reader,'—</p> + +<p style="margin-left:2em"> +'Gay hope is theirs by fancy led,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Least pleasing when possessed;</span><br /> +The tear forgot as soon as shed,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The sunshine of the breast.'</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Them lines all'ys seemed to me affectin'."</p> + +<p>Miss Ruey's sentiment was here interrupted by a loud +cry from the bedroom, and something between a sneeze and +a howl.</p> + +<p>"Massy! what is that ar young un up to!" she exclaimed, +rushing into the adjoining bedroom.</p> + +<p>There stood the young Master Hopeful of our story, +with streaming eyes and much-bedaubed face, having just, +after much labor, succeeded in making Miss Ruey's snuff-box +fly open, which he did with such force as to send the +contents in a perfect cloud into eyes, nose, and mouth. +The scene of struggling and confusion that ensued cannot +be described. The washings, and wipings, and sobbings, +and exhortings, and the sympathetic sobs of the little Mara, +formed a small tempest for the time being that was rather +appalling.</p> + +<p>"Well, this 'ere's a youngster that's a-goin' to make +work," said Miss Ruey, when all things were tolerably restored. +"Seems to make himself at home first thing."</p> + +<p>"Poor little dear," said Mrs. Pennel, in the excess of +loving-kindness, "I hope he will; he's welcome, I'm sure."</p> + +<p>"Not to my snuff-box," said Miss Ruey, who had felt +herself attacked in a very tender point.</p> + +<p>"He's got the notion of lookin' into things pretty early," +said Captain Pennel, with an indulgent smile.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Well, Aunt Ruey," said Mrs. Pennel, when this disturbance +was somewhat abated, "I feel kind o' sorry to +deprive you of your privileges to-day."</p> + +<p>"Oh! never mind me," said Miss Ruey, briskly. +"I've got the big Bible, and I can sing a hymn or two by +myself. My voice ain't quite what it used to be, but then +I get a good deal of pleasure out of it." Aunt Ruey, it +must be known, had in her youth been one of the foremost +leaders in the "singers' seats," and now was in the habit +of speaking of herself much as a retired <i>prima donna</i> +might, whose past successes were yet in the minds of her +generation.</p> + +<p>After giving a look out of the window, to see that the +children were within sight, she opened the big Bible at the +story of the ten plagues of Egypt, and adjusting her horn +spectacles with a sort of sideway twist on her little pug +nose, she seemed intent on her Sunday duties. A moment +after she looked up and said, "I don't know but I must +send a message by you over to Mis' Deacon Badger, about +a worldly matter, if 'tis Sunday; but I've been thinkin', +Mis' Pennel, that there'll have to be clothes made up for +this 'ere child next week, and so perhaps Roxy and I had +better stop here a day or two longer, and you tell Mis' +Badger that we'll come to her a Wednesday, and so she'll +have time to have that new press-board done,—the old +one used to pester me so."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'll remember," said Mrs. Pennel.</p> + +<p>"It seems a'most impossible to prevent one's thoughts +wanderin' Sundays," said Aunt Ruey; "but I couldn't +help a-thinkin' I could get such a nice pair o' trousers out +of them old Sunday ones of the Cap'n's in the garret. I +was a-lookin' at 'em last Thursday, and thinkin' what a +pity 'twas you hadn't nobody to cut down for; but this +'ere young un's going to be such a tearer, he'll want somethin' +real stout; but I'll try and put it out of my mind<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> +till Monday. Mis' Pennel, you'll be sure to ask Mis' +Titcomb how Harriet's toothache is, and whether them +drops cured her that I gin her last Sunday; and ef you'll +jist look in a minute at Major Broad's, and tell 'em to use +bayberry wax for his blister, it's so healin'; and do jist +ask if Sally's baby's eye-tooth has come through yet."</p> + +<p>"Well, Aunt Ruey, I'll try to remember all," said Mrs. +Pennel, as she stood at the glass in her bedroom, carefully +adjusting the respectable black silk shawl over her shoulders, +and tying her neat bonnet-strings.</p> + +<p>"I s'pose," said Aunt Ruey, "that the notice of the +funeral'll be gin out after sermon."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I think so," said Mrs. Pennel.</p> + +<p>"It's another loud call," said Miss Ruey, "and I hope +it will turn the young people from their thoughts of dress +and vanity,—there's Mary Jane Sanborn was all took up +with gettin' feathers and velvet for her fall bonnet. I +don't think I shall get no bonnet this year till snow comes. +My bonnet's respectable enough,—don't you think so?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly, Aunt Ruey, it looks very well."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'll have the pork and beans and brown-bread +all hot on table agin you come back," said Miss Ruey, +"and then after dinner we'll all go down to the funeral +together. Mis' Pennel, there's one thing on my mind,—what +you goin' to call this 'ere boy?"</p> + +<p>"Father and I've been thinkin' that over," said Mrs. +Pennel.</p> + +<p>"Wouldn't think of giv'n him the Cap'n's name?" said +Aunt Ruey.</p> + +<p>"He must have a name of his own," said Captain Pennel. +"Come here, sonny," he called to the child, who +was playing just beside the door.</p> + +<p>The child lowered his head, shook down his long black +curls, and looked through them as elfishly as a Skye terrier, +but showed no inclination to come.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span></p> + +<p>"One thing he hasn't learned, evidently," said Captain +Pennel, "and that is to mind."</p> + +<p>"Here!" he said, turning to the boy with a little of +the tone he had used of old on the quarter-deck, and taking +his small hand firmly.</p> + +<p>The child surrendered, and let the good man lift him on +his knee and stroke aside the clustering curls; the boy +then looked fixedly at him with his great gloomy black +eyes, his little firm-set mouth and bridled chin,—a perfect +little miniature of proud manliness.</p> + +<p>"What's your name, little boy?"</p> + +<p>The great eyes continued looking in the same solemn +quiet.</p> + +<p>"Law, he don't understand a word," said Zephaniah, +putting his hand kindly on the child's head; "our tongue +is all strange to him. Kittridge says he's a Spanish child; +may be from the West Indies; but nobody knows,—we +never shall know his name."</p> + +<p>"Well, I dare say it was some Popish nonsense or +other," said Aunt Ruey; "and now he's come to a land of +Christian privileges, we ought to give him a good Scripture +name, and start him well in the world."</p> + +<p>"Let's call him Moses," said Zephaniah, "because we +drew him out of the water."</p> + +<p>"Now, did I ever!" said Miss Ruey; "there's something +in the Bible to fit everything, ain't there?"</p> + +<p>"I like Moses, because I had a brother of that name," +said Mrs. Pennel.</p> + +<p>The child had slid down from his protector's knee, +and stood looking from one to the other gravely while +this discussion was going on. What change of destiny +was then going on for him in this simple formula of adoption, +none could tell; but, surely, never orphan stranded +on a foreign shore found home with hearts more true and +loving.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Well, wife, I suppose we must be goin'," said Zephaniah.</p> + +<p>About a stone's throw from the open door, the little +fishing-craft lay courtesying daintily on the small tide-waves +that came licking up the white pebbly shore. Mrs. +Pennel seated herself in the end of the boat, and a pretty +placid picture she was, with her smooth, parted hair, her +modest, cool, drab bonnet, and her bright hazel eyes, in +which was the Sabbath calm of a loving and tender heart. +Zephaniah loosed the sail, and the two children stood on +the beach and saw them go off. A pleasant little wind +carried them away, and back on the breeze came the sound +of Zephaniah's Sunday-morning psalm:—</p> + +<p style="margin-left:2em"> +"Lord, in the morning thou shalt hear<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">My voice ascending high;</span><br /> +To thee will I direct my prayer,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To thee lift up mine eye.</span><br /> +<br /> +"Unto thy house will I resort.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To taste thy mercies there;</span><br /> +I will frequent thy holy court,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And worship in thy fear."</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The surface of the glassy bay was dotted here and there +with the white sails of other little craft bound for the same +point and for the same purpose. It was as pleasant a sight +as one might wish to see.</p> + +<p>Left in charge of the house, Miss Ruey drew a long +breath, took a consoling pinch of snuff, sang "Bridgewater" +in an uncommonly high key, and then began reading in +the prophecies. With her good head full of the "daughter +of Zion" and the house of Israel and Judah, she was +recalled to terrestrial things by loud screams from the barn, +accompanied by a general flutter and cackling among the +hens.</p> + +<p>Away plodded the good soul, and opening the barn-door +saw the little boy perched on the top of the hay-mow, +screaming and shrieking,—his face the picture of dismay,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span>—while poor little Mara's cries came in a more muffled +manner from some unexplored lower region. In fact, she +was found to have slipped through a hole in the hay-mow +into the nest of a very domestic sitting-hen, whose clamors +at the invasion of her family privacy added no little to the +general confusion.</p> + +<p>The little princess, whose nicety as to her dress and sensitiveness +as to anything unpleasant about her pretty person +we have seen, was lifted up streaming with tears and +broken eggs, but otherwise not seriously injured, having +fallen on the very substantial substratum of hay which +Dame Poulet had selected as the foundation of her domestic +hopes.</p> + +<p>"Well, now, did I ever!" said Miss Ruey, when she +had ascertained that no bones were broken; "if that ar +young un isn't a limb! I declare for't I pity Mis' Pennel,—she +don't know what she's undertook. How upon +'arth the critter managed to get Mara on to the hay, I'm +sure I can't tell,—that ar little thing never got into no +such scrapes before."</p> + +<p>Far from seeming impressed with any wholesome remorse +of conscience, the little culprit frowned fierce defiance at +Miss Ruey, when, after having repaired the damages of +little Mara's toilet, she essayed the good old plan of shutting +him into the closet. He fought and struggled so +fiercely that Aunt Ruey's carroty frisette came off in the +skirmish, and her head-gear, always rather original, assumed +an aspect verging on the supernatural. Miss Ruey +thought of Philistines and Moabites, and all the other terrible +people she had been reading about that morning, and +came as near getting into a passion with the little elf as so +good-humored and Christian an old body could possibly do. +Human virtue is frail, and every one has some vulnerable +point. The old Roman senator could not control himself +when his beard was invaded, and the like sensitiveness<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> +resides in an old woman's cap; and when young master +irreverently clawed off her Sunday best, Aunt Ruey, in her +confusion of mind, administered a sound cuff on either ear.</p> + +<p>Little Mara, who had screamed loudly through the +whole scene, now conceiving that her precious new-found +treasure was endangered, flew at poor Miss Ruey with +both little hands; and throwing her arms round her "boy," +as she constantly called him, she drew him backward, and +looked defiance at the common enemy. Miss Ruey was +dumb-struck.</p> + +<p>"I declare for't, I b'lieve he's bewitched her," she +said, stupefied, having never seen anything like the martial +expression which now gleamed from those soft brown eyes. +"Why, Mara dear,—putty little Mara."</p> + +<p>But Mara was busy wiping away the angry tears that +stood on the hot, glowing cheeks of the boy, and offering +her little rosebud of a mouth to kiss him, as she stood on +tiptoe.</p> + +<p>"Poor boy,—no kie,—Mara's boy," she said; "Mara +love boy;" and then giving an angry glance at Aunt Ruey, +who sat much disheartened and confused, she struck out +her little pearly hand, and cried, "Go way,—go way, +naughty!"</p> + +<p>The child jabbered unintelligibly and earnestly to Mara, +and she seemed to have the air of being perfectly satisfied +with his view of the case, and both regarded Miss Ruey +with frowning looks. Under these peculiar circumstances, +the good soul began to bethink her of some mode of compromise, +and going to the closet took out a couple of slices +of cake, which she offered to the little rebels with pacificatory +words.</p> + +<p>Mara was appeased at once, and ran to Aunt Ruey; but +the boy struck the cake out of her hand, and looked at her +with steady defiance. The little one picked it up, and +with much chippering and many little feminine manœuvres,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> +at last succeeded in making him taste it, after which appetite +got the better of his valorous resolutions,—he ate and +was comforted; and after a little time, the three were on +the best possible footing. And Miss Ruey having smoothed +her hair, and arranged her frisette and cap, began to reflect +upon herself as the cause of the whole disturbance. If she +had not let them run while she indulged in reading and +singing, this would not have happened. So the toilful +good soul kept them at her knee for the next hour or two, +while they looked through all the pictures in the old family +Bible.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The evening of that day witnessed a crowded funeral in +the small rooms of Captain Kittridge. Mrs. Kittridge was +in her glory. Solemn and lugubrious to the last degree, +she supplied in her own proper person the want of the +whole corps of mourners, who generally attract sympathy +on such occasions. But what drew artless pity from all +was the unconscious orphan, who came in, led by Mrs. +Pennel by the one hand, and with the little Mara by the +other.</p> + +<p>The simple rite of baptism administered to the wondering +little creature so strongly recalled that other scene three +years before, that Mrs. Pennel hid her face in her handkerchief, +and Zephaniah's firm hand shook a little as he took +the boy to offer him to the rite. The child received the +ceremony with a look of grave surprise, put up his hand +quickly and wiped the holy drops from his brow, as if they +annoyed him; and shrinking back, seized hold of the gown +of Mrs. Pennel. His great beauty, and, still more, the +air of haughty, defiant firmness with which he regarded the +company, drew all eyes, and many were the whispered +comments.</p> + +<p>"Pennel'll have his hands full with that ar chap," said +Captain Kittridge to Miss Roxy.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span></p> + +<p>Mrs. Kittridge darted an admonitory glance at her husband, +to remind him that she was looking at him, and immediately +he collapsed into solemnity.</p> + +<p>The evening sunbeams slanted over the blackberry bushes +and mullein stalks of the graveyard, when the lonely voyager +was lowered to the rest from which she should not rise +till the heavens be no more. As the purple sea at that +hour retained no trace of the ships that had furrowed its +waves, so of this mortal traveler no trace remained, not +even in that infant soul that was to her so passionately +dear.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2> + +<h3>THE MINISTER</h3> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span>Mrs. Kittridge's advantages and immunities resulting +from the shipwreck were not yet at an end. Not only +had one of the most "solemn providences" known within +the memory of the neighborhood fallen out at her door,—not +only had the most interesting funeral that had occurred +for three or four years taken place in her parlor, but she +was still further to be distinguished in having the minister +to tea after the performances were all over. To this end +she had risen early, and taken down her best china tea-cups, +which had been marked with her and her husband's +joint initials in Canton, and which only came forth on high +and solemn occasions. In view of this probable distinction, +on Saturday, immediately after the discovery of the +calamity, Mrs. Kittridge had found time to rush to her +kitchen, and make up a loaf of pound-cake and some +doughnuts, that the great occasion which she foresaw might +not find her below her reputation as a forehanded housewife.</p> + +<p>It was a fine golden hour when the minister and funeral +train turned away from the grave. Unlike other funerals, +there was no draught on the sympathies in favor of mourners—no +wife, or husband, or parent, left a heart in that +grave; and so when the rites were all over, they turned +with the more cheerfulness back into life, from the contrast +of its freshness with those shadows into which, for +the hour, they had been gazing.</p> + +<p>The Rev. Theophilus Sewell was one of the few minis<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span>ters +who preserved the costume of a former generation, +with something of that imposing dignity with which, in +earlier times, the habits of the clergy were invested. He +was tall and majestic in stature, and carried to advantage +the powdered wig and three-cornered hat, the broad-skirted +coat, knee-breeches, high shoes, and plated buckles of the +ancient costume. There was just a sufficient degree of the +formality of olden times to give a certain quaintness to all +he said and did. He was a man of a considerable degree +of talent, force, and originality, and in fact had been held +in his day to be one of the most promising graduates of +Harvard University. But, being a good man, he had proposed +to himself no higher ambition than to succeed to the +pulpit of his father in Harpswell.</p> + +<p>His parish included not only a somewhat scattered seafaring +population on the mainland, but also the care of +several islands. Like many other of the New England +clergy of those times, he united in himself numerous different +offices for the benefit of the people whom he served. +As there was neither lawyer nor physician in the town, he +had acquired by his reading, and still more by his experience, +enough knowledge in both these departments to +enable him to administer to the ordinary wants of a very +healthy and peaceable people.</p> + +<p>It was said that most of the deeds and legal conveyances +in his parish were in his handwriting, and in the medical +line his authority was only rivaled by that of Miss Roxy, +who claimed a very obvious advantage over him in a certain +class of cases, from the fact of her being a woman, +which was still further increased by the circumstance that +the good man had retained steadfastly his bachelor estate. +"So, of course," Miss Roxy used to say, "poor man! what +could he know about a woman, you know?"</p> + +<p>This state of bachelorhood gave occasion to much surmising; +but when spoken to about it, he was accustomed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> +to remark with gallantry, that he should have too much +regard for any lady whom he could think of as a wife, to +ask her to share his straitened circumstances. His income, +indeed, consisted of only about two hundred dollars a year; +but upon this he and a very brisk, cheerful maiden sister +contrived to keep up a thrifty and comfortable establishment, +in which everything appeared to be pervaded by a +spirit of quaint cheerfulness.</p> + +<p>In fact, the man might be seen to be an original in his +way, and all the springs of his life were kept oiled by a +quiet humor, which sometimes broke out in playful sparkles, +despite the gravity of the pulpit and the awfulness +of the cocked hat. He had a placid way of amusing himself +with the quaint and picturesque side of life, as it +appeared in all his visitings among a very primitive, yet +very shrewd-minded people.</p> + +<p>There are those people who possess a peculiar faculty of +mingling in the affairs of this life as spectators as well as +actors. It does not, of course, suppose any coldness of +nature or want of human interest or sympathy—nay, it +often exists most completely with people of the tenderest +human feeling. It rather seems to be a kind of distinct +faculty working harmoniously with all the others; but he +who possesses it needs never to be at a loss for interest or +amusement; he is always a spectator at a tragedy or comedy, +and sees in real life a humor and a pathos beyond +anything he can find shadowed in books.</p> + +<p>Mr. Sewell sometimes, in his pastoral visitations, took +a quiet pleasure in playing upon these simple minds, and +amusing himself with the odd harmonies and singular resolutions +of chords which started out under his fingers. +Surely he had a right to something in addition to his limited +salary, and this innocent, unsuspected entertainment +helped to make up the balance for his many labors.</p> + +<p>His sister was one of the best-hearted and most unsus<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span>picious +of the class of female idolaters, and worshiped her +brother with the most undoubting faith and devotion—wholly +ignorant of the constant amusement she gave him +by a thousand little feminine peculiarities, which struck +him with a continual sense of oddity. It was infinitely +diverting to him to see the solemnity of her interest in his +shirts and stockings, and Sunday clothes, and to listen to +the subtle distinctions which she would draw between best +and second-best, and every-day; to receive her somewhat +prolix admonition how he was to demean himself in respect +of the wearing of each one; for Miss Emily Sewell was a +gentlewoman, and held rigidly to various traditions of gentility +which had been handed down in the Sewell family, +and which afforded her brother too much quiet amusement +to be disturbed. He would not have overthrown one of +her quiddities for the world; it would be taking away a +part of his capital in existence.</p> + +<p>Miss Emily was a trim, genteel little person, with dancing +black eyes, and cheeks which had the roses of youth +well dried into them. It was easy to see that she had been +quite pretty in her days; and her neat figure, her brisk +little vivacious ways, her unceasing good-nature and kindness +of heart, still made her an object both of admiration +and interest in the parish. She was great in drying herbs +and preparing recipes; in knitting and sewing, and cutting +and contriving; in saving every possible snip and chip +either of food or clothing; and no less liberal was she in +bestowing advice and aid in the parish, where she moved +about with all the sense of consequence which her brother's +position warranted.</p> + +<p>The fact of his bachelorhood caused his relations to the +female part of his flock to be even more shrouded in sacredness +and mystery than is commonly the case with the great +man of the parish; but Miss Emily delighted to act as +interpreter. She was charmed to serve out to the willing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> +ears of his parish from time to time such scraps of information +as regarded his life, habits, and opinions as might +gratify their ever new curiosity. Instructed by her, all +the good wives knew the difference between his very best +long silk stocking and his second best, and how carefully +the first had to be kept under lock and key, where he +could not get at them; for he was understood, good as he +was, to have concealed in him all the thriftless and pernicious +inconsiderateness of the male nature, ready at any +moment to break out into unheard-of improprieties. But +the good man submitted himself to Miss Emily's rule, and +suffered himself to be led about by her with an air of half +whimsical consciousness.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Kittridge that day had felt the full delicacy of the +compliment when she ascertained by a hasty glance, before +the first prayer, that the good man had been brought out +to her funeral in all his very best things, not excepting the +long silk stockings, for she knew the second-best pair by +means of a certain skillful darn which Miss Emily had once +shown her, which commemorated the spot where a hole +had been. The absence of this darn struck to Mrs. Kittridge's +heart at once as a delicate attention.</p> + +<p>"Mis' Simpkins," said Mrs. Kittridge to her pastor, as +they were seated at the tea-table, "told me that she wished +when you were going home that you would call in to see +Mary Jane; she couldn't come out to the funeral on account +of a dreffle sore throat. I was tellin' on her to gargle +it with blackberry-root tea—don't you think that is a +good gargle, Mr. Sewell?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I think it a very good gargle," replied the minister, +gravely.</p> + +<p>"Ma'sh rosemary is the gargle that I always use," said +Miss Roxy; "it cleans out your throat so."</p> + +<p>"Marsh rosemary is a very excellent gargle," said Mr. +Sewell.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Why, brother, don't you think that rose leaves and +vitriol is a good gargle?" said little Miss Emily; "I +always thought that you liked rose leaves and vitriol for +a gargle."</p> + +<p>"So I do," said the imperturbable Mr. Sewell, drinking +his tea with the air of a sphinx.</p> + +<p>"Well, now, you'll have to tell which on 'em will be +most likely to cure Mary Jane," said Captain Kittridge, +"or there'll be a pullin' of caps, I'm thinkin'; or else the +poor girl will have to drink them all, which is generally +the way."</p> + +<p>"There won't any of them cure Mary Jane's throat," +said the minister, quietly.</p> + +<p>"Why, brother!" "Why, Mr. Sewell!" "Why, you +don't!" burst in different tones from each of the women.</p> + +<p>"I thought you said that blackberry-root tea was good," +said Mrs. Kittridge.</p> + +<p>"I understood that you 'proved of ma'sh rosemary," +said Miss Roxy, touched in her professional pride.</p> + +<p>"And I am sure, brother, that I have heard you say, +often and often, that there wasn't a better gargle than rose +leaves and vitriol," said Miss Emily.</p> + +<p>"You are quite right, ladies, all of you. I think these +are all good gargles—excellent ones."</p> + +<p>"But I thought you said that they didn't do any good?" +said all the ladies in a breath.</p> + +<p>"No, they don't—not the least in the world," said Mr. +Sewell; "but they are all excellent gargles, and as long as +people must have gargles, I think one is about as good as +another."</p> + +<p>"Now you have got it," said Captain Kittridge.</p> + +<p>"Brother, you do say the strangest things," said Miss +Emily.</p> + +<p>"Well, I must say," said Miss Roxy, "it is a new idea +to me, long as I've been nussin', and I nussed through one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> +season of scarlet fever when sometimes there was five died +in one house; and if ma'sh rosemary didn't do good then, +I should like to know what did."</p> + +<p>"So would a good many others," said the minister.</p> + +<p>"Law, now, Miss Roxy, you mus'n't mind him. Do +you know that I believe he says these sort of things just +to hear us talk? Of course he wouldn't think of puttin' +his experience against yours."</p> + +<p>"But, Mis' Kittridge," said Miss Emily, with a view of +summoning a less controverted subject, "what a beautiful +little boy that was, and what a striking providence that +brought him into such a good family!"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Mrs. Kittridge; "but I'm sure I don't see +what Mary Pennel is goin' to do with that boy, for she +ain't got no more government than a twisted tow-string."</p> + +<p>"Oh, the Cap'n, he'll lend a hand," said Miss Roxy, +"it won't be easy gettin' roun' him; Cap'n bears a pretty +steady hand when he sets out to drive."</p> + +<p>"Well," said Miss Emily, "I do think that bringin' +up children is the most awful responsibility, and I always +wonder when I hear that any one dares to undertake it."</p> + +<p>"It requires a great deal of resolution, certainly," said +Mrs. Kittridge; "I'm sure I used to get a'most discouraged +when my boys was young: they was a reg'lar set of +wild ass's colts," she added, not perceiving the reflection +on their paternity.</p> + +<p>But the countenance of Mr. Sewell was all aglow with +merriment, which did not break into a smile.</p> + +<p>"Wal', Mis' Kittridge," said the Captain, "strikes me +that you're gettin' pussonal."</p> + +<p>"No, I ain't neither," said the literal Mrs. Kittridge, +ignorant of the cause of the amusement which she saw +around her; "but you wa'n't no help to me, you know; +you was always off to sea, and the whole wear and tear +on't came on me."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Well, well, Polly, all's well that ends well; don't you +think so, Mr. Sewell?"</p> + +<p>"I haven't much experience in these matters," said Mr. +Sewell, politely.</p> + +<p>"No, indeed, that's what he hasn't, for he never will +have a child round the house that he don't turn everything +topsy-turvy for them," said Miss Emily.</p> + +<p>"But I was going to remark," said Mr. Sewell, "that a +friend of mine said once, that the woman that had brought +up six boys deserved a seat among the martyrs; and that +is rather my opinion."</p> + +<p>"Wal', Polly, if you git up there, I hope you'll keep a +seat for me."</p> + +<p>"Cap'n Kittridge, what levity!" said his wife.</p> + +<p>"I didn't begin it, anyhow," said the Captain.</p> + +<p>Miss Emily interposed, and led the conversation back to +the subject. "What a pity it is," she said, "that this poor +child's family can never know anything about him. There +may be those who would give all the world to know what +has become of him; and when he comes to grow up, how +sad he will feel to have no father and mother!"</p> + +<p>"Sister," said Mr. Sewell, "you cannot think that a child +brought up by Captain Pennel and his wife would ever feel +as without father and mother."</p> + +<p>"Why, no, brother, to be sure not. There's no doubt +he will have everything done for him that a child could. +But then it's a loss to lose one's real home."</p> + +<p>"It may be a gracious deliverance," said Mr. Sewell—"who +knows? We may as well take a cheerful view, and +think that some kind wave has drifted the child away from +an unfortunate destiny to a family where we are quite sure +he will be brought up industriously and soberly, and in +the fear of God."</p> + +<p>"Well, I never thought of that," said Miss Roxy.</p> + +<p>Miss Emily, looking at her brother, saw that he was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> +speaking with a suppressed vehemence, as if some inner +fountain of recollection at the moment were disturbed. But +Miss Emily knew no more of the deeper parts of her brother's +nature than a little bird that dips its beak into the +sunny waters of some spring knows of its depths of coldness +and shadow.</p> + +<p>"Mis' Pennel was a-sayin' to me," said Mrs. Kittridge, +"that I should ask you what was to be done about the +bracelet they found. We don't know whether 'tis real +gold and precious stones, or only glass and pinchbeck. +Cap'n Kittridge he thinks it's real; and if 'tis, why then +the question is, whether or no to try to sell it, or keep it +for the boy agin he grows up. It may help find out who +and what he is."</p> + +<p>"And why should he want to find out?" said Mr. +Sewell. "Why should he not grow up and think himself +the son of Captain and Mrs. Pennel? What better lot +could a boy be born to?"</p> + +<p>"That may be, brother, but it can't be kept from him. +Everybody knows how he was found, and you may be sure +every bird of the air will tell him, and he'll grow up restless +and wanting to know. Mis' Kittridge, have you got +the bracelet handy?"</p> + +<p>The fact was, little Miss Emily was just dying with +curiosity to set her dancing black eyes upon it.</p> + +<p>"Here it is," said Mrs. Kittridge, taking it from a +drawer.</p> + +<p>It was a bracelet of hair, of some curious foreign workmanship. +A green enameled serpent, studded thickly with +emeralds and with eyes of ruby, was curled around the +clasp. A crystal plate covered a wide flat braid of hair, on +which the letters "D.M." were curiously embroidered in a +cipher of seed pearls. The whole was in style and workmanship +quite different from any jewelry which ordinarily +meets one's eye.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span></p> + +<p>But what was remarkable was the expression in Mr. +Sewell's face when this bracelet was put into his hand. +Miss Emily had risen from table and brought it to him, +leaning over him as she did so, and he turned his head a +little to hold it in the light from the window, so that only +she remarked the sudden expression of blank surprise and +startled recognition which fell upon it. He seemed like a +man who chokes down an exclamation; and rising hastily, +he took the bracelet to the window, and standing with his +back to the company, seemed to examine it with the +minutest interest. After a few moments he turned and +said, in a very composed tone, as if the subject were of no +particular interest,—</p> + +<p>"It is a singular article, so far as workmanship is concerned. +The value of the gems in themselves is not great +enough to make it worth while to sell it. It will be worth +more as a curiosity than anything else. It will doubtless +be an interesting relic to keep for the boy when he grows +up."</p> + +<p>"Well, Mr. Sewell, you keep it," said Mrs. Kittridge; +"the Pennels told me to give it into your care."</p> + +<p>"I shall commit it to Emily here; women have a native +sympathy with anything in the jewelry line. She'll be +sure to lay it up so securely that she won't even know +where it is herself."</p> + +<p>"Brother!"</p> + +<p>"Come, Emily," said Mr. Sewell, "your hens will all +go to roost on the wrong perch if you are not at home to +see to them; so, if the Captain will set us across to Harpswell, +I think we may as well be going."</p> + +<p>"Why, what's your hurry?" said Mrs. Kittridge.</p> + +<p>"Well," said Mr. Sewell, "firstly, there's the hens; +secondly, the pigs; and lastly, the cow. Besides I shouldn't +wonder if some of Emily's admirers should call on her +this evening,—never any saying when Captain Broad may +come in."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Now, brother, you are too bad," said Miss Emily, as +she bustled about her bonnet and shawl. "Now, that's +all made up out of whole cloth. Captain Broad called last +week a Monday, to talk to you about the pews, and hardly +spoke a word to me. You oughtn't to say such things, +'cause it raises reports."</p> + +<p>"Ah, well, then, I won't again," said her brother. "I +believe, after all, it was Captain Badger that called twice."</p> + +<p>"Brother!"</p> + +<p>"And left you a basket of apples the second time."</p> + +<p>"Brother, you know he only called to get some of my +hoarhound for Mehitable's cough."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, I remember."</p> + +<p>"If you don't take care," said Miss Emily, "I'll tell +where you call."</p> + +<p>"Come, Miss Emily, you must not mind him," said +Miss Roxy; "we all know his ways."</p> + +<p>And now took place the grand leave-taking, which consisted +first of the three women's standing in a knot and all +talking at once, as if their very lives depended upon saying +everything they could possibly think of before they +separated, while Mr. Sewell and Captain Kittridge stood +patiently waiting with the resigned air which the male sex +commonly assume on such occasions; and when, after two +or three "Come, Emily's," the group broke up only to form +again on the door-step, where they were at it harder than +ever, and a third occasion of the same sort took place at the +bottom of the steps, Mr. Sewell was at last obliged by main +force to drag his sister away in the middle of a sentence.</p> + +<p>Miss Emily watched her brother shrewdly all the way +home, but all traces of any uncommon feeling had passed +away; and yet, with the restlessness of female curiosity, +she felt quite sure that she had laid hold of the end of some +skein of mystery, could she only find skill enough to unwind +it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span></p> + +<p>She took up the bracelet, and held it in the fading evening +light, and broke into various observations with regard +to the singularity of the workmanship. Her brother seemed +entirely absorbed in talking with Captain Kittridge about +the brig Anna Maria, which was going to be launched from +Pennel's wharf next Wednesday. But she, therefore, +internally resolved to lie in wait for the secret in that confidential +hour which usually preceded going to bed. Therefore, +as soon as she had arrived at their quiet dwelling, +she put in operation the most seducing little fire that ever +crackled and snapped in a chimney, well knowing that nothing +was more calculated to throw light into any hidden +or concealed chamber of the soul than that enlivening blaze, +which danced so merrily on her well-polished andirons, and +made the old chintz sofa and the time-worn furniture so +rich in remembrances of family comfort.</p> + +<p>She then proceeded to divest her brother of his wig and +his dress-coat, and to induct him into the flowing ease of +a study-gown, crowning his well-shaven head with a black +cap, and placing his slippers before the corner of a sofa +nearest the fire. She observed him with satisfaction sliding +into his seat, and then she trotted to a closet with a glass +door in the corner of the room, and took down an old, +quaintly-shaped silver cup, which had been an heirloom in +their family, and was the only piece of plate which their +modern domestic establishment could boast; and with this, +down cellar she tripped, her little heels tapping lightly on +each stair, and the hum of a song coming back after her as +she sought the cider-barrel. Up again she came, and set +the silver cup, with its clear amber contents, down by the +fire, and then busied herself in making just the crispest, +nicest square of toast to be eaten with it; for Miss Emily +had conceived the idea that some little ceremony of this sort +was absolutely necessary to do away all possible ill effects +from a day's labor, and secure an uninterrupted night's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> +repose. Having done all this, she took her knitting-work, +and stationed herself just opposite to her brother.</p> + +<p>It was fortunate for Miss Emily that the era of daily +journals had not yet arisen upon the earth, because if it had, +after all her care and pains, her brother would probably +have taken up the evening paper, and holding it between +his face and her, have read an hour or so in silence; but +Mr. Sewell had not this resort. He knew perfectly well +that he had excited his sister's curiosity on a subject +where he could not gratify it, and therefore he took refuge +in a kind of mild, abstracted air of quietude which bid +defiance to all her little suggestions.</p> + +<p>After in vain trying every indirect form, Miss Emily +approached the subject more pointedly. "I thought that +you looked very much interested in that poor woman to-day."</p> + +<p>"She had an interesting face," said her brother, dryly.</p> + +<p>"Was it like anybody that you ever saw?" said Miss +Emily.</p> + +<p>Her brother did not seem to hear her, but, taking the +tongs, picked up the two ends of a stick that had just fallen +apart, and arranged them so as to make a new blaze.</p> + +<p>Miss Emily was obliged to repeat her question, whereat +he started as one awakened out of a dream, and said,—</p> + +<p>"Why, yes, he didn't know but she did; there were a +good many women with black eyes and black hair,—Mrs. +Kittridge, for instance."</p> + +<p>"Why, I don't think that she looked like Mrs. Kittridge +in the least," said Miss Emily, warmly.</p> + +<p>"Oh, well! I didn't say she did," said her brother, +looking drowsily at his watch; "why, Emily, it's getting +rather late."</p> + +<p>"What made you look so when I showed you that bracelet?" +said Miss Emily, determined now to push the war to +the heart of the enemy's country.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Look how?" said her brother, leisurely moistening a +bit of toast in his cider.</p> + +<p>"Why, I never saw anybody look more wild and astonished +than you did for a minute or two."</p> + +<p>"I did, did I?" said her brother, in the same indifferent +tone. "My dear child, what an active imagination you +have. Did you ever look through a prism, Emily?"</p> + +<p>"Why, no, Theophilus; what do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"Well, if you should, you would see everybody and +everything with a nice little bordering of rainbow around +them; now the rainbow isn't on the things, but in the +prism."</p> + +<p>"Well, what's that to the purpose?" said Miss Emily, +rather bewildered.</p> + +<p>"Why, just this: you women are so nervous and excitable, +that you are very apt to see your friends and the +world in general with some coloring just as unreal. I am +sorry for you, childie, but really I can't help you to get up +a romance out of this bracelet. Well, good-night, Emily; +take good care of yourself and go to bed;" and Mr. Sewell +went to his room, leaving poor Miss Emily almost persuaded +out of the sight of her own eyes.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2> + +<h3>LITTLE ADVENTURERS</h3> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span>The little boy who had been added to the family of +Zephaniah Pennel and his wife soon became a source of +grave solicitude to that mild and long-suffering woman. +For, as the reader may have seen, he was a resolute, self-willed +little elf, and whatever his former life may have +been, it was quite evident that these traits had been developed +without any restraint.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Pennel, whose whole domestic experience had consisted +in rearing one very sensitive and timid daughter, +who needed for her development only an extreme of tenderness, +and whose conscientiousness was a law unto herself, +stood utterly confounded before the turbulent little +spirit to which her loving-kindness had opened so ready an +asylum, and she soon discovered that it is one thing to take +a human being to bring up, and another to know what to +do with it after it is taken.</p> + +<p>The child had the instinctive awe of Zephaniah which his +manly nature and habits of command were fitted to inspire, +so that morning and evening, when he was at home, he +was demure enough; but while the good man was away all +day, and sometimes on fishing excursions which often lasted +a week, there was a chronic state of domestic warfare—a +succession of skirmishes, pitched battles, long treaties, with +divers articles of capitulation, ending, as treaties are apt to +do, in open rupture on the first convenient opportunity.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Pennel sometimes reflected with herself mournfully, +and with many self-disparaging sighs, what was the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> +reason that young master somehow contrived to keep her +far more in awe of him than he was of her. Was she not +evidently, as yet at least, bigger and stronger than he, able +to hold his rebellious little hands, to lift and carry him, +and to shut him up, if so she willed, in a dark closet, and +even to administer to him that discipline of the birch which +Mrs. Kittridge often and forcibly recommended as the great +secret of her family prosperity? Was it not her duty, as +everybody told her, to break his will while he was young?—a +duty which hung like a millstone round the peaceable +creature's neck, and weighed her down with a distressing +sense of responsibility.</p> + +<p>Now, Mrs. Pennel was one of the people to whom self-sacrifice +is constitutionally so much a nature, that self-denial +for her must have consisted in standing up for her +own rights, or having her own way when it crossed the +will and pleasure of any one around her. All she wanted +of a child, or in fact of any human creature, was something +to love and serve. We leave it entirely to theologians to +reconcile such facts with the theory of total depravity; but +it is a fact that there are a considerable number of women +of this class. Their life would flow on very naturally if +it might consist only in giving, never in withholding—only +in praise, never in blame—only in acquiescence, never +in conflict; and the chief comfort of such women in religion +is that it gives them at last an object for love without +criticism, and for whom the utmost degree of self-abandonment +is not idolatry, but worship.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Pennel would gladly have placed herself and all she +possessed at the disposition of the children; they might +have broken her china, dug in the garden with her silver +spoons, made turf alleys in her best room, drummed on her +mahogany tea-table, filled her muslin drawer with their +choicest shells and seaweed; only Mrs. Pennel knew that +such kindness was no kindness, and that in the dreadful<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> +word responsibility, familiar to every New England mother's +ear, there lay an awful summons to deny and to conflict +where she could so much easier have conceded.</p> + +<p>She saw that the tyrant little will would reign without +mercy, if it reigned at all; and ever present with her was +the uneasy sense that it was her duty to bring this erratic +little comet within the laws of a well-ordered solar system,—a +task to which she felt about as competent as to make +a new ring for Saturn. Then, too, there was a secret feeling, +if the truth must be told, of what Mrs. Kittridge +would think about it; for duty is never more formidable +than when she gets on the cap and gown of a neighbor; +and Mrs. Kittridge, with her resolute voice and declamatory +family government, had always been a secret source of +uneasiness to poor Mrs. Pennel, who was one of those sensitive +souls who can feel for a mile or more the sphere of +a stronger neighbor. During all the years that they had +lived side by side, there had been this shadowy, unconfessed +feeling on the part of poor Mrs. Pennel, that Mrs. +Kittridge thought her deficient in her favorite virtue of +"resolution," as, in fact, in her inmost soul she knew she +was;—but who wants to have one's weak places looked +into by the sharp eyes of a neighbor who is strong precisely +where we are weak? The trouble that one neighbor may +give to another, simply by living within a mile of one, is +incredible; but until this new accession to her family, Mrs. +Pennel had always been able to comfort herself with the +idea that the child under her particular training was as +well-behaved as any of those of her more demonstrative +friend. But now, all this consolation had been put to +flight; she could not meet Mrs. Kittridge without most +humiliating recollections.</p> + +<p>On Sundays, when those sharp black eyes gleamed upon +her through the rails of the neighboring pew, her very soul +shrank within her, as she recollected all the compromises<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> +and defeats of the week before. It seemed to her that +Mrs. Kittridge saw it all,—how she had ingloriously +bought peace with gingerbread, instead of maintaining it +by rightful authority,—how young master had sat up +till nine o'clock on divers occasions, and even kept little +Mara up for his lordly pleasure.</p> + +<p>How she trembled at every movement of the child in +the pew, dreading some patent and open impropriety which +should bring scandal on her government! This was the +more to be feared, as the first effort to initiate the youthful +neophyte in the decorums of the sanctuary had proved anything +but a success,—insomuch that Zephaniah Pennel +had been obliged to carry him out from the church; therefore, +poor Mrs. Pennel was thankful every Sunday when +she got her little charge home without any distinct scandal +and breach of the peace.</p> + +<p>But, after all, he was such a handsome and engaging +little wretch, attracting all eyes wherever he went, and so +full of saucy drolleries, that it seemed to Mrs. Pennel that +everything and everybody conspired to help her spoil him. +There are two classes of human beings in this world: one +class seem made to give love, and the other to take it. +Now Mrs. Pennel and Mara belonged to the first class, and +little Master Moses to the latter.</p> + +<p>It was, perhaps, of service to the little girl to give to +her delicate, shrinking, highly nervous organization the +constant support of a companion so courageous, so richly +blooded, and highly vitalized as the boy seemed to be. +There was a fervid, tropical richness in his air that gave +one a sense of warmth in looking at him, and made his +Oriental name seem in good-keeping. He seemed an exotic +that might have waked up under fervid Egyptian suns, and +been found cradled among the lotus blossoms of old Nile; +and the fair golden-haired girl seemed to be gladdened by +his companionship, as if he supplied an element of vital<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> +warmth to her being. She seemed to incline toward him +as naturally as a needle to a magnet.</p> + +<p>The child's quickness of ear and the facility with which +he picked up English were marvelous to observe. Evidently, +he had been somewhat accustomed to the sound of +it before, for there dropped out of his vocabulary, after he +began to speak, phrases which would seem to betoken a +longer familiarity with its idioms than could be equally +accounted for by his present experience. Though the English +evidently was not his native language, there had yet +apparently been some effort to teach it to him, although +the terror and confusion of the shipwreck seemed at first +to have washed every former impression from his mind.</p> + +<p>But whenever any attempt was made to draw him to +speak of the past, of his mother, or of where he came from, +his brow lowered gloomily, and he assumed that kind of +moody, impenetrable gravity, which children at times will +so strangely put on, and which baffle all attempts to look +within them. Zephaniah Pennel used to call it putting +up his dead-lights. Perhaps it was the dreadful association +of agony and terror connected with the shipwreck, that +thus confused and darkened the mirror of his mind the +moment it was turned backward; but it was thought wisest +by his new friends to avoid that class of subjects altogether—indeed, +it was their wish that he might forget the past +entirely, and remember them as his only parents.</p> + +<p>Miss Roxy and Miss Ruey came duly, as appointed, to +initiate the young pilgrim into the habiliments of a Yankee +boy, endeavoring, at the same time, to drop into his mind +such seeds of moral wisdom as might make the internal +economy in time correspond to the exterior. But Miss +Roxy declared that "of all the children that ever she see, +he beat all for finding out new mischief,—the moment +you'd make him understand he mustn't do one thing, he +was right at another."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span></p> + +<p>One of his exploits, however, had very nearly been the +means of cutting short the materials of our story in the +outset.</p> + +<p>It was a warm, sunny afternoon, and the three women, +being busy together with their stitching, had tied a sun-bonnet +on little Mara, and turned the two loose upon the +beach to pick up shells. All was serene, and quiet, and +retired, and no possible danger could be apprehended. So +up and down they trotted, till the spirit of adventure which +ever burned in the breast of little Moses caught sight of a +small canoe which had been moored just under the shadow +of a cedar-covered rock. Forthwith he persuaded his little +neighbor to go into it, and for a while they made themselves +very gay, rocking it from side to side.</p> + +<p>The tide was going out, and each retreating wave washed +the boat up and down, till it came into the boy's curly +head how beautiful it would be to sail out as he had seen +men do,—and so, with much puffing and earnest tugging +of his little brown hands, the boat at last was loosed from +her moorings and pushed out on the tide, when both children +laughed gayly to find themselves swinging and balancing +on the amber surface, and watching the rings and +sparkles of sunshine and the white pebbles below. Little +Moses was glorious,—his adventures had begun,—and +with a fairy-princess in his boat, he was going to stretch +away to some of the islands of dreamland. He persuaded +Mara to give him her pink sun-bonnet, which he placed +for a pennon on a stick at the end of the boat, while he +made a vehement dashing with another, first on one side of +the boat and then on the other,—spattering the water in +diamond showers, to the infinite amusement of the little +maiden.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile the tide waves danced them out and still +outward, and as they went farther and farther from shore, +the more glorious felt the boy. He had got Mara all to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> +himself, and was going away with her from all grown people, +who wouldn't let children do as they pleased,—who +made them sit still in prayer-time, and took them to meeting, +and kept so many things which they must not touch, +or open, or play with. Two white sea-gulls came flying +toward the children, and they stretched their little arms in +welcome, nothing doubting but these fair creatures were +coming at once to take passage with them for fairy-land. +But the birds only dived and shifted and veered, turning +their silvery sides toward the sun, and careering in circles +round the children. A brisk little breeze, that came hurrying +down from the land, seemed disposed to favor their +unsubstantial enterprise,—for your winds, being a fanciful, +uncertain tribe of people, are always for falling in with +anything that is contrary to common sense. So the wind +trolled them merrily along, nothing doubting that there +might be time, if they hurried, to land their boat on the +shore of some of the low-banked red clouds that lay in the +sunset, where they could pick up shells,—blue and pink +and purple,—enough to make them rich for life. The +children were all excitement at the rapidity with which +their little bark danced and rocked, as it floated outward +to the broad, open ocean; at the blue, freshening waves, at +the silver-glancing gulls, at the floating, white-winged ships, +and at vague expectations of going rapidly somewhere, +to something more beautiful still. And what is the happiness +of the brightest hours of grown people more than this?</p> + +<p>"Roxy," said Aunt Ruey innocently, "seems to me I +haven't heard nothin' o' them children lately. They're +so still, I'm 'fraid there's some mischief."</p> + +<p>"Well, Ruey, you jist go and give a look at 'em," said +Miss Roxy. "I declare, that boy! I never know what +he will do next; but there didn't seem to be nothin' to +get into out there but the sea, and the beach is so shelving, +a body can't well fall into that."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span></p> + +<p>Alas! good Miss Roxy, the children are at this moment +tilting up and down on the waves, half a mile out to sea, +as airily happy as the sea-gulls; and little Moses now +thinks, with glorious scorn, of you and your press-board, +as of grim shadows of restraint and bondage that shall +never darken his free life more.</p> + +<p>Both Miss Roxy and Mrs. Pennel were, however, startled +into a paroxysm of alarm when poor Miss Ruey came +screaming, as she entered the door,—</p> + +<p>"As sure as you're alive, them chil'en are off in the +boat,—they're out to sea, sure as I'm alive! What +shall we do? The boat'll upset, and the sharks'll get 'em."</p> + +<p>Miss Roxy ran to the window, and saw dancing and +courtesying on the blue waves the little pinnace, with its +fanciful pink pennon fluttered gayly by the indiscreet and +flattering wind.</p> + +<p>Poor Mrs. Pennel ran to the shore, and stretched her +arms wildly, as if she would have followed them across the +treacherous blue floor that heaved and sparkled between +them.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mara, Mara! Oh, my poor little girl! Oh, poor +children!"</p> + +<p>"Well, if ever I see such a young un as that," soliloquized +Miss Roxy from the chamber-window; "there they +be, dancin' and giggitin' about; they'll have the boat upset +in a minit, and the sharks are waitin' for 'em, no +doubt. <i>I</i> b'lieve that ar young un's helped by the Evil +One,—not a boat round, else I'd push off after 'em. +Well, I don't see but we must trust in the Lord,—there +don't seem to be much else to trust to," said the spinster, +as she drew her head in grimly.</p> + +<p>To say the truth, there was some reason for the terror of +these most fearful suggestions; for not far from the place +where the children embarked was Zephaniah's fish-drying +ground, and multitudes of sharks came up with every rising<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> +tide, allured by the offal that was here constantly thrown +into the sea. Two of these prowlers, outward-bound from +their quest, were even now assiduously attending the little +boat, and the children derived no small amusement from +watching their motions in the pellucid water,—the boy +occasionally almost upsetting the boat by valorous plunges +at them with his stick. It was the most exhilarating and +piquant entertainment he had found for many a day; and +little Mara laughed in chorus at every lunge that he made.</p> + +<p>What would have been the end of it all, it is difficult to +say, had not some mortal power interfered before they had +sailed finally away into the sunset. But it so happened, on +this very afternoon, Rev. Mr. Sewell was out in a boat, busy +in the very apostolic employment of catching fish, and looking +up from one of the contemplative pauses which his +occupation induced, he rubbed his eyes at the apparition +which presented itself. A tiny little shell of a boat came +drifting toward him, in which was a black-eyed boy, with +cheeks like a pomegranate and lustrous tendrils of silky +dark hair, and a little golden-haired girl, white as a water-lily, +and looking ethereal enough to have risen out of the +sea-foam. Both were in the very sparkle and effervescence +of that fanciful glee which bubbles up from the golden, +untried fountains of early childhood. Mr. Sewell, at a +glance, comprehended the whole, and at once overhauling +the tiny craft, he broke the spell of fairy-land, and constrained +the little people to return to the confines, dull and +dreary, of real and actual life.</p> + +<p>Neither of them had known a doubt or a fear in that +joyous trance of forbidden pleasure which shadowed with +so many fears the wiser and more far-seeing heads and +hearts of the grown people; nor was there enough language +yet in common between the two classes to make the little +ones comprehend the risk they had run. Perhaps so do +our elder brothers, in our Father's house, look anxiously<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> +out when we are sailing gayly over life's sea,—over unknown +depths,—amid threatening monsters,—but want +words to tell us why what seems so bright is so dangerous.</p> + +<p>Duty herself could not have worn a more rigid aspect +than Miss Roxy, as she stood on the beach, press-board in +hand; for she had forgotten to lay it down in the eagerness +of her anxiety. She essayed to lay hold of the little hand +of Moses to pull him from the boat, but he drew back, +and, looking at her with a world of defiance in his great +eyes, jumped magnanimously upon the beach. The spirit +of Sir Francis Drake and of Christopher Columbus was +swelling in his little body, and was he to be brought under +by a dry-visaged woman with a press-board? In fact, +nothing is more ludicrous about the escapades of children +than the utter insensibility they feel to the dangers they +have run, and the light esteem in which they hold the +deep tragedy they create.</p> + +<p>That night, when Zephaniah, in his evening exercise, +poured forth most fervent thanksgivings for the deliverance, +while Mrs. Pennel was sobbing in her handkerchief, +Miss Roxy was much scandalized by seeing the young cause +of all the disturbance sitting upon his heels, regarding the +emotion of the kneeling party with his wide bright eyes, +without a wink of compunction.</p> + +<p>"Well, for her part," she said, "she hoped Cap'n Pennel +would be blessed in takin' that ar boy; but she was +sure she didn't see much that looked like it now."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The Rev. Mr. Sewell fished no more that day, for the +draught from fairy-land with which he had filled his boat +brought up many thoughts into his mind, which he pondered +anxiously.</p> + +<p>"Strange ways of God," he thought, "that should send +to my door this child, and should wash upon the beach the +only sign by which he could be identified. To what end<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> +or purpose? Hath the Lord a will in this matter, and +what is it?"</p> + +<p>So he thought as he slowly rowed homeward, and so did +his thoughts work upon him that half way across the bay +to Harpswell he slackened his oar without knowing it, and +the boat lay drifting on the purple and gold-tinted mirror, +like a speck between two eternities. Under such circumstances, +even heads that have worn the clerical wig for +years at times get a little dizzy and dreamy. Perhaps it +was because of the impression made upon him by the sudden +apparition of those great dark eyes and sable curls, that +he now thought of the boy that he had found floating that +afternoon, looking as if some tropical flower had been +washed landward by a monsoon; and as the boat rocked +and tilted, and the minister gazed dreamily downward into +the wavering rings of purple, orange, and gold which spread +out and out from it, gradually it seemed to him that a face +much like the child's formed itself in the waters; but it +was the face of a girl, young and radiantly beautiful, yet +with those same eyes and curls,—he saw her distinctly, +with her thousand rings of silky hair, bound with strings +of pearls and clasped with strange gems, and she raised one +arm imploringly to him, and on the wrist he saw the bracelet +embroidered with seed pearls, and the letters D.M. +"Ah, Dolores," he said, "well wert thou called so. Poor +Dolores! I cannot help thee."</p> + +<p>"What am I dreaming of?" said the Rev. Mr. Sewell. +"It is my Thursday evening lecture on Justification, and +Emily has got tea ready, and here I am catching cold out +on the bay."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2> + +<h3>SEA TALES</h3> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span>Mr. Sewell, as the reader may perhaps have inferred, +was of a nature profoundly secretive. It was in most +things quite as pleasant for him to keep matters to himself, +as it was to Miss Emily to tell them to somebody else. +She resembled more than anything one of those trotting, +chattering little brooks that enliven the "back lot" of many +a New England home, while he was like one of those wells +you shall sometimes see by a deserted homestead, so long +unused that ferns and lichens feather every stone down to +the dark, cool water.</p> + +<p>Dear to him was the stillness and coolness of inner +thoughts with which no stranger intermeddles; dear to him +every pendent fern-leaf of memory, every dripping moss of +old recollection; and though the waters of his soul came +up healthy and refreshing enough when one really must +have them, yet one had to go armed with bucket and line +and draw them up,—they never flowed. One of his favorite +maxims was, that the only way to keep a secret was +never to let any one suspect that you have one. And as he +had one now, he had, as you have seen, done his best to +baffle and put to sleep the feminine curiosity of his sister.</p> + +<p>He rather wanted to tell her, too, for he was a good-natured +brother, and would have liked to have given her +the amount of pleasure the confidence would have produced; +but then he reflected with dismay on the number of women +in his parish with whom Miss Emily was on tea-drinking +terms,—he thought of the wondrous solvent powers of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> +that beverage in whose amber depths so many resolutions +yea, and solemn vows, of utter silence have been dissolved +like Cleopatra's pearls. He knew that an infusion of his +secret would steam up from every cup of tea Emily should +drink for six months to come, till gradually every particle +would be dissolved and float in the air of common fame. +No; it would not do.</p> + +<p>You would have thought, however, that something was +the matter with Mr. Sewell, had you seen him after he retired +for the night, after he had so very indifferently dismissed +the subject of Miss Emily's inquiries. For instead +of retiring quietly to bed, as had been his habit for years +at that hour, he locked his door, and then unlocked a desk +of private papers, and emptied certain pigeon-holes of their +contents, and for an hour or two sat unfolding and looking +over old letters and papers; and when all this was done, +he pushed them from him, and sat for a long time buried +in thoughts which went down very, very deep into that +dark and mossy well of which we have spoken.</p> + +<p>Then he took a pen and wrote a letter, and addressed it +to a direction for which he had searched through many +piles of paper, and having done so, seemed to ponder, uncertainly, +whether to send it or not. The Harpswell post-office +was kept in Mr. Silas Perrit's store, and the letters +were every one of them carefully and curiously investigated +by all the gossips of the village, and as this was addressed +to St. Augustine in Florida, he foresaw that before Sunday +the news would be in every mouth in the parish that the +minister had written to so and so in Florida, "and what +do you s'pose it's about?"</p> + +<p>"No, no," he said to himself, "that will never do; but +at all events there is no hurry," and he put back the papers +in order, put the letter with them, and locking his desk, +looked at his watch and found it to be two o'clock, and so +he went to bed to think the matter over.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span></p> + +<p>Now, there may be some reader so simple as to feel +a portion of Miss Emily's curiosity. But, my friend, +restrain it, for Mr. Sewell will certainly, as we foresee, become +less rather than more communicative on this subject, +as he thinks upon it. Nevertheless, whatever it be that +he knows or suspects, it is something which leads him to +contemplate with more than usual interest this little mortal +waif that has so strangely come ashore in his parish. He +mentally resolves to study the child as minutely as possible, +without betraying that he has any particular reason +for being interested in him.</p> + +<p>Therefore, in the latter part of this mild November afternoon, +which he has devoted to pastoral visiting, about two +months after the funeral, he steps into his little sail-boat, +and stretches away for the shores of Orr's Island. He +knows the sun will be down before he reaches there; but +he sees, in the opposite horizon, the spectral, shadowy +moon, only waiting for daylight to be gone to come out, +calm and radiant, like a saintly friend neglected in the flush +of prosperity, who waits patiently to enliven our hours of +darkness.</p> + +<p>As his boat-keel grazed the sands on the other side, a +shout of laughter came upon his oar from behind a cedar-covered +rock, and soon emerged Captain Kittridge, as long +and lean and brown as the Ancient Mariner, carrying little +Mara on one shoulder, while Sally and little Moses Pennel +trotted on before.</p> + +<p>It was difficult to say who in this whole group was in +the highest spirits. The fact was that Mrs. Kittridge had +gone to a tea-drinking over at Maquoit, and left the Captain +as housekeeper and general overseer; and little Mara +and Moses and Sally had been gloriously keeping holiday +with him down by the boat-cove, where, to say the truth, +few shavings were made, except those necessary to adorn +the children's heads with flowing suits of curls of a most<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> +extraordinary effect. The aprons of all of them were full +of these most unsubstantial specimens of woody treasure, +which hung out in long festoons, looking of a yellow transparency +in the evening light. But the delight of the children +in their acquisitions was only equaled by that of +grown-up people in possessions equally fanciful in value.</p> + +<p>The mirth of the little party, however, came to a sudden +pause as they met the minister. Mara clung tight to +the Captain's neck, and looked out slyly under her curls. +But the little Moses made a step forward, and fixed his +bold, dark, inquisitive eyes upon him. The fact was, that +the minister had been impressed upon the boy, in his few +visits to the "meeting," as such a grand and mysterious +reason for good behavior, that he seemed resolved to embrace +the first opportunity to study him close at hand.</p> + +<p>"Well, my little man," said Mr. Sewell, with an affability +which he could readily assume with children, "you +seem to like to look at me."</p> + +<p>"I do like to look at you," said the boy gravely, continuing +to fix his great black eyes upon him.</p> + +<p>"I see you do, my little fellow."</p> + +<p>"Are you the Lord?" said the child, solemnly.</p> + +<p>"Am I what?"</p> + +<p>"The Lord," said the boy.</p> + +<p>"No, indeed, my lad," said Mr. Sewell, smiling. +"Why, what put that into your little head?"</p> + +<p>"I thought you were," said the boy, still continuing to +study the pastor with attention. "Miss Roxy said so."</p> + +<p>"It's curious what notions chil'en will get in their +heads," said Captain Kittridge. "They put this and that +together and think it over, and come out with such queer +things."</p> + +<p>"But," said the minister, "I have brought something +for you all;" saying which he drew from his pocket three +little bright-cheeked apples, and gave one to each child;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> +and then taking the hand of the little Moses in his own, +he walked with him toward the house-door.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Pennel was sitting in her clean kitchen, busily +spinning at the little wheel, and rose flushed with pleasure +at the honor that was done her.</p> + +<p>"Pray, walk in, Mr. Sewell," she said, rising, and leading +the way toward the penetralia of the best room.</p> + +<p>"Now, Mrs. Pennel, I am come here for a good sit-down +by your kitchen-fire, this evening," said Mr. Sewell. +"Emily has gone out to sit with old Mrs. Broad, who is +laid up with the rheumatism, and so I am turned loose to +pick up my living on the parish, and you must give me a +seat for a while in your kitchen corner. Best rooms are +always cold."</p> + +<p>"The minister's right," said Captain Kittridge. "When +rooms ain't much set in, folks never feel so kind o' natural +in 'em. So you jist let me put on a good back-log and +forestick, and build up a fire to tell stories by this evening. +My wife's gone out to tea, too," he said, with an elastic +skip.</p> + +<p>And in a few moments the Captain had produced in the +great cavernous chimney a foundation for a fire that promised +breadth, solidity, and continuance. A great back-log, +embroidered here and there with tufts of green or grayish +moss, was first flung into the capacious arms of the fireplace, +and a smaller log placed above it. "Now, all you +young uns go out and bring in chips," said the Captain. +"There's capital ones out to the wood-pile."</p> + +<p>Mr. Sewell was pleased to see the flash that came from +the eyes of little Moses at this order, how energetically he +ran before the others, and came with glowing cheeks and +distended arms, throwing down great white chips with their +green mossy bark, scattering tufts on the floor. "Good," +said he softly to himself, as he leaned on the top of his +gold-headed cane; "there's energy, ambition, muscle;"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> +and he nodded his head once or twice to some internal +decision.</p> + +<p>"There!" said the Captain, rising out of a perfect +whirlwind of chips and pine kindlings with which in his +zeal he had bestrown the wide, black stone hearth, and +pointing to the tongues of flame that were leaping and +blazing up through the crevices of the dry pine wood +which he had intermingled plentifully with the more substantial +fuel,—"there, Mis' Pennel, ain't I a master-hand +at a fire? But I'm really sorry I've dirtied your floor," +he said, as he brushed down his pantaloons, which were +covered with bits of grizzly moss, and looked on the surrounding +desolations; "give me a broom, I can sweep up +now as well as any woman."</p> + +<p>"Oh, never mind," said Mrs. Pennel, laughing, "I'll +sweep up."</p> + +<p>"Well, now, Mis' Pennel, you're one of the women +that don't get put out easy; ain't ye?" said the Captain, +still contemplating his fire with a proud and watchful eye.</p> + +<p>"Law me!" he exclaimed, glancing through the window, +"there's the Cap'n a-comin'. I'm jist goin' to give +a look at what he's brought in. Come, chil'en," and the +Captain disappeared with all three of the children at his +heels, to go down to examine the treasures of the fishing-smack.</p> + +<p>Mr. Sewell seated himself cozily in the chimney corner +and sank into a state of half-dreamy reverie; his eyes fixed +on the fairest sight one can see of a frosty autumn twilight—a +crackling wood-fire.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Pennel moved soft-footed to and fro, arraying her +tea-table in her own finest and pure damask, and bringing +from hidden stores her best china and newest silver, her +choicest sweetmeats and cake—whatever was fairest and +nicest in her house—to honor her unexpected guest.</p> + +<p>Mr. Sewell's eyes followed her occasionally about the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> +room, with an expression of pleased and curious satisfaction. +He was taking it all in as an artistic picture—that +simple, kindly hearth, with its mossy logs, yet steaming +with the moisture of the wild woods; the table so neat, +so cheery with its many little delicacies, and refinements +of appointment, and its ample varieties to tempt the appetite; +and then the Captain coming in, yet fresh and hungry +from his afternoon's toil, with the children trotting +before him.</p> + +<p>"And this is the inheritance he comes into," he murmured; +"healthy—wholesome—cheerful—secure: how +much better than hot, stifling luxury!"</p> + +<p>Here the minister's meditations were interrupted by the +entrance of all the children, joyful and loquacious. Little +Moses held up a string of mackerel, with their graceful +bodies and elegantly cut fins.</p> + +<p>"Just a specimen of the best, Mary," said Captain Pennel. +"I thought I'd bring 'em for Miss Emily."</p> + +<p>"Miss Emily will be a thousand times obliged to you," +said Mr. Sewell, rising up.</p> + +<p>As to Mara and Sally, they were reveling in apronfuls +of shells and seaweed, which they bustled into the other +room to bestow in their spacious baby-house.</p> + +<p>And now, after due time for Zephaniah to assume a land +toilet, all sat down to the evening meal.</p> + +<p>After supper was over, the Captain was besieged by the +children. Little Mara mounted first into his lap, and +nestled herself quietly under his coat—Moses and Sally +stood at each knee.</p> + +<p>"Come, now," said Moses, "you said you would tell us +about the mermen to-night."</p> + +<p>"Yes, and the mermaids," said Sally. "Tell them all +you told me the other night in the trundle-bed."</p> + +<p>Sally valued herself no little on the score of the Captain's +talent as a romancer.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You see, Moses," she said, volubly, "father saw mermen +and mermaids a plenty of them in the West Indies."</p> + +<p>"Oh, never mind about 'em now," said Captain Kittridge, +looking at Mr. Sewell's corner.</p> + +<p>"Why not, father? mother isn't here," said Sally, innocently.</p> + +<p>A smile passed round the faces of the company, and Mr. +Sewell said, "Come, Captain, no modesty; we all know +you have as good a faculty for telling a story as for making +a fire."</p> + +<p>"Do tell me what mermen are," said Moses.</p> + +<p>"Wal'," said the Captain, sinking his voice confidentially, +and hitching his chair a little around, "mermen and +maids is a kind o' people that have their world jist like +our'n, only it's down in the bottom of the sea, 'cause the +bottom of the sea has its mountains and its valleys, and its +trees and its bushes, and it stands to reason there should +be people there too."</p> + +<p>Moses opened his broad black eyes wider than usual, and +looked absorbed attention.</p> + +<p>"Tell 'em about how you saw 'em," said Sally.</p> + +<p>"Wal', yes," said Captain Kittridge; "once when I was +to the Bahamas,—it was one Sunday morning in June, +the first Sunday in the month,—we cast anchor pretty +nigh a reef of coral, and I was jist a-sittin' down to read +my Bible, when up comes a merman over the side of the +ship, all dressed as fine as any old beau that ever ye see, +with cocked hat and silk stockings, and shoe-buckles, and +his clothes were sea-green, and his shoe-buckles shone like +diamonds."</p> + +<p>"Do you suppose they were diamonds, really?" said +Sally.</p> + +<p>"Wal', child, I didn't ask him, but I shouldn't be +surprised, from all I know of their ways, if they was," said +the Captain, who had now got so wholly into the spirit of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> +his fiction that he no longer felt embarrassed by the minister's +presence, nor saw the look of amusement with which +he was listening to him in his chimney-corner. "But, as +I was sayin', he came up to me, and made the politest +bow that ever ye see, and says he, 'Cap'n Kittridge, I +presume,' and says I, 'Yes, sir.' 'I'm sorry to interrupt +your reading,' says he; and says I, 'Oh, no matter, sir.' +'But,' says he, 'if you would only be so good as to move +your anchor. You've cast anchor right before my front-door, +and my wife and family can't get out to go to meetin'.'"</p> + +<p>"Why, do they go to meeting in the bottom of the +sea?" said Moses.</p> + +<p>"Law, bless you sonny, yes. Why, Sunday morning, +when the sea was all still, I used to hear the bass-viol +a-soundin' down under the waters, jist as plain as could +be,—and psalms and preachin'. I've reason to think +there's as many hopefully pious mermaids as there be +folks," said the Captain.</p> + +<p>"But," said Moses, "you said the anchor was before the +front-door, so the family couldn't get out,—how did the +merman get out?"</p> + +<p>"Oh! he got out of the scuttle on the roof," said the +Captain, promptly.</p> + +<p>"And did you move your anchor?" said Moses.</p> + +<p>"Why, child, yes, to be sure I did; he was such a gentleman +I wanted to oblige him,—it shows you how important +it is always to be polite," said the Captain, by way +of giving a moral turn to his narrative.</p> + +<p>Mr. Sewell, during the progress of this story, examined +the Captain with eyes of amused curiosity. His countenance +was as fixed and steady, and his whole manner of +reciting as matter-of-fact and collected, as if he were relating +some of the every-day affairs of his boat-building.</p> + +<p>"Wal', Sally," said the Captain, rising, after his yarn<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> +had proceeded for an indefinite length in this manner, +"you and I must be goin'. I promised your ma you +shouldn't be up late, and we have a long walk home,—besides +it's time these little folks was in bed."</p> + +<p>The children all clung round the Captain, and could +hardly be persuaded to let him go.</p> + +<p>When he was gone, Mrs. Pennel took the little ones to +their nest in an adjoining room.</p> + +<p>Mr. Sewell approached his chair to that of Captain Pennel, +and began talking to him in a tone of voice so low, +that we have never been able to make out exactly what he +was saying. Whatever it might be, however, it seemed to +give rise to an anxious consultation. "I did not think it +advisable to tell <i>any</i> one this but yourself, Captain Pennel. +It is for you to decide, in view of the probabilities I have +told you, what you will do."</p> + +<p>"Well," said Zephaniah, "since you leave it to me, I +say, let us keep him. It certainly seems a marked providence +that he has been thrown upon us as he has, and the +Lord seemed to prepare a way for him in our hearts. I +am well able to afford it, and Mis' Pennel, she agrees to +it, and on the whole I don't think we'd best go back on +our steps; besides, our little Mara has thrived since he +came under our roof. He is, to be sure, kind o' masterful, +and I shall have to take him off Mis' Pennel's hands +before long, and put him into the sloop. But, after all, +there seems to be the makin' of a man in him, and when +we are called away, why he'll be as a brother to poor little +Mara. Yes, I think it's best as 'tis."</p> + +<p>The minister, as he flitted across the bay by moonlight, +felt relieved of a burden. His secret was locked up as safe +in the breast of Zephaniah Pennel as it could be in his +own.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2> + +<h3>BOY AND GIRL</h3> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span>Zephaniah Pennel was what might be called a Hebrew +of the Hebrews.</p> + +<p>New England, in her earlier days, founding her institutions +on the Hebrew Scriptures, bred better Jews than +Moses could, because she read Moses with the amendments +of Christ.</p> + +<p>The state of society in some of the districts of Maine, in +these days, much resembled in its spirit that which Moses +labored to produce in ruder ages. It was entirely democratic, +simple, grave, hearty, and sincere,—solemn and +religious in its daily tone, and yet, as to all material good, +full of wholesome thrift and prosperity. Perhaps, taking +the average mass of the people, a more healthful and desirable +state of society never existed. Its better specimens +had a simple Doric grandeur unsurpassed in any age. The +bringing up a child in this state of society was a far more +simple enterprise than in our modern times, when the factious +wants and aspirations are so much more developed.</p> + +<p>Zephaniah Pennel was as high as anybody in the land. +He owned not only the neat little schooner, "Brilliant," +with divers small fishing-boats, but also a snug farm, adjoining +the brown house, together with some fresh, juicy +pasture-lots on neighboring islands, where he raised mutton, +unsurpassed even by the English South-down, and +wool, which furnished homespun to clothe his family on all +every-day occasions.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Pennel, to be sure, had silks and satins, and flow<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span>ered +India chintz, and even a Cashmere shawl, the fruits +of some of her husband's earlier voyages, which were, however, +carefully stowed away for occasions so high and +mighty, that they seldom saw the light. <i>Not to wear best +things every day</i> was a maxim of New England thrift as +little disputed as any verse of the catechism; and so Mrs. +Pennel found the stuff gown of her own dyeing and spinning +so respectable for most purposes, that it figured even +in the meeting-house itself, except on the very finest of +Sundays, when heaven and earth seemed alike propitious. +A person can well afford to wear homespun stuff to meeting, +who is buoyed up by a secret consciousness of an +abundance of fine things that could be worn, if one were so +disposed, and everybody respected Mrs. Pennel's homespun +the more, because they thought of the things she didn't +wear.</p> + +<p>As to advantages of education, the island, like all other +New England districts, had its common school, where one +got the key of knowledge,—for having learned to read, +write, and cipher, the young fellow of those regions commonly +regarded himself as in possession of all that a man +needs, to help himself to any further acquisitions he might +desire. The boys then made fishing voyages to the Banks, +and those who were so disposed took their books with them. +If a boy did not wish to be bored with study, there was +nobody to force him; but if a bright one saw visions of +future success in life lying through the avenues of knowledge, +he found many a leisure hour to pore over his books, +and work out the problems of navigation directly over the +element they were meant to control.</p> + +<p>Four years having glided by since the commencement +of our story, we find in the brown house of Zephaniah +Pennel a tall, well-knit, handsome boy of ten years, who +knows no fear of wind or sea; who can set you over from +Orr's Island to Harpswell, either in sail or row-boat, he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> +thinks, as well as any man living; who knows every rope +of the schooner Brilliant, and fancies he could command +it as well as "father" himself; and is supporting himself +this spring, during the tamer drudgeries of driving plough, +and dropping potatoes, with the glorious vision of being +taken this year on the annual trip to "the Banks," which +comes on after planting. He reads fluently,—witness the +"Robinson Crusoe," which never departs from under his +pillow, and Goldsmith's "History of Greece and Rome," +which good Mr. Sewell has lent him,—and he often +brings shrewd criticisms on the character and course of +Romulus or Alexander into the common current of every-day +life, in a way that brings a smile over the grave face +of Zephaniah, and makes Mrs. Pennel think the boy certainly +ought to be sent to college.</p> + +<p>As for Mara, she is now a child of seven, still adorned +with long golden curls, still looking dreamily out of soft +hazel eyes into some unknown future not her own. She +has no dreams for herself—they are all for Moses. For +his sake she has learned all the womanly little accomplishments +which Mrs. Kittridge has dragooned into Sally. +She knits his mittens and his stockings, and hems his +pocket-handkerchiefs, and aspires to make his shirts all +herself. Whatever book Moses reads, forthwith she aspires +to read too, and though three years younger, reads with a +far more precocious insight.</p> + +<p>Her little form is slight and frail, and her cheek has a +clear transparent brilliancy quite different from the rounded +one of the boy; she looks not exactly in ill health, but has +that sort of transparent appearance which one fancies might +be an attribute of fairies and sylphs. All her outward +senses are finer and more acute than his, and finer and +more delicate all the attributes of her mind. Those who +contend against giving woman the same education as man +do it on the ground that it would make the woman unfem<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span>inine, +as if Nature had done her work so slightly that it +could be so easily raveled and knit over. In fact, there is +a masculine and a feminine element in all knowledge, and +a man and a woman put to the same study extract only +what their nature fits them to see, so that knowledge can +be fully orbed only when the two unite in the search and +share the spoils.</p> + +<p>When Moses was full of Romulus and Numa, Mara pondered +the story of the nymph Egeria—sweet parable, in +which lies all we have been saying. Her trust in him was +boundless. He was a constant hero in her eyes, and in +her he found a steadfast believer as to all possible feats and +exploits to which he felt himself competent, for the boy +often had privately assured her that he could command the +Brilliant as well as father himself.</p> + +<p>Spring had already come, loosing the chains of ice in all +the bays and coves round Harpswell, Orr's Island, Maquoit, +and Middle Bay. The magnificent spruces stood forth in +their gala-dresses, tipped on every point with vivid emerald; +the silver firs exuded from their tender shoots the +fragrance of ripe pineapple; the white pines shot forth +long weird fingers at the end of their fringy boughs; and +even every little mimic evergreen in the shadows at their +feet was made beautiful by the addition of a vivid border +of green on the sombre coloring of its last year's leaves. +Arbutus, fragrant with its clean, wholesome odors, gave +forth its thousand dewy pink blossoms, and the trailing +Linnea borealis hung its pendent twin bells round every +mossy stump and old rock damp with green forest mould. +The green and vermilion matting of the partridge-berry +was impearled with white velvet blossoms, the checkerberry +hung forth a translucent bell under its varnished green +leaf, and a thousand more fairy bells, white or red, hung +on blueberry and huckleberry bushes. The little Pearl of +Orr's Island had wandered many an hour gathering bou<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span>quets +of all these, to fill the brown house with sweetness +when her grandfather and Moses should come in from +work.</p> + +<p>The love of flowers seemed to be one of her earliest +characteristics, and the young spring flowers of New England, +in their airy delicacy and fragility, were much like +herself; and so strong seemed the affinity between them, +that not only Mrs. Pennel's best India china vases on the +keeping-room mantel were filled, but here stood a tumbler +of scarlet rock columbine, and there a bowl of blue and +white violets, and in another place a saucer of shell-tinted +crowfoot, blue liverwort, and white anemone, so that +Zephaniah Pennel was wont to say there wasn't a drink of +water to be got, for Mara's flowers; but he always said it +with a smile that made his weather-beaten, hard features +look like a rock lit up by a sunbeam. Little Mara was +the pearl of the old seaman's life, every finer particle of +his nature came out in her concentrated and polished, and +he often wondered at a creature so ethereal belonging to +him—as if down on some shaggy sea-green rock an old +pearl oyster should muse and marvel on the strange silvery +mystery of beauty that was growing in the silence of his +heart.</p> + +<p>But May has passed; the arbutus and the Linnea are +gone from the woods, and the pine tips have grown into +young shoots, which wilt at noon under a direct reflection +from sun and sea, and the blue sky has that metallic clearness +and brilliancy which distinguishes those regions, and +the planting is at last over, and this very morning Moses +is to set off in the Brilliant for his first voyage to the +Banks. Glorious knight he! the world all before him, +and the blood of ten years racing and throbbing in his veins +as he talks knowingly of hooks, and sinkers, and bait, and +lines, and wears proudly the red flannel shirt which Mara +had just finished for him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span></p> + +<p>"How I do wish I were going with you!" she says. +"I could do something, couldn't I—take care of your +hooks, or something?"</p> + +<p>"Pooh!" said Moses, sublimely regarding her while he +settled the collar of his shirt, "you're a girl; and what +can girls do at sea? you never like to catch fish—it always +makes you cry to see 'em flop."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, poor fish!" said Mara, perplexed between +her sympathy for the fish and her desire for the glory of +her hero, which must be founded on their pain; "I can't +help feeling sorry when they gasp so."</p> + +<p>"Well, and what do you suppose you would do when +the men are pulling up twenty and forty pounder?" said +Moses, striding sublimely. "Why, they flop so, they'd +knock you over in a minute."</p> + +<p>"Do they? Oh, Moses, do be careful. What if they +should hurt you?"</p> + +<p>"Hurt me!" said Moses, laughing; "that's a good one. +I'd like to see a fish that could hurt me."</p> + +<p>"Do hear that boy talk!" said Mrs. Pennel to her husband, +as they stood within their chamber-door.</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes," said Captain Pennel, smiling; "he's full +of the matter. I believe he'd take the command of the +schooner this morning, if I'd let him."</p> + +<p>The Brilliant lay all this while courtesying on the waves, +which kissed and whispered to the little coquettish craft. +A fairer June morning had not risen on the shores that +week; the blue mirror of the ocean was all dotted over +with the tiny white sails of fishing-craft bound on the +same errand, and the breeze that was just crisping the +waters had the very spirit of energy and adventure in it.</p> + +<p>Everything and everybody was now on board, and she +began to spread her fair wings, and slowly and gracefully +to retreat from the shore. Little Moses stood on the deck, +his black curls blowing in the wind, and his large eyes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> +dancing with excitement,—his clear olive complexion and +glowing cheeks well set off by his red shirt.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Pennel stood with Mara on the shore to see them +go. The fair little golden-haired Ariadne shaded her eyes +with one arm, and stretched the other after her Theseus, +till the vessel grew smaller, and finally seemed to melt +away into the eternal blue. Many be the wives and lovers +that have watched those little fishing-craft as they went +gayly out like this, but have waited long—too long—and +seen them again no more. In night and fog they have +gone down under the keel of some ocean packet or Indiaman, +and sunk with brave hearts and hands, like a bubble +in the mighty waters. Yet Mrs. Pennel did not turn back +to her house in apprehension of this. Her husband had +made so many voyages, and always returned safely, that +she confidently expected before long to see them home +again.</p> + +<p>The next Sunday the seat of Zephaniah Pennel was +vacant in church. According to custom, a note was put +up asking prayers for his safe return, and then everybody +knew that he was gone to the Banks; and as the roguish, +handsome face of Moses was also missing, Miss Roxy whispered +to Miss Ruey, "There! Captain Pennel's took Moses +on his first voyage. We must contrive to call round on +Mis' Pennel afore long. She'll be lonesome."</p> + +<p>Sunday evening Mrs. Pennel was sitting pensively with +little Mara by the kitchen hearth, where they had been +boiling the tea-kettle for their solitary meal. They heard +a brisk step without, and soon Captain and Mrs. Kittridge +made their appearance.</p> + +<p>"Good evening, Mis' Pennel," said the Captain; "I's +a-tellin' my good woman we must come down and see how +you's a-getting along. It's raly a work of necessity and +mercy proper for the Lord's day. Rather lonesome, now +the Captain's gone, ain't ye? Took little Moses, too, I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> +see. Wasn't at meetin' to-day, so I says, Mis' Kittridge, +we'll just step down and chirk 'em up a little."</p> + +<p>"I didn't really know how to come," said Mrs. Kittridge, +as she allowed Mrs. Pennel to take her bonnet; +"but Aunt Roxy's to our house now, and she said she'd +see to Sally. So you've let the boy go to the Banks? +He's young, ain't he, for that?"</p> + +<p>"Not a bit of it," said Captain Kittridge. "Why, I +was off to the Banks long afore I was his age, and a capital +time we had of it, too. Golly! how them fish did bite! +We stood up to our knees in fish before we'd fished half +an hour."</p> + +<p>Mara, who had always a shy affinity for the Captain, +now drew towards him and climbed on his knee. "Did +the wind blow very hard?" she said.</p> + +<p>"What, my little maid?"</p> + +<p>"Does the wind blow at the Banks?"</p> + +<p>"Why, yes, my little girl, that it does, sometimes; but +then there ain't the least danger. Our craft ride out +storms like live creatures. I've stood it out in gales that +was tight enough, I'm sure. 'Member once I turned in +'tween twelve and one, and hadn't more'n got asleep, +afore I came <i>clump</i> out of my berth, and found everything +upside down. And 'stead of goin' upstairs to get on deck, +I had to go right down. Fact was, that 'ere vessel jist +turned clean over in the water, and come right side up like +a duck."</p> + +<p>"Well, now, Cap'n, I wouldn't be tellin' such a story +as that," said his helpmeet.</p> + +<p>"Why, Polly, what do you know about it? you never +was to sea. We did turn clear over, for I 'member I saw +a bunch of seaweed big as a peck measure stickin' top of +the mast next day. Jist shows how safe them ar little +fishing craft is,—for all they look like an egg-shell on the +mighty deep, as Parson Sewell calls it."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I was very much pleased with Mr. Sewell's exercise in +prayer this morning," said Mrs. Kittridge; "it must have +been a comfort to you, Mis' Pennel."</p> + +<p>"It was, to be sure," said Mrs. Pennel.</p> + +<p>"Puts me in mind of poor Mary Jane Simpson. Her +husband went out, you know, last June, and hain't been +heard of since. Mary Jane don't really know whether to +put on mourning or not."</p> + +<p>"Law! I don't think Mary Jane need give up yet," +said the Captain. "'Member one year I was out, we got +blowed clear up to Baffin's Bay, and got shut up in the +ice, and had to go ashore and live jist as we could among +them Esquimaux. Didn't get home for a year. Old +folks had clean giv' us up. Don't need never despair +of folks gone to sea, for they's sure to turn up, first or +last."</p> + +<p>"But I hope," said Mara, apprehensively, "that grandpapa +won't get blown up to Baffin's Bay. I've seen that +on his chart,—it's a good ways."</p> + +<p>"And then there's them 'ere icebergs," said Mrs. Kittridge; +"I'm always 'fraid of running into them in the +fog."</p> + +<p>"Law!" said Captain Kittridge, "I've met 'em bigger +than all the colleges up to Brunswick,—great white bears +on 'em,—hungry as Time in the Primer. Once we came +kersmash on to one of 'em, and if the Flying Betsey hadn't +been made of whalebone and injer-rubber, she'd a-been +stove all to pieces. Them white bears, they was so hungry, +that they stood there with the water jist runnin' out +of their chops in a perfect stream."</p> + +<p>"Oh, dear, dear," said Mara, with wide round eyes, +"what will Moses do if they get on the icebergs?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Mrs. Kittridge, looking solemnly at the +child through the black bows of her spectacles, "we can +truly say:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span>—</p> + +<p style="margin-left:2em"> +"'Dangers stand thick through all the ground,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To push us to the tomb,'</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>as the hymn-book says."</p> + +<p>The kind-hearted Captain, feeling the fluttering heart of +little Mara, and seeing the tears start in her eyes, addressed +himself forthwith to consolation. "Oh, never you mind, +Mara," he said, "there won't nothing hurt 'em. Look at +me. Why, I've been everywhere on the face of the earth. +I've been on icebergs, and among white bears and Indians, +and seen storms that would blow the very hair off your +head, and here I am, dry and tight as ever. You'll see +'em back before long."</p> + +<p>The cheerful laugh with which the Captain was wont to +chorus his sentences sounded like the crackling of dry pine +wood on the social hearth. One would hardly hear it +without being lightened in heart; and little Mara gazed at +his long, dry, ropy figure, and wrinkled thin face, as a sort +of monument of hope; and his uproarious laugh, which +Mrs. Kittridge sometimes ungraciously compared to "the +crackling of thorns under a pot," seemed to her the most +delightful thing in the world.</p> + +<p>"Mary Jane was a-tellin' me," resumed Mrs. Kittridge, +"that when her husband had been out a month, she +dreamed she see him, and three other men, a-floatin' on an +iceberg."</p> + +<p>"Laws," said Captain Kittridge, "that's jist what my +old mother dreamed about me, and 'twas true enough, too, +till we got off the ice on to the shore up in the Esquimaux +territory, as I was a-tellin'. So you tell Mary Jane she +needn't look out for a second husband <i>yet</i>, for that ar +dream's a sartin sign he'll be back."</p> + +<p>"Cap'n Kittridge!" said his helpmeet, drawing herself +up, and giving him an austere glance over her spectacles; +"how often must I tell you that there <i>is</i> subjects which +shouldn't be treated with levity?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Who's been a-treatin' of 'em with levity?" said the +Captain. "I'm sure I ain't. Mary Jane's good-lookin', +and there's plenty of young fellows as sees it as well as +me. I declare, she looked as pretty as any young gal +when she ris up in the singers' seats to-day. Put me +in mind of you, Polly, when I first come home from the +Injies."</p> + +<p>"Oh, come now, Cap'n Kittridge! we're gettin' too old +for that sort o' talk."</p> + +<p>"We ain't too old, be we, Mara?" said the Captain, +trotting the little girl gayly on his knee; "and we ain't +afraid of icebergs and no sich, be we? I tell you they's +a fine sight of a bright day; they has millions of steeples, +all white and glistering, like the New Jerusalem, and the +white bears have capital times trampin' round on 'em. +Wouldn't little Mara like a great, nice white bear to ride +on, with his white fur, so soft and warm, and a saddle +made of pearls, and a gold bridle?"</p> + +<p>"You haven't seen any little girls ride so," said Mara, +doubtfully.</p> + +<p>"I shouldn't wonder if I had; but you see, Mis' Kittridge +there, she won't let me tell all I know," said the +Captain, sinking his voice to a confidential tone; "you jist +wait till we get alone."</p> + +<p>"But, you are sure," said Mara, confidingly, in return, +"that white bears will be kind to Moses?"</p> + +<p>"Lord bless you, yes, child, the kindest critturs in the +world they be, if you only get the right side of 'em," said +the Captain.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes! because," said Mara, "I know how good a +wolf was to Romulus and Remus once, and nursed them +when they were cast out to die. I read that in the Roman +history."</p> + +<p>"Jist so," said the Captain, enchanted at this historic +confirmation of his apocrypha.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span></p> + +<p>"And so," said Mara, "if Moses should happen to get +on an iceberg, a bear might take care of him, you know."</p> + +<p>"Jist so, jist so," said the Captain; "so don't you +worry your little curly head one bit. Some time when +you come down to see Sally, we'll go down to the cove, +and I'll tell you lots of stories about chil'en that have +been fetched up by white bears, jist like Romulus and +what's his name there."</p> + +<p>"Come, Mis' Kittridge," added the cheery Captain; +"you and I mustn't be keepin' the folks up till nine +o'clock."</p> + +<p>"Well now," said Mrs. Kittridge, in a doleful tone, as +she began to put on her bonnet, "Mis' Pennel, you must +keep up your spirits—it's one's duty to take cheerful +views of things. I'm sure many's the night, when the +Captain's been gone to sea, I've laid and shook in my bed, +hearin' the wind blow, and thinking what if I should be +left a lone widow."</p> + +<p>"There'd a-been a dozen fellows a-wanting to get you +in six months, Polly," interposed the Captain. "Well, +good-night, Mis' Pennel; there'll be a splendid haul of +fish at the Banks this year, or there's no truth in signs. +Come, my little Mara, got a kiss for the dry old daddy? +That's my good girl. Well, good night, and the Lord +bless you."</p> + +<p>And so the cheery Captain took up his line of march +homeward, leaving little Mara's head full of dazzling visions +of the land of romance to which Moses had gone. She +was yet on that shadowy boundary between the dreamland +of childhood and the real land of life; so all things looked +to her quite possible; and gentle white bears, with warm, +soft fur and pearl and gold saddles, walked through her +dreams, and the victorious curls of Moses appeared, with +his bright eyes and cheeks, over glittering pinnacles of +frost in the ice-land.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2> + +<h3>THE ENCHANTED ISLAND</h3> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span>June and July passed, and the lonely two lived a quiet +life in the brown house. Everything was so still and fair—no +sound but the coming and going tide, and the swaying +wind among the pine-trees, and the tick of the clock, +and the whirr of the little wheel as Mrs. Pennel sat spinning +in her door in the mild weather. Mara read the +Roman history through again, and began it a third time, +and read over and over again the stories and prophecies +that pleased her in the Bible, and pondered the wood-cuts +and texts in a very old edition of Æsop's Fables; and as +she wandered in the woods, picking fragrant bayberries +and gathering hemlock, checkerberry, and sassafras to put in +the beer which her grandmother brewed, she mused on the +things that she read till her little mind became a tabernacle +of solemn, quaint, dreamy forms, where old Judean kings +and prophets, and Roman senators and warriors, marched +in and out in shadowy rounds. She invented long dramas +and conversations in which they performed imaginary +parts, and it would not have appeared to the child in the +least degree surprising either to have met an angel in the +woods, or to have formed an intimacy with some talking +wolf or bear, such as she read of in Æsop's Fables.</p> + +<p>One day, as she was exploring the garret, she found in +an old barrel of cast-off rubbish a bit of reading which she +begged of her grandmother for her own. It was the play +of the "Tempest," torn from an old edition of Shakespeare, +and was in that delightfully fragmentary condition<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> +which most particularly pleases children, because they conceive +a mutilated treasure thus found to be more especially +their own property—something like a rare wild-flower or +sea-shell. The pleasure which thoughtful and imaginative +children sometimes take in reading that which they do not +and cannot fully comprehend is one of the most common +and curious phenomena of childhood.</p> + +<p>And so little Mara would lie for hours stretched out on +the pebbly beach, with the broad open ocean before her and +the whispering pines and hemlocks behind her, and pore +over this poem, from which she collected dim, delightful +images of a lonely island, an old enchanter, a beautiful +girl, and a spirit not quite like those in the Bible, but a +very probable one to her mode of thinking. As for old +Caliban, she fancied him with a face much like that of a +huge skate-fish she had once seen drawn ashore in one of +her grandfather's nets; and then there was the beautiful +young Prince Ferdinand, much like what Moses would be +when he was grown up—and how glad she would be to +pile up his wood for him, if any old enchanter should set +him to work!</p> + +<p>One attribute of the child was a peculiar shamefacedness +and shyness about her inner thoughts, and therefore the +wonder that this new treasure excited, the host of surmises +and dreams to which it gave rise, were never mentioned +to anybody. That it was all of it as much authentic fact +as the Roman history, she did not doubt, but whether it +had happened on Orr's Island or some of the neighboring +ones, she had not exactly made up her mind. She resolved +at her earliest leisure to consult Captain Kittridge on the +subject, wisely considering that it much resembled some +of his fishy and aquatic experiences.</p> + +<p>Some of the little songs fixed themselves in her memory, +and she would hum them as she wandered up and down +the beach.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span></p> + +<p style="margin-left:2em"> +"Come unto these yellow sands,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And then take hands;</span><br /> +Courtsied when you have and kissed<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The wild waves whist,</span><br /> +Foot it featly here and there;<br /> +And, sweet sprites, the burthen bear."<br /> +</p> + +<p>And another which pleased her still more:—</p> + +<p style="margin-left:2em"> +"Full fathom five thy father lies;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of his bones are coral made,</span><br /> +Those are pearls that were his eyes:<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nothing of him that can fade</span><br /> +But doth suffer a sea-change<br /> +Into something rich and strange;<br /> +Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:<br /> +Hark, now I hear them—ding-dong, bell."<br /> +</p> + +<p>These words she pondered very long, gravely revolving +in her little head whether they described the usual course +of things in the mysterious under-world that lay beneath +that blue spangled floor of the sea; whether everybody's +eyes changed to pearl, and their bones to coral, if they +sunk down there; and whether the sea-nymphs spoken of +were the same as the mermaids that Captain Kittridge had +told of. Had he not said that the bell rung for church of +a Sunday morning down under the waters?</p> + +<p>Mara vividly remembered the scene on the sea-beach, +the finding of little Moses and his mother, the dream of +the pale lady that seemed to bring him to her; and not +one of the conversations that had transpired before her +among different gossips had been lost on her quiet, listening +little ears. These pale, still children that play without +making any noise are deep wells into which drop +many things which lie long and quietly on the bottom, and +come up in after years whole and new, when everybody +else has forgotten them.</p> + +<p>So she had heard surmises as to the remaining crew of +that unfortunate ship, where, perhaps, Moses had a father. +And sometimes she wondered if <i>he</i> were lying fathoms +deep with sea-nymphs ringing his knell, and whether<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> +Moses ever thought about him; and yet she could no more +have asked him a question about it than if she had been +born dumb. She decided that she should never show him +this poetry—it might make him feel unhappy.</p> + +<p>One bright afternoon, when the sea lay all dead asleep, +and the long, steady respiration of its tides scarcely disturbed +the glassy tranquillity of its bosom, Mrs. Pennel +sat at her kitchen-door spinning, when Captain Kittridge +appeared.</p> + +<p>"Good afternoon, Mis' Pennel; how ye gettin' along?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, pretty well, Captain; won't you walk in and have +a glass of beer?"</p> + +<p>"Well, thank you," said the Captain, raising his hat +and wiping his forehead, "I be pretty dry, it's a fact."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Pennel hastened to a cask which was kept standing +in a corner of the kitchen, and drew from thence a mug of +her own home-brewed, fragrant with the smell of juniper, +hemlock, and wintergreen, which she presented to the Captain, +who sat down in the doorway and discussed it in +leisurely sips.</p> + +<p>"Wal', s'pose it's most time to be lookin' for 'em home, +ain't it?" he said.</p> + +<p>"I <i>am</i> lookin' every day," said Mrs. Pennel, involuntarily +glancing upward at the sea.</p> + +<p>At the word appeared the vision of little Mara, who +rose up like a spirit from a dusky corner, where she had +been stooping over her reading.</p> + +<p>"Why, little Mara," said the Captain, "you ris up like +a ghost all of a sudden. I thought you's out to play. I +come down a-purpose arter you. Mis' Kittridge has gone +shoppin' up to Brunswick, and left Sally a 'stent' to do; +and I promised her if she'd clap to and do it quick, I'd +go up and fetch you down, and we'd have a play in the +cove."</p> + +<p>Mara's eyes brightened, as they always did at this pros<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span>pect, +and Mrs. Pennel said, "Well, I'm glad to have the +child go; she seems so kind o' still and lonesome since +Moses went away; really one feels as if that boy took all +the noise there was with him. I get tired myself sometimes +hearing the clock tick. Mara, when she's alone, +takes to her book more than's good for a child."</p> + +<p>"She does, does she? Well, we'll see about that. +Come, little Mara, get on your sun-bonnet. Sally's sewin' +fast as ever she can, and we're goin' to dig some clams, +and make a fire, and have a chowder; that'll be nice, +won't it? Don't you want to come, too, Mis' Pennel?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, thank you, Captain, but I've got so many things +on hand to do afore they come home, I don't really think +I can. I'll trust Mara to you any day."</p> + +<p>Mara had run into her own little room and secured her +precious fragment of treasure, which she wrapped up carefully +in her handkerchief, resolving to enlighten Sally +with the story, and to consult the Captain on any nice +points of criticism. Arrived at the cove, they found Sally +already there in advance of them, clapping her hands and +dancing in a manner which made her black elf-locks fly +like those of a distracted creature.</p> + +<p>"Now, Sally," said the Captain, imitating, in a humble +way, his wife's manner, "are you sure you've finished +your work well?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, father, every stitch on't."</p> + +<p>"And stuck in your needle, and folded it up, and put +it in the drawer, and put away your thimble, and shet the +drawer, and all the rest on't?" said the Captain.</p> + +<p>"Yes, father," said Sally, gleefully, "I've done everything +I could think of."</p> + +<p>"'Cause you know your ma'll be arter ye, if you don't +leave everything straight."</p> + +<p>"Oh, never you fear, father, I've done it all half an +hour ago, and I've found the most capital bed of clams<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> +just round the point here; and you take care of Mara +there, and make up a fire while I dig 'em. If she comes, +she'll be sure to wet her shoes, or spoil her frock, or something."</p> + +<p>"Wal', she likes no better fun now," said the Captain, +watching Sally, as she disappeared round the rock with a +bright tin pan.</p> + +<p>He then proceeded to construct an extemporary fireplace +of loose stones, and to put together chips and shavings for +the fire,—in which work little Mara eagerly assisted; but +the fire was crackling and burning cheerily long before +Sally appeared with her clams, and so the Captain, with a +pile of hemlock boughs by his side, sat on a stone feeding +the fire leisurely from time to time with crackling boughs. +Now was the time for Mara to make her inquiries; her +heart beat, she knew not why, for she was full of those +little timidities and shames that so often embarrass children +in their attempts to get at the meanings of things in this +great world, where they are such ignorant spectators.</p> + +<p>"Captain Kittridge," she said at last, "do the mermaids +toll any bells for people when they are drowned?"</p> + +<p>Now the Captain had never been known to indicate the +least ignorance on any subject in heaven or earth, which +any one wished his opinion on; he therefore leisurely poked +another great crackling bough of green hemlock into the +fire, and, Yankee-like, answered one question by asking +another.</p> + +<p>"What put that into your curly pate?" he said.</p> + +<p>"A book I've been reading says they do,—that is, sea-nymphs +do. Ain't sea-nymphs and mermaids the same +thing?"</p> + +<p>"Wal', I guess they be, pretty much," said the Captain, +rubbing down his pantaloons; "yes, they be," he +added, after reflection.</p> + +<p>"And when people are drowned, how long does it take<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> +for their bones to turn into coral, and their eyes into +pearl?" said little Mara.</p> + +<p>"Well, that depends upon circumstances," said the Captain, +who wasn't going to be posed; "but let me jist see +your book you've been reading these things out of."</p> + +<p>"I found it in a barrel up garret, and grandma gave it +to me," said Mara, unrolling her handkerchief; "it's a +beautiful book,—it tells about an island, and there was +an old enchanter lived on it, and he had one daughter, and +there was a spirit they called Ariel, whom a wicked old +witch fastened in a split of a pine-tree, till the enchanter +got him out. He was a beautiful spirit, and rode in the +curled clouds and hung in flowers,—because he could +make himself big or little, you see."</p> + +<p>"Ah, yes, I see, to be sure," said the Captain, nodding +his head.</p> + +<p>"Well, that about sea-nymphs ringing his knell is here," +Mara added, beginning to read the passage with wide, +dilated eyes and great emphasis. "You see," she went +on speaking very fast, "this enchanter had been a prince, +and a wicked brother had contrived to send him to sea +with his poor little daughter, in a ship so leaky that the +very rats had left it."</p> + +<p>"Bad business that!" said the Captain, attentively.</p> + +<p>"Well," said Mara, "they got cast ashore on this desolate +island, where they lived together. But once, when a +ship was going by on the sea that had his wicked brother +and his son—a real good, handsome young prince—in it, +why then he made a storm by magic arts."</p> + +<p>"Jist so," said the Captain; "that's been often done, +to my sartin knowledge."</p> + +<p>"And he made the ship be wrecked, and all the people +thrown ashore, but there wasn't any of 'em drowned, and +this handsome prince heard Ariel singing this song about +his father, and it made him think he was dead."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Well, what became of 'em?" interposed Sally, who +had come up with her pan of clams in time to hear this +story, to which she had listened with breathless interest.</p> + +<p>"Oh, the beautiful young prince married the beautiful +young lady," said Mara.</p> + +<p>"Wal'," said the Captain, who by this time had found +his soundings; "that you've been a-tellin' is what they +call a play, and I've seen 'em act it at a theatre, when I +was to Liverpool once. I know all about it. Shakespeare +wrote it, and he's a great English poet."</p> + +<p>"But did it ever happen?" said Mara, trembling between +hope and fear. "Is it like the Bible and Roman +history?"</p> + +<p>"Why, no," said Captain Kittridge, "not exactly; but +things jist like it, you know. Mermaids and sich is common +in foreign parts, and they has funerals for drowned +sailors. 'Member once when we was sailing near the Bermudas +by a reef where the Lively Fanny went down, +and I heard a kind o' ding-dongin',—and the waters +there is clear as the sky,—and I looked down and see the +coral all a-growin', and the sea-plants a-wavin' as handsome +as a pictur', and the mermaids they was a-singin'. +It was beautiful; they sung kind o' mournful; and Jack +Hubbard, he would have it they was a-singin' for the +poor fellows that was a-lyin' there round under the seaweed."</p> + +<p>"But," said Mara, "did you ever see an enchanter that +could make storms?"</p> + +<p>"Wal', there be witches and conjurers that make storms. +'Member once when we was crossin' the line, about twelve +o'clock at night, there was an old man with a long white +beard that shone like silver, came and stood at the masthead, +and he had a pitchfork in one hand, and a lantern in +the other, and there was great balls of fire as big as my fist +came out all round in the rigging. And I'll tell you if we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> +didn't get a blow that ar night! I thought to my soul +we should all go to the bottom."</p> + +<p>"Why," said Mara, her eyes staring with excitement, +"that was just like this shipwreck; and 'twas Ariel made +those balls of fire; he says so; he said he 'flamed amazement' +all over the ship."</p> + +<p>"I've heard Miss Roxy tell about witches that made +storms," said Sally.</p> + +<p>The Captain leisurely proceeded to open the clams, separating +from the shells the contents, which he threw into a +pan, meanwhile placing a black pot over the fire in which +he had previously arranged certain slices of salt pork, +which soon began frizzling in the heat.</p> + +<p>"Now, Sally, you peel them potatoes, and mind you +slice 'em thin," he said, and Sally soon was busy with her +work.</p> + +<p>"Yes," said the Captain, going on with his part of the +arrangement, "there was old Polly Twitchell, that lived in +that ar old tumble-down house on Mure P'int; people used +to say she brewed storms, and went to sea in a sieve."</p> + +<p>"Went in a sieve!" said both children; "why a sieve +wouldn't swim!"</p> + +<p>"No more it wouldn't, in any Christian way," said the +Captain; "but that was to show what a great witch she +was."</p> + +<p>"But this was a good enchanter," said Mara, "and he +did it all by a book and a rod."</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes," said the Captain; "that ar's the gen'l way +magicians do, ever since Moses's time in Egypt. 'Member +once I was to Alexandria, in Egypt, and I saw a magician +there that could jist see everything you ever did in your life +in a drop of ink that he held in his hand."</p> + +<p>"He could, father!"</p> + +<p>"To be sure he could! told me all about the old folks +at home; and described our house as natural as if he'd<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> +a-been there. He used to carry snakes round with him,—a +kind so p'ison that it was certain death to have 'em +bite you; but he played with 'em as if they was kittens."</p> + +<p>"Well," said Mara, "my enchanter was a king; and +when he got through all he wanted, and got his daughter +married to the beautiful young prince, he said he would +break his staff, and deeper than plummet sounded he would +bury his book."</p> + +<p>"It was pretty much the best thing he could do," said +the Captain, "because the Bible is agin such things."</p> + +<p>"Is it?" said Mara; "why, he was a real good man."</p> + +<p>"Oh, well, you know, we all on us does what ain't quite +right sometimes, when we gets pushed up," said the Captain, +who now began arranging the clams and sliced potatoes +in alternate layers with sea-biscuit, strewing in salt +and pepper as he went on; and, in a few moments, a smell, +fragrant to hungry senses, began to steam upward, and Sally +began washing and preparing some mammoth clam-shells, +to serve as ladles and plates for the future chowder.</p> + +<p>Mara, who sat with her morsel of a book in her lap, +seemed deeply pondering the past conversation. At last +she said, "What did you mean by saying you'd seen 'em +act that at a theatre?"</p> + +<p>"Why, they make it all seem real; and they have a +shipwreck, and you see it all jist right afore your eyes."</p> + +<p>"And the Enchanter, and Ariel, and Caliban, and all?" +said Mara.</p> + +<p>"Yes, all on't,—plain as printing."</p> + +<p>"Why, that is by magic, ain't it?" said Mara.</p> + +<p>"No; they hes ways to jist make it up; but,"—added +the Captain, "Sally, you needn't say nothin' to your ma +'bout the theatre, 'cause she wouldn't think I's fit to go +to meetin' for six months arter, if she heard on't."</p> + +<p>"Why, ain't theatres good?" said Sally.</p> + +<p>"Wal', there's a middlin' sight o' bad things in 'em,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> +said the Captain, "that I must say; but as long as folks <i>is</i> +folks, why, they will be <i>folksy</i>;—but there's never any +makin' women folk understand about them ar things."</p> + +<p>"I am sorry they are bad," said Mara; "I want to see +them."</p> + +<p>"Wal', wal'," said the Captain, "on the hull I've seen +real things a good deal more wonderful than all their +shows, and they hain't no make-b'lieve to 'em; but theatres +is takin' arter all. But, Sally, mind you don't say +nothin' to Mis' Kittridge."</p> + +<p>A few moments more and all discussion was lost in preparations +for the meal, and each one, receiving a portion of +the savory stew in a large shell, made a spoon of a small +cockle, and with some slices of bread and butter, the evening +meal went off merrily. The sun was sloping toward +the ocean; the wide blue floor was bedropped here and +there with rosy shadows of sailing clouds. Suddenly the +Captain sprang up, calling out,—</p> + +<p>"Sure as I'm alive, there they be!"</p> + +<p>"Who?" exclaimed the children.</p> + +<p>"Why, Captain Pennel and Moses; don't you see?"</p> + +<p>And, in fact, on the outer circle of the horizon came +drifting a line of small white-breasted vessels, looking like +so many doves.</p> + +<p>"Them's 'em," said the Captain, while Mara danced +for joy.</p> + +<p>"How soon will they be here?"</p> + +<p>"Afore long," said the Captain; "so, Mara, I guess +you'll want to be getting hum."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV</h2> + +<h3>THE HOME COMING</h3> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span>Mrs. Pennel, too, had seen the white, dove-like cloud +on the horizon, and had hurried to make biscuits, and conduct +other culinary preparations which should welcome the +wanderers home.</p> + +<p>The sun was just dipping into the great blue sea—a +round ball of fire—and sending long, slanting tracks of +light across the top of each wave, when a boat was moored +at the beach, and the minister sprang out,—not in his +suit of ceremony, but attired in fisherman's garb.</p> + +<p>"Good afternoon, Mrs. Pennel," he said. "I was out +fishing, and I thought I saw your husband's schooner in +the distance. I thought I'd come and tell you."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, Mr. Sewell. I thought I saw it, but I +was not certain. Do come in; the Captain would be delighted +to see you here."</p> + +<p>"We miss your husband in our meetings," said Mr. +Sewell; "it will be good news for us all when he comes +home; he is one of those I depend on to help me preach."</p> + +<p>"I'm sure you don't preach to anybody who enjoys it +more," said Mrs. Pennel. "He often tells me that the +greatest trouble about his voyages to the Banks is that he +loses so many sanctuary privileges; though he always keeps +Sunday on his ship, and reads and sings his psalms; but, +he says, after all, there's nothing like going to Mount +Zion."</p> + +<p>"And little Moses has gone on his first voyage?" said +the minister.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yes, indeed; the child has been teasing to go for more +than a year. Finally the Cap'n told him if he'd be faithful +in the ploughing and planting, he should go. You see, +he's rather unsteady, and apt to be off after other things,—very +different from Mara. Whatever you give her to +do, she always keeps at it till it's done."</p> + +<p>"And pray, where is the little lady?" said the minister; +"is she gone?"</p> + +<p>"Well, Cap'n Kittridge came in this afternoon to take +her down to see Sally. The Cap'n's always so fond of +Mara, and she has always taken to him ever since she was +a baby."</p> + +<p>"The Captain is a curious creature," said the minister, +smiling.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Pennel smiled also; and it is to be remarked that +nobody ever mentioned the poor Captain's name without +the same curious smile.</p> + +<p>"The Cap'n is a good-hearted, obliging creature," said +Mrs. Pennel, "and a master-hand for telling stories to the +children."</p> + +<p>"Yes, a perfect 'Arabian Nights' Entertainment,'" said +Mr. Sewell.</p> + +<p>"Well, I really believe the Cap'n believes his own +stories," said Mrs. Pennel; "he always seems to, and certainly +a more obliging man and a kinder neighbor couldn't +be. He has been in and out almost every day since I've +been alone, to see if I wanted anything. He would insist +on chopping wood and splitting kindlings for me, though +I told him the Cap'n and Moses had left a plenty to last +till they came home."</p> + +<p>At this moment the subject of their conversation appeared +striding along the beach, with a large, red lobster in +one hand, while with the other he held little Mara upon +his shoulder, she the while clapping her hands and singing +merrily, as she saw the Brilliant out on the open blue sea,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> +its white sails looking of a rosy purple in the evening light, +careering gayly homeward.</p> + +<p>"There is Captain Kittridge this very minute," said +Mrs. Pennel, setting down a tea-cup she had been wiping, +and going to the door.</p> + +<p>"Good evening, Mis' Pennel," said the Captain. "I +s'pose you see your folks are comin'. I brought down one +of these 'ere ready b'iled, 'cause I thought it might make +out your supper."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, Captain; you must stay and take some +with us."</p> + +<p>"Wal', me and the children have pooty much done our +supper," said the Captain. "We made a real fust-rate +chowder down there to the cove; but I'll jist stay and see +what the Cap'n's luck is. Massy!" he added, as he +looked in at the door, "if you hain't got the minister +there! Wal', now, I come jist as I be," he added, with +a glance down at his clothes.</p> + +<p>"Never mind, Captain," said Mr. Sewell; "I'm in my +fishing-clothes, so we're even."</p> + +<p>As to little Mara, she had run down to the beach, and +stood so near the sea, that every dash of the tide-wave +forced her little feet to tread an inch backward, stretching +out her hands eagerly toward the schooner, which was +standing straight toward the small wharf, not far from their +door. Already she could see on deck figures moving about, +and her sharp little eyes made out a small personage in a +red shirt that was among the most active. Soon all the +figures grew distinct, and she could see her grandfather's +gray head, and alert, active form, and could see, by the +signs he made, that he had perceived the little blowy figure +that stood, with hair streaming in the wind, like some +flower bent seaward.</p> + +<p>And now they are come nearer, and Moses shouts and +dances on the deck, and the Captain and Mrs. Pennel come<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> +running from the house down to the shore, and a few +minutes more, and all are landed safe and sound, and little +Mara is carried up to the house in her grandfather's arms, +while Captain Kittridge stops to have a few moments' gossip +with Ben Halliday and Tom Scranton before they go +to their own resting-places.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile Moses loses not a moment in boasting of his +heroic exploits to Mara.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mara! you've no idea what times we've had! I +can fish equal to any of 'em, and I can take in sail and +tend the helm like anything, and I know all the names of +everything; and you ought to have seen us catch fish! +Why, they bit just as fast as we could throw; and it was +just throw and bite,—throw and bite,—throw and bite; +and my hands got blistered pulling in, but I didn't mind +it,—I was determined no one should beat me."</p> + +<p>"Oh! did you blister your hands?" said Mara, pitifully.</p> + +<p>"Oh, to be sure! Now, you girls think that's a dreadful +thing, but we men don't mind it. My hands are getting +so hard, you've no idea. And, Mara, we caught a +great shark."</p> + +<p>"A shark!—oh, how dreadful! Isn't he dangerous?"</p> + +<p>"Dangerous! I guess not. We served him out, I tell +you. He'll never eat any more people, I tell you, the old +wretch!"</p> + +<p>"But, poor shark, it isn't his fault that he eats people. +He was made so," said Mara, unconsciously touching a +deep theological mystery.</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't know but he was," said Moses; "but +sharks that we catch never eat any more, I'll bet you."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Moses, did you see any icebergs?"</p> + +<p>"Icebergs! yes; we passed right by one,—a real grand +one."</p> + +<p>"Were there any bears on it?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Bears! No; we didn't see any."</p> + +<p>"Captain Kittridge says there are white bears live on +'em."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Captain Kittridge," said Moses, with a toss of +superb contempt; "if you're going to believe all <i>he</i> says, +you've got your hands full."</p> + +<p>"Why, Moses, you don't think he tells lies?" said +Mara, the tears actually starting in her eyes. "I think he +is <i>real</i> good, and tells nothing but the truth."</p> + +<p>"Well, well, you are young yet," said Moses, turning +away with an air of easy grandeur, "and only a girl besides," +he added.</p> + +<p>Mara was nettled at this speech. First, it pained her to +have her child's faith shaken in anything, and particularly +in her good old friend, the Captain; and next, she felt, +with more force than ever she did before, the continual +disparaging tone in which Moses spoke of her girlhood.</p> + +<p>"I'm sure," she said to herself, "he oughtn't to feel +so about girls and women. There was Deborah was a prophetess, +and judged Israel; and there was Egeria,—she +taught Numa Pompilius all his wisdom."</p> + +<p>But it was not the little maiden's way to speak when +anything thwarted or hurt her, but rather to fold all her +feelings and thoughts inward, as some insects, with fine +gauzy wings, draw them under a coat of horny concealment. +Somehow, there was a shivering sense of disappointment in +all this meeting with Moses. She had dwelt upon it, and +fancied so much, and had so many things to say to him; +and he had come home so self-absorbed and glorious, and +seemed to have had so little need of or thought for her, +that she felt a cold, sad sinking at her heart; and walking +away very still and white, sat down demurely by her grandfather's +knee.</p> + +<p>"Well, so my little girl is glad grandfather's come," he +said, lifting her fondly in his arms, and putting her golden<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> +head under his coat, as he had been wont to do from +infancy; "grandpa thought a great deal about his little +Mara."</p> + +<p>The small heart swelled against his. Kind, faithful old +grandpa! how much more he thought about her than +Moses; and yet she had thought so much of Moses. And +there he sat, this same ungrateful Moses, bright-eyed and +rosy-cheeked, full of talk and gayety, full of energy and +vigor, as ignorant as possible of the wound he had given to +the little loving heart that was silently brooding under her +grandfather's butternut-colored sea-coat. Not only was he +ignorant, but he had not even those conditions within himself +which made knowledge possible. All that there was +developed of him, at present, was a fund of energy, self-esteem, +hope, courage, and daring, the love of action, life, +and adventure; his life was in the outward and present, +not in the inward and reflective; he was a true ten-year +old boy, in its healthiest and most animal perfection. +What she was, the small pearl with the golden hair, with +her frail and high-strung organization, her sensitive nerves, +her half-spiritual fibres, her ponderings, and marvels, and +dreams, her power of love, and yearning for self-devotion, +our readers may, perhaps, have seen. But if ever two +children, or two grown people, thus organized, are thrown +into intimate relations, it follows, from the very laws of +their being, that one must hurt the other, simply by being +itself; one must always hunger for what the other has not +to give.</p> + +<p>It was a merry meal, however, when they all sat down +to the tea-table once more, and Mara by her grandfather's +side, who often stopped what he was saying to stroke her +head fondly. Moses bore a more prominent part in the +conversation than he had been wont to do before this voyage, +and all seemed to listen to him with a kind of indulgence +elders often accord to a handsome, manly boy, in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> +first flush of some successful enterprise. That ignorant +confidence in one's self and one's future, which comes in +life's first dawn, has a sort of mournful charm in experienced +eyes, who know how much it all amounts to.</p> + +<p>Gradually, little Mara quieted herself with listening to +and admiring him. It is not comfortable to have any +heart-quarrel with one's cherished idol, and everything of +the feminine nature, therefore, can speedily find fifty good +reasons for seeing one's self in the wrong and one's graven +image in the right; and little Mara soon had said to herself, +without words, that, of course, Moses couldn't be +expected to think as much of her as she of him. He was +handsomer, cleverer, and had a thousand other things to +do and to think of—he was a boy, in short, and going to +be a glorious man and sail all over the world, while she +could only hem handkerchiefs and knit stockings, and sit +at home and wait for him to come back. This was about +the <i>résumé</i> of life as it appeared to the little one, who +went on from the moment worshiping her image with +more undivided idolatry than ever, hoping that by and by +he would think more of her.</p> + +<p>Mr. Sewell appeared to study Moses carefully and +thoughtfully, and encouraged the wild, gleeful frankness +which he had brought home from his first voyage, as a +knowing jockey tries the paces of a high-mettled colt.</p> + +<p>"Did you get any time to read?" he interposed once, +when the boy stopped in his account of their adventures.</p> + +<p>"No, sir," said Moses; "at least," he added, blushing +very deeply, "I didn't feel like reading. I had so much +to do, and there was so much to see."</p> + +<p>"It's all new to him now," said Captain Pennel; "but +when he comes to being, as I've been, day after day, with +nothing but sea and sky, he'll be glad of a book, just to +break the sameness."</p> + +<p>"Laws, yes," said Captain Kittridge; "sailor's life ain't<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> +all apple-pie, as it seems when a boy first goes on a summer +trip with his daddy—not by no manner o' means."</p> + +<p>"But," said Mara, blushing and looking very eagerly at +Mr. Sewell, "Moses has read a great deal. He read the +Roman and the Grecian history through before he went +away, and knows all about them."</p> + +<p>"Indeed!" said Mr. Sewell, turning with an amused +look towards the tiny little champion; "do you read them, +too, my little maid?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, indeed," said Mara, her eyes kindling; "I have +read them a great deal since Moses went away—them and +the Bible."</p> + +<p>Mara did not dare to name her new-found treasure—there +was something so mysterious about that, that she +could not venture to produce it, except on the score of extreme +intimacy.</p> + +<p>"Come, sit by me, little Mara," said the minister, putting +out his hand; "you and I must be friends, I see."</p> + +<p>Mr. Sewell had a certain something of mesmeric power +in his eyes which children seldom resisted; and with a +shrinking movement, as if both attracted and repelled, the +little girl got upon his knee.</p> + +<p>"So you like the Bible and Roman history?" he said +to her, making a little aside for her, while a brisk conversation +was going on between Captain Kittridge and Captain +Pennel on the fishing bounty for the year.</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir," said Mara, blushing in a very guilty way.</p> + +<p>"And which do you like the best?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know, sir; I sometimes think it is the one, +and sometimes the other."</p> + +<p>"Well, what pleases you in the Roman history?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I like that about Quintus Curtius."</p> + +<p>"Quintus Curtius?" said Mr. Sewell, pretending not to +remember.</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't you remember him? why, there was a great<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> +gulf opened in the Forum, and the Augurs said that the +country would not be saved unless some one would offer +himself up for it, and so he jumped right in, all on horseback. +I think that was grand. I should like to have +done that," said little Mara, her eyes blazing out with a +kind of starry light which they had when she was excited.</p> + +<p>"And how would you have liked it, if you had been a +Roman girl, and Moses were Quintus Curtius? would you +like to have him give himself up for the good of the +country?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, no!" said Mara, instinctively shuddering.</p> + +<p>"Don't you think it would be very grand of him?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, sir."</p> + +<p>"And shouldn't we wish our friends to do what is brave +and grand?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir; but then," she added, "it would be so dreadful +<i>never</i> to see him any more," and a large tear rolled +from the great soft eyes and fell on the minister's hand.</p> + +<p>"Come, come," thought Mr. Sewell, "this sort of experimenting +is too bad—too much nerve here, too much +solitude, too much pine-whispering and sea-dashing are +going to the making up of this little piece of workmanship."</p> + +<p>"Tell me," he said, motioning Moses to sit by him, +"how <i>you</i> like the Roman history."</p> + +<p>"I like it first-rate," said Moses. "The Romans were +such smashers, and beat everybody; nobody could stand +against them; and I like Alexander, too—I think he was +splendid."</p> + +<p>"True boy," said Mr. Sewell to himself, "unreflecting +brother of the wind and the sea, and all that is vigorous +and active—no precocious development of the moral +here."</p> + +<p>"Now you have come," said Mr. Sewell, "I will lend +you another book."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Thank you, sir; I love to read them when I'm at +home—it's so still here. I should be dull if I didn't."</p> + +<p>Mara's eyes looked eagerly attentive. Mr. Sewell noticed +their hungry look when a book was spoken of.</p> + +<p>"And you must read it, too, my little girl," he said.</p> + +<p>"Thank you, sir," said Mara; "I always want to read +everything Moses does."</p> + +<p>"What book is it?" said Moses.</p> + +<p>"It is called Plutarch's 'Lives,'" said the minister; "it +has more particular accounts of the men you read about in +history."</p> + +<p>"Are there any lives of women?" said Mara.</p> + +<p>"No, my dear," said Mr. Sewell; "in the old times, +women did not get their lives written, though I don't +doubt many of them were much better worth writing than +the men's."</p> + +<p>"I should like to be a great general," said Moses, with +a toss of his head.</p> + +<p>"The way to be great lies through books, now, and not +through battles," said the minister; "there is more done +with pens than swords; so, if you want to do anything, +you must read and study."</p> + +<p>"Do you think of giving this boy a liberal education?" +said Mr. Sewell some time later in the evening, after Moses +and Mara were gone to bed.</p> + +<p>"Depends on the boy," said Zephaniah. "I've been +up to Brunswick, and seen the fellows there in the college. +With a good many of 'em, going to college seems to be +just nothing but a sort of ceremony; they go because they're +sent, and don't learn anything more'n they can help. +That's what I call waste of time and money."</p> + +<p>"But don't you think Moses shows some taste for reading +and study?"</p> + +<p>"Pretty well, pretty well!" said Zephaniah; "jist keep +him a little hungry; not let him get all he wants, you see,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> +and he'll bite the sharper. If I want to catch cod, I don't +begin with flingin' over a barrel o' bait. So with the +boys, jist bait 'em with a book here and a book there, and +kind o' let 'em feel their own way, and then, if nothin' +will do but a fellow must go to college, give in to him—that'd +be <i>my</i> way."</p> + +<p>"And a very good one, too!" said Mr. Sewell. "I'll +see if I can't bait my hook, so as to make Moses take after +Latin this winter. I shall have plenty of time to teach +him."</p> + +<p>"Now, there's Mara!" said the Captain, his face becoming +phosphorescent with a sort of mild radiance of pleasure +as it usually was when he spoke of her; "she's real +sharp set after books; she's ready to fly out of her little +skin at the sight of one."</p> + +<p>"That child thinks too much, and feels too much, and +knows too much for her years!" said Mr. Sewell. "If +she were a boy, and you would take her away cod-fishing, +as you have Moses, the sea-winds would blow away some +of the thinking, and her little body would grow stout, and +her mind less delicate and sensitive. But she's a woman," +he said, with a sigh, "and they are all alike. We can't +do much for them, but let them come up as they will and +make the best of it."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h2> + +<h3>THE NATURAL AND THE SPIRITUAL</h3> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span>"Emily," said Mr. Sewell, "did you ever take much +notice of that little Mara Lincoln?"</p> + +<p>"No, brother; why?"</p> + +<p>"Because I think her a very uncommon child."</p> + +<p>"She is a pretty little creature," said Miss Emily, "but +that is all I know; modest—blushing to her eyes when a +stranger speaks to her."</p> + +<p>"She has wonderful eyes," said Mr. Sewell; "when she +gets excited, they grow so large and so bright, it seems +almost unnatural."</p> + +<p>"Dear me! has she?" said Miss Emily, in a tone of +one who had been called upon to do something about it. +"Well?" she added, inquiringly.</p> + +<p>"That little thing is only seven years old," said Mr. +Sewell; "and she is thinking and feeling herself all into +mere spirit—brain and nerves all active, and her little +body so frail. She reads incessantly, and thinks over and +over what she reads."</p> + +<p>"Well?" said Miss Emily, winding very swiftly on a +skein of black silk, and giving a little twitch, every now +and then, to a knot to make it subservient.</p> + +<p>It was commonly the way when Mr. Sewell began to +talk with Miss Emily, that she constantly answered him +with the manner of one who expects some immediate, practical +proposition to flow from every train of thought. Now +Mr. Sewell was one of the reflecting kind of men, whose +thoughts have a thousand meandering paths, that lead no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span>where +in particular. His sister's brisk little "Well's?" +and "Ah's!" and "Indeed's!" were sometimes the least +bit in the world annoying.</p> + +<p>"What is to be done?" said Miss Emily; "shall we +speak to Mrs. Pennel?"</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Pennel would know nothing about her."</p> + +<p>"How strangely you talk!—who should, if she doesn't?"</p> + +<p>"I mean, she wouldn't understand the dangers of her +case."</p> + +<p>"Dangers! Do you think she has any disease? She +seems to be a healthy child enough, I'm sure. She has +a lovely color in her cheeks."</p> + +<p>Mr. Sewell seemed suddenly to become immersed in a +book he was reading.</p> + +<p>"There now," said Miss Emily, with a little tone of +pique, "that's the way you always do. You begin to talk +with me, and just as I get interested in the conversation, +you take up a book. It's too bad."</p> + +<p>"Emily," said Mr. Sewell, laying down his book, "I +think I shall begin to give Moses Pennel Latin lessons this +winter."</p> + +<p>"Why, what do you undertake that for?" said Miss +Emily. "You have enough to do without that, I'm +sure."</p> + +<p>"He is an uncommonly bright boy, and he interests +me."</p> + +<p>"Now, brother, you needn't tell me; there is some +mystery about the interest you take in that child, <i>you +know</i> there is."</p> + +<p>"I am fond of children," said Mr. Sewell, dryly.</p> + +<p>"Well, but you don't take as much interest in other +boys. I never heard of your teaching any of them Latin +before."</p> + +<p>"Well, Emily, he is an uncommonly interesting child,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> +and the providential circumstances under which he came +into our neighborhood"—</p> + +<p>"Providential fiddlesticks!" said Miss Emily, with +heightened color, "<i>I</i> believe you knew that boy's mother."</p> + +<p>This sudden thrust brought a vivid color into Mr. Sewell's +cheeks. To be interrupted so unceremoniously, in +the midst of so very proper and ministerial a remark, was +rather provoking, and he answered, with some asperity,—</p> + +<p>"And suppose I had, Emily, and supposing there were +any painful subject connected with this past event, you +might have sufficient forbearance not to try to make me +speak on what I do not wish to talk of."</p> + +<p>Mr. Sewell was one of your gentle, dignified men, from +whom Heaven deliver an inquisitive female friend! If +such people would only get angry, and blow some unbecoming +blast, one might make something of them; but +speaking, as they always do, from the serene heights of +immaculate propriety, one gets in the wrong before one +knows it, and has nothing for it but to beg pardon. Miss +Emily had, however, a feminine resource: she began to cry—wisely +confining herself to the simple eloquence of tears +and sobs. Mr. Sewell sat as awkwardly as if he had trodden +on a kitten's toe, or brushed down a china cup, feeling +as if he were a great, horrid, clumsy boor, and his poor +little sister a martyr.</p> + +<p>"Come, Emily," he said, in a softer tone, when the sobs +subsided a little.</p> + +<p>But Emily didn't "come," but went at it with a fresh +burst. Mr. Sewell had a vision like that which drowning +men are said to have, in which all Miss Emily's sisterly +devotions, stocking-darnings, account-keepings, nursings +and tendings, and infinite self-sacrifices, rose up before +him: and there she was—crying!</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry I spoke harshly, Emily. Come, come; +that's a good girl."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I'm a silly fool," said Miss Emily, lifting her head, +and wiping the tears from her merry little eyes, as she +went on winding her silk.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps he will tell me now," she thought, as she +wound.</p> + +<p>But he didn't.</p> + +<p>"What I was going to say, Emily," said her brother, +"was, that I thought it would be a good plan for little +Mara to come sometimes with Moses; and then, by observing +her more particularly, you might be of use to her; +her little, active mind needs good practical guidance like +yours."</p> + +<p>Mr. Sewell spoke in a gentle, flattering tone, and Miss +Emily was flattered; but she soon saw that she had gained +nothing by the whole breeze, except a little kind of dread, +which made her inwardly resolve never to touch the +knocker of his fortress again. But she entered into her +brother's scheme with the facile alacrity with which she +usually seconded any schemes of his proposing.</p> + +<p>"I might teach her painting and embroidery," said Miss +Emily, glancing, with a satisfied air, at a framed piece of +her own work which hung over the mantelpiece, revealing +the state of the fine arts in this country, as exhibited in +the performances of well-instructed young ladies of that +period. Miss Emily had performed it under the tuition of +a celebrated teacher of female accomplishments. It represented +a white marble obelisk, which an inscription, in +legible India ink letters, stated to be "Sacred to the memory +of Theophilus Sewell," etc. This obelisk stood in the +midst of a ground made very green by an embroidery of +different shades of chenille and silk, and was overshadowed +by an embroidered weeping-willow. Leaning on it, with +her face concealed in a plentiful flow of white handkerchief, +was a female figure in deep mourning, designed to +represent the desolate widow. A young girl, in a very black<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> +dress, knelt in front of it, and a very lugubrious-looking +young man, standing bolt upright on the other side, seemed +to hold in his hand one end of a wreath of roses, which the +girl was presenting, as an appropriate decoration for the +tomb. The girl and gentleman were, of course, the young +Theophilus and Miss Emily, and the appalling grief conveyed +by the expression of their faces was a triumph of the +pictorial art.</p> + +<p>Miss Emily had in her bedroom a similar funeral trophy, +sacred to the memory of her deceased mother,—besides +which there were, framed and glazed, in the little sitting-room, +two embroidered shepherdesses standing with rueful +faces, in charge of certain animals of an uncertain breed +between sheep and pigs. The poor little soul had mentally +resolved to make Mara the heiress of all the skill and +knowledge of the arts by which she had been enabled to +consummate these marvels.</p> + +<p>"She is naturally a lady-like little thing," she said to +herself, "and if I know anything of accomplishments, she +shall have them."</p> + +<p>Just about the time that Miss Emily came to this resolution, +had she been clairvoyant, she might have seen +Mara sitting very quietly, busy in the solitude of her own +room with a little sprig of partridge-berry before her, +whose round green leaves and brilliant scarlet berries she +had been for hours trying to imitate, as appeared from the +scattered sketches and fragments around her. In fact, before +Zephaniah started on his spring fishing, he had caught +her one day very busy at work of the same kind, with bits +of charcoal, and some colors compounded out of wild berries; +and so out of his capacious pocket, after his return, +he drew a little box of water-colors and a lead-pencil and +square of India-rubber, which he had bought for her in +Portland on his way home.</p> + +<p>Hour after hour the child works, so still, so fervent,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> +so earnest,—going over and over, time after time, her +simple, ignorant methods to make it "look like," and +stopping, at times, to give the true artist's sigh, as the +little green and scarlet fragment lies there hopelessly, unapproachably +perfect. Ignorantly to herself, the hands of +the little pilgrim are knocking at the very door where +Giotto and Cimabue knocked in the innocent child-life of +Italian art.</p> + +<p>"Why won't it look round?" she said to Moses, who +had come in behind her.</p> + +<p>"Why, Mara, did you do these?" said Moses, astonished; +"why, how well they are done! I should know in +a minute what they were meant for."</p> + +<p>Mara flushed up at being praised by Moses, but heaved +a deep sigh as she looked back.</p> + +<p>"It's so pretty, that sprig," she said; "if I only could +make it just like"—</p> + +<p>"Why, nobody expects <i>that</i>," said Moses, "it's like +enough, if people only know what you mean it for. But +come, now, get your bonnet, and come with me in the +boat. Captain Kittridge has just brought down our new +one, and I'm going to take you over to Eagle Island, and +we'll take our dinner and stay all day; mother says so."</p> + +<p>"Oh, how nice!" said the little girl, running cheerfully +for her sun-bonnet.</p> + +<p>At the house-door they met Mrs. Pennel, with a little +closely covered tin pail.</p> + +<p>"Here's your dinner, children; and, Moses, mind and +take good care of her."</p> + +<p>"Never fear <i>me</i> mother, I've been to the Banks; there +wasn't a man there could manage a boat better than I +could."</p> + +<p>"Yes, grandmother," said Mara, "you ought to see how +strong his arms are; I believe he will be like Samson one +of these days if he keeps on."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span></p> + +<p>So away they went. It was a glorious August forenoon, +and the sombre spruces and shaggy hemlocks that dipped +and rippled in the waters were penetrated to their deepest +recesses with the clear brilliancy of the sky,—a true +northern sky, without a cloud, without even a softening +haze, defining every outline, revealing every minute point, +cutting with sharp decision the form of every promontory +and rock, and distant island.</p> + +<p>The blue of the sea and the blue of the sky were so +much the same, that when the children had rowed far out, +the little boat seemed to float midway, poised in the centre +of an azure sphere, with a firmament above and a firmament +below. Mara leaned dreamily over the side of the +boat, and drew her little hands through the waters as they +rippled along to the swift oars' strokes, and she saw as the +waves broke, and divided and shivered around the boat, +a hundred little faces, with brown eyes and golden hair, +gleaming up through the water, and dancing away over +rippling waves, and thought that so the sea-nymphs might +look who came up from the coral caves when they ring the +knell of drowned people. Moses sat opposite to her, with +his coat off, and his heavy black curls more wavy and +glossy than ever, as the exercise made them damp with perspiration.</p> + +<p>Eagle Island lay on the blue sea, a tangled thicket of +evergreens,—white pine, spruce, arbor vitæ, and fragrant +silver firs. A little strip of white beach bound it, like a +silver setting to a gem. And there Moses at length moored +his boat, and the children landed. The island was wholly +solitary, and there is something to children quite delightful +in feeling that they have a little lonely world all to themselves. +Childhood is itself such an enchanted island, separated +by mysterious depths from the mainland of nature, +life, and reality.</p> + +<p>Moses had subsided a little from the glorious heights on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> +which he seemed to be in the first flush of his return, and +he and Mara, in consequence, were the friends of old time. +It is true he thought himself quite a man, but the manhood +of a boy is only a tiny masquerade,—a fantastic, dreamy +prevision of real manhood. It was curious that Mara, who +was by all odds the most precociously developed of the two, +never thought of asserting herself a woman; in fact, she +seldom thought of herself at all, but dreamed and pondered +of almost everything else.</p> + +<p>"I declare," said Moses, looking up into a thick-branched, +rugged old hemlock, which stood all shaggy, with +heavy beards of gray moss drooping from its branches, +"there's an eagle's nest up there; I mean to go and see." +And up he went into the gloomy embrace of the old tree, +crackling the dead branches, wrenching off handfuls of gray +moss, rising higher and higher, every once in a while turning +and showing to Mara his glowing face and curly hair +through a dusky green frame of boughs, and then mounting +again. "I'm coming to it," he kept exclaiming.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile his proceedings seemed to create a sensation +among the feathered house-keepers, one of whom rose and +sailed screaming away into the air. In a moment after +there was a swoop of wings, and two eagles returned and +began flapping and screaming about the head of the boy.</p> + +<p>Mara, who stood at the foot of the tree, could not see +clearly what was going on, for the thickness of the boughs; +she only heard a great commotion and rattling of the +branches, the scream of the birds, and the swooping of +their wings, and Moses's valorous exclamations, as he +seemed to be laying about him with a branch which he had +broken off.</p> + +<p>At last he descended victorious, with the eggs in his +pocket. Mara stood at the foot of the tree, with her sun-bonnet +blown back, her hair streaming, and her little arms +upstretched, as if to catch him if he fell.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh, I was so afraid!" she said, as he set foot on the +ground.</p> + +<p>"Afraid? Pooh! Who's afraid? Why, you might +know the old eagles couldn't beat me."</p> + +<p>"Ah, well, I know how strong you are; but, you know, +I couldn't help it. But the poor birds,—do hear 'em +scream. Moses, don't you suppose they feel bad?"</p> + +<p>"No, they're only mad, to think they couldn't beat +me. I beat them just as the Romans used to beat folks,—I +played their nest was a city, and I spoiled it."</p> + +<p>"I shouldn't want to spoil cities!" said Mara.</p> + +<p>"That's 'cause you are a girl,—I'm a man, and men +always like war; I've taken one city this afternoon, and +mean to take a great many more."</p> + +<p>"But, Moses, do you think war is right?"</p> + +<p>"Right? why, yes, to be sure; if it ain't, it's a pity; +for it's all that has ever been done in this world. In the +Bible, or out, certainly it's right. I wish I had a gun +now, I'd stop those old eagles' screeching."</p> + +<p>"But, Moses, we shouldn't want any one to come and +steal all our things, and then shoot us."</p> + +<p>"How long you do think about things!" said Moses, +impatient at her pertinacity. "I am older than you, and +when I tell you a thing's right, you ought to believe it. +Besides, don't you take hens' eggs every day, in the barn? +How do you suppose the hens like that?"</p> + +<p>This was a home-thrust, and for the moment threw the +little casuist off the track. She carefully folded up the +idea, and laid it away on the inner shelves of her mind till +she could think more about it. Pliable as she was to all +outward appearances, the child had her own still, interior +world, where all her little notions and opinions stood up +crisp and fresh, like flowers that grow in cool, shady places. +If anybody too rudely assailed a thought or suggestion +she put forth, she drew it back again into this quiet inner<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> +chamber, and went on. Reader, there are some women of +this habit; and there is no independence and pertinacity +of opinion like that of these seemingly soft, quiet creatures, +whom it is so easy to silence, and so difficult to convince. +Mara, little and unformed as she yet was, belonged to the +race of those spirits to whom is deputed the office of the +angel in the Apocalypse, to whom was given the golden rod +which measured the New Jerusalem. Infant though she +was, she had ever in her hands that invisible measuring-rod, +which she was laying to the foundations of all actions +and thoughts. There may, perhaps, come a time when the +saucy boy, who now steps so superbly, and predominates +so proudly in virtue of his physical strength and daring, +will learn to tremble at the golden measuring-rod, held in +the hand of a woman.</p> + +<p>"Howbeit, that is not first which is spiritual, but that +which is natural." Moses is the type of the first unreflecting +stage of development, in which are only the out-reachings +of active faculties, the aspirations that tend toward +manly accomplishments. Seldom do we meet sensitiveness +of conscience or discriminating reflection as the indigenous +growth of a very vigorous physical development. Your +true healthy boy has the breezy, hearty virtues of a Newfoundland +dog, the wild fullness of life of the young race-colt. +Sentiment, sensibility, delicate perceptions, spiritual +aspirations, are plants of later growth.</p> + +<p>But there are, both of men and women, beings born into +this world in whom from childhood the spiritual and the +reflective predominate over the physical. In relation to +other human beings, they seem to be organized much as +birds are in relation to other animals. They are the artists, +the poets, the unconscious seers, to whom the purer truths +of spiritual instruction are open. Surveying man merely +as an animal, these sensitively organized beings, with their +feebler physical powers, are imperfect specimens of life.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> +Looking from the spiritual side, they seem to have a noble +strength, a divine force. The types of this latter class are +more commonly among women than among men. Multitudes +of them pass away in earlier years, and leave behind +in many hearts the anxious wonder, why they came so fair +only to mock the love they kindled. They who live to +maturity are the priests and priestesses of the spiritual life, +ordained of God to keep the balance between the rude but +absolute necessities of physical life and the higher sphere +to which that must at length give place.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII</h2> + +<h3>LESSONS</h3> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span>Moses felt elevated some inches in the world by the gift +of a new Latin grammar, which had been bought for him +in Brunswick. It was a step upward in life; no graduate +from a college ever felt more ennobled.</p> + +<p>"Wal', now, I tell ye, Moses Pennel," said Miss Roxy, +who, with her press-board and big flat-iron, was making +her autumn sojourn in the brown house, "I tell ye Latin +ain't just what you think 'tis, steppin' round so crank; +you must remember what the king of Israel said to Benhadad, +king of Syria."</p> + +<p>"I don't remember; what did he say?"</p> + +<p>"I remember," said the soft voice of Mara; "he said, +'Let not him that putteth on the harness boast as him that +putteth it off.'"</p> + +<p>"Good for you, Mara," said Miss Roxy; "if some other +folks read their Bibles as much as you do, they'd know +more."</p> + +<p>Between Moses and Miss Roxy there had always been a +state of sub-acute warfare since the days of his first arrival, +she regarding him as an unhopeful interloper, and he regarding +her as a grim-visaged, interfering gnome, whom he +disliked with all the intense, unreasoning antipathy of +childhood.</p> + +<p>"I hate that old woman," he said to Mara, as he flung +out of the door.</p> + +<p>"Why, Moses, what for?" said Mara, who never could +comprehend hating anybody.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I do hate her, and Aunt Ruey, too. They are two old +scratching cats; they hate me, and I hate them; they're +always trying to bring me down, and I won't be brought +down."</p> + +<p>Mara had sufficient instinctive insight into the feminine +rôle in the domestic concert not to adventure a direct argument +just now in favor of her friends, and therefore she +proposed that they should sit down together under a cedar +hard by, and look over the first lesson.</p> + +<p>"Miss Emily invited me to go over with you," she said, +"and I should like so much to hear you recite."</p> + +<p>Moses thought this very proper, as would any other male +person, young or old, who has been habitually admired by +any other female one. He did not doubt that, as in fishing +and rowing, and all other things he had undertaken as yet, +he should win himself distinguished honors.</p> + +<p>"See here," he said; "Mr. Sewell told me I might go +as far as I liked, and I mean to take all the declensions to +begin with; there's five of 'em, and I shall learn them for +the first lesson; then I shall take the adjectives next, and +next the verbs, and so in a fortnight get into reading."</p> + +<p>Mara heaved a sort of sigh. She wished she had been +invited to share this glorious race; but she looked on admiring +when Moses read, in a loud voice, "Penna, pennæ, +pennæ, pennam," etc.</p> + +<p>"There now, I believe I've got it," he said, handing +Mara the book; and he was perfectly astonished to find +that, with the book withdrawn, he boggled, and blundered, +and stumbled ingloriously. In vain Mara softly prompted, +and looked at him with pitiful eyes as he grew red in the +face with his efforts to remember.</p> + +<p>"Confound it all!" he said, with an angry flush, snatching +back the book; "it's more trouble than it's worth."</p> + +<p>Again he began the repetition, saying it very loud and +plain; he said it over and over till his mind wandered far<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> +out to sea, and while his tongue repeated "penna, pennæ," +he was counting the white sails of the fishing-smacks, and +thinking of pulling up codfish at the Banks.</p> + +<p>"There now, Mara, try me," he said, and handed her +the book again; "I'm sure I <i>must</i> know it now."</p> + +<p>But, alas! with the book the sounds glided away; and +"penna" and "pennam" and "pennis" and "pennæ" were +confusedly and indiscriminately mingled. He thought it +must be Mara's fault; she didn't read right, or she told +him just as he was going to say it, or she didn't tell him +right; or was he a fool? or had he lost his senses?</p> + +<p>That first declension has been a valley of humiliation to +many a sturdy boy—to many a bright one, too; and often +it is, that the more full of thought and vigor the mind is, +the more difficult it is to narrow it down to the single dry +issue of learning those sounds. Heinrich Heine said the +Romans would never have found time to conquer the world, +if they had had to learn their own language; but that, +luckily for them, they were born into the knowledge of +what nouns form their accusatives in "um."</p> + +<p>Long before Moses had learned the first declension, Mara +knew it by heart; for her intense anxiety for him, and the +eagerness and zeal with which she listened for each termination, +fixed them in her mind. Besides, she was naturally +of a more quiet and scholar-like turn than he,—more +intellectually developed. Moses began to think, before that +memorable day was through, that there was some sense in +Aunt Roxy's quotation of the saying of the King of Israel, +and materially to retrench his expectations as to the time +it might take to master the grammar; but still, his pride +and will were both committed, and he worked away in this +new sort of labor with energy.</p> + +<p>It was a fine, frosty November morning, when he rowed +Mara across the bay in a little boat to recite his first lesson +to Mr. Sewell.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span></p> + +<p>Miss Emily had provided a plate of seed-cake, otherwise +called cookies, for the children, as was a kindly custom of +old times, when the little people were expected. Miss +Emily had a dim idea that she was to do something for +Mara in her own department, while Moses was reciting his +lesson; and therefore producing a large sampler, displaying +every form and variety of marking-stitch, she began questioning +the little girl, in a low tone, as to her proficiency +in that useful accomplishment.</p> + +<p>Presently, however, she discovered that the child was +restless and uneasy, and that she answered without knowing +what she was saying. The fact was that she was listening, +with her whole soul in her eyes, and feeling +through all her nerves, every word Moses was saying. +She knew all the critical places, where he was likely to go +wrong; and when at last, in one place, he gave the wrong +termination, she involuntarily called out the right one, +starting up and turning towards them. In a moment she +blushed deeply, seeing Mr. Sewell and Miss Emily both +looking at her with surprise.</p> + +<p>"Come here, pussy," said Mr. Sewell, stretching out +his hand to her. "Can you say this?"</p> + +<p>"I believe I could, sir."</p> + +<p>"Well, try it."</p> + +<p>She went through without missing a word. Mr. Sewell +then, for curiosity, heard her repeat all the other forms of +the lesson. She had them perfectly.</p> + +<p>"Very well, my little girl," he said, "have you been +studying, too?"</p> + +<p>"I heard Moses say them so often," said Mara, in an +apologetic manner, "I couldn't help learning them."</p> + +<p>"Would you like to recite with Moses every day?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, sir, so much."</p> + +<p>"Well, you shall. It is better for him to have company."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span></p> + +<p>Mara's face brightened, and Miss Emily looked with a +puzzled air at her brother.</p> + +<p>"So," she said, when the children had gone home, "I +thought you wanted me to take Mara under my care. I +was going to begin and teach her some marking stitches, +and you put her up to studying Latin. I don't understand +you."</p> + +<p>"Well, Emily, the fact is, the child has a natural turn +for study, that no child of her age ought to have; and I +have done just as people always will with such children; +there's no sense in it, but I wanted to do it. You can +teach her marking and embroidery all the same; it would +break her little heart, now, if I were to turn her back."</p> + +<p>"I do not see of what use Latin can be to a woman."</p> + +<p>"Of what use is embroidery?"</p> + +<p>"Why, that is an accomplishment."</p> + +<p>"Ah, indeed!" said Mr. Sewell, contemplating the +weeping willow and tombstone trophy with a singular expression, +which it was lucky for Miss Emily's peace she +did not understand. The fact was, that Mr. Sewell had, +at one period of his life, had an opportunity of studying +and observing minutely some really fine works of art, and +the remembrance of them sometimes rose up to his mind, +in the presence of the <i>chefs-d'œuvre</i> on which his sister +rested with so much complacency. It was a part of his +quiet interior store of amusement to look at these bits of +Byzantine embroidery round the room, which affected him +always with a subtle sense of drollery.</p> + +<p>"You see, brother," said Miss Emily, "it is far better +for women to be accomplished than learned."</p> + +<p>"You are quite right in the main," said Mr. Sewell, +"only you must let me have my own way just for once. +One can't be consistent always."</p> + +<p>So another Latin grammar was bought, and Moses began +to feel a secret respect for his little companion, that he had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> +never done before, when he saw how easily she walked +through the labyrinths which at first so confused him. +Before this, the comparison had been wholly in points +where superiority arose from physical daring and vigor; +now he became aware of the existence of another kind of +strength with which he had not measured himself. Mara's +opinion in their mutual studies began to assume a value in +his eyes that her opinions on other subjects had never +done, and she saw and felt, with a secret gratification, that +she was becoming more to him through their mutual +pursuit. To say the truth, it required this fellowship to +inspire Moses with the patience and perseverance necessary +for this species of acquisition. His active, daring temperament +little inclined him to patient, quiet study. For +anything that could be done by two hands, he was always +ready; but to hold hands still and work silently in the +inner forces was to him a species of undertaking that +seemed against his very nature; but then he would do it—he +would not disgrace himself before Mr. Sewell, and let +a girl younger than himself outdo him.</p> + +<p>But the thing, after all, that absorbed more of Moses's +thoughts than all his lessons was the building and rigging +of a small schooner, at which he worked assiduously in all +his leisure moments. He had dozens of blocks of wood, +into which he had cut anchor moulds; and the melting of +lead, the running and shaping of anchors, the whittling of +masts and spars took up many an hour. Mara entered into +all those things readily, and was too happy to make herself +useful in hemming the sails.</p> + +<p>When the schooner was finished, they built some ways +down by the sea, and invited Sally Kittridge over to see +it launched.</p> + +<p>"There!" he said, when the little thing skimmed down +prosperously into the sea and floated gayly on the waters, +"when I'm a man, I'll have a big ship; I'll build her,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> +and launch her, and command her, all myself; and I'll +give you and Sally both a passage in it, and we'll go off to +the East Indies—we'll sail round the world!"</p> + +<p>None of the three doubted the feasibility of this scheme; +the little vessel they had just launched seemed the visible +prophecy of such a future; and how pleasant it would be +to sail off, with the world all before them, and winds ready +to blow them to any port they might wish!</p> + +<p>The three children arranged some bread and cheese and +doughnuts on a rock on the shore, to represent the collation +that was usually spread in those parts at a ship launch, and +felt quite like grown people—acting life beforehand in +that sort of shadowy pantomime which so delights little +people. Happy, happy days—when ships can be made +with a jack-knife and anchors run in pine blocks, and three +children together can launch a schooner, and the voyage of +the world can all be made in one sunny Saturday afternoon!</p> + +<p>"Mother says you are going to college," said Sally to +Moses.</p> + +<p>"Not I, indeed," said Moses; "as soon as I get old +enough, I'm going up to Umbagog among the lumberers, +and I'm going to cut real, splendid timber for my ship, +and I'm going to get it on the stocks, and have it built to +suit myself."</p> + +<p>"What will you call her?" said Sally.</p> + +<p>"I haven't thought of that," said Moses.</p> + +<p>"Call her the Ariel," said Mara.</p> + +<p>"What! after the spirit you were telling us about?" +said Sally.</p> + +<p>"Ariel is a pretty name," said Moses. "But what is +that about a spirit?"</p> + +<p>"Why," said Sally, "Mara read us a story about a ship +that was wrecked, and a spirit called Ariel, that sang a +song about the drowned mariners."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span></p> + +<p>Mara gave a shy, apprehensive glance at Moses, to see if +this allusion called up any painful recollections.</p> + +<p>No; instead of this, he was following the motions of his +little schooner on the waters with the briskest and most +unconcerned air in the world.</p> + +<p>"Why didn't you ever show me that story, Mara?" +said Moses.</p> + +<p>Mara colored and hesitated; the real reason she dared +not say.</p> + +<p>"Why, she read it to father and me down by the cove," +said Sally, "the afternoon that you came home from the +Banks; I remember how we saw you coming in; don't +you, Mara?"</p> + +<p>"What have you done with it?" said Moses.</p> + +<p>"I've got it at home," said Mara, in a faint voice; "I'll +show it to you, if you want to see it; there are such beautiful +things in it."</p> + +<p>That evening, as Moses sat busy, making some alterations +in his darling schooner, Mara produced her treasure, and +read and explained to him the story. He listened with +interest, though without any of the extreme feeling which +Mara had thought possible, and even interrupted her once +in the middle of the celebrated—</p> + +<p> +"Full fathom five thy father lies,"<br /> +</p> + +<p>by asking her to hold up the mast a minute, while he drove +in a peg to make it rake a little more. He was, evidently, +thinking of no drowned father, and dreaming of no possible +sea-caves, but acutely busy in fashioning a present reality; +and yet he liked to hear Mara read, and, when she had +done, told her that he thought it was a pretty—quite a +pretty story, with such a total absence of recognition that +the story had any affinities with his own history, that Mara +was quite astonished.</p> + +<p>She lay and thought about him hours, that night, after<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> +she had gone to bed; and he lay and thought about a new +way of disposing a pulley for raising a sail, which he determined +to try the effect of early in the morning.</p> + +<p>What was the absolute truth in regard to the boy? Had +he forgotten the scenes of his early life, the strange catastrophe +that cast him into his present circumstances? To +this we answer that all the efforts of Nature, during the +early years of a healthy childhood, are bent on effacing and +obliterating painful impressions, wiping out from each day +the sorrows of the last, as the daily tide effaces the furrows +on the seashore. The child that broods, day after day, +over some fixed idea, is so far forth not a healthy one. It +is Nature's way to make first a healthy animal, and then +develop in it gradually higher faculties. We have seen +our two children unequally matched hitherto, because unequally +developed. There will come a time, by and by in +the history of the boy, when the haze of dreamy curiosity +will steam up likewise from his mind, and vague yearnings, +and questionings, and longings possess and trouble him, +but it must be some years hence.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Here for a season we leave both our child friends, and +when ten years have passed over their heads,—when +Moses shall be twenty, and Mara seventeen,—we will return +again to tell their story, for then there will be one to +tell. Let us suppose in the interval, how Moses and Mara +read Virgil with the minister, and how Mara works a shepherdess +with Miss Emily, which astonishes the neighborhood,—but +how by herself she learns, after divers trials, +to paint partridge, and checkerberry, and trailing arbutus,—how +Moses makes better and better ships, and Sally +grows up a handsome girl, and goes up to Brunswick to +the high school,—how Captain Kittridge tells stories, and +Miss Roxy and Miss Ruey nurse and cut and make and +mend for the still rising generation,—how there are quilt<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span>ings +and tea-drinkings and prayer meetings and Sunday +sermons,—how Zephaniah and Mary Pennel grow old +gradually and graciously, as the sun rises and sets, and the +eternal silver tide rises and falls around our little gem, +Orr's Island.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII</h2> + +<h3>SALLY</h3> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span>"Now, where's Sally Kittridge! There's the clock +striking five, and nobody to set the table. Sally, I say! +Sally!"</p> + +<p>"Why, Mis' Kittridge," said the Captain, "Sally's gone +out more'n an hour ago, and I expect she's gone down to +Pennel's to see Mara; 'cause, you know, she come home +from Portland to-day."</p> + +<p>"Well, if she's come home, I s'pose I may as well give +up havin' any good of Sally, for that girl fairly bows down +to Mara Lincoln and worships her."</p> + +<p>"Well, good reason," said the Captain. "There ain't +a puttier creature breathin'. I'm a'most a mind to worship +her myself."</p> + +<p>"Captain Kittridge, you ought to be ashamed of yourself, +at your age, talking as you do."</p> + +<p>"Why, laws, mother, I don't feel my age," said the +frisky Captain, giving a sort of skip. "It don't seem +more'n yesterday since you and I was a-courtin', Polly. +What a life you did lead me in them days! I think you +kep' me on the anxious seat a pretty middlin' spell."</p> + +<p>"I do wish you wouldn't talk so. You ought to be +ashamed to be triflin' round as you do. Come, now, can't +you jest tramp over to Pennel's and tell Sally I want +her?"</p> + +<p>"Not I, mother. There ain't but two gals in two miles +square here, and I ain't a-goin' to be the feller to shoo 'em +apart. What's the use of bein' gals, and young, and putty,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> +if they can't get together and talk about their new gownds +and the fellers? That ar's what gals is for."</p> + +<p>"I do wish you wouldn't talk in that way before Sally, +father, for her head is full of all sorts of vanity now; and +as to Mara, I never did see a more slack-twisted, flimsy +thing than she's grown up to be. Now Sally's learnt to +do something, thanks to me. She can brew, and she can +make bread and cake and pickles, and spin, and cut, and +make. But as to Mara, what does she do? Why, she +paints pictur's. Mis' Pennel was a-showin' on me a blue-jay +she painted, and I was a-thinkin' whether she could +brile a bird fit to be eat if she tried; and she don't know +the price of nothin'," continued Mrs. Kittridge, with +wasteful profusion of negatives.</p> + +<p>"Well," said the Captain, "the Lord makes some things +jist to be looked at. Their work is to be putty, and that +ar's Mara's sphere. It never seemed to me she was cut +out for hard work; but she's got sweet ways and kind +words for everybody, and it's as good as a psalm to look +at her."</p> + +<p>"And what sort of a wife'll she make, Captain Kittridge?"</p> + +<p>"A real sweet, putty one," said the Captain, persistently.</p> + +<p>"Well, as to beauty, I'd rather have our Sally any +day," said Mrs. Kittridge; "and she looks strong and +hearty, and seems to be good for use."</p> + +<p>"So she is, so she is," said the Captain, with fatherly +pride. "Sally's the very image of her ma at her age—black +eyes, black hair, tall and trim as a spruce-tree, and +steps off as if she had springs in her heels. I tell you, +the feller'll have to be spry that catches her. There's +two or three of 'em at it, I see; but Sally won't have +nothin' to say to 'em. I hope she won't, yet awhile."</p> + +<p>"Sally is a girl that has as good an eddication as money<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> +can give," said Mrs. Kittridge. "If I'd a-had her advantages +at her age, I should a-been a great deal more'n I am. +But we ha'n't spared nothin' for Sally; and when nothin' +would do but Mara must be sent to Miss Plucher's school +over in Portland, why, I sent Sally too—for all she's our +seventh child, and Pennel hasn't but the one."</p> + +<p>"You forget Moses," said the Captain.</p> + +<p>"Well, he's settin' up on his own account, I guess. +They did talk o' giving him college eddication; but he was +so unstiddy, there weren't no use in trying. A real wild +ass's colt he was."</p> + +<p>"Wal', wal', Moses was in the right on't. He took +the cross-lot track into life," said the Captain. "Colleges +is well enough for your smooth, straight-grained lumber, +for gen'ral buildin'; but come to fellers that's got knots, +and streaks, and cross-grains, like Moses Pennel, and the +best way is to let 'em eddicate 'emselves, as he's a-doin'. +He's cut out for the sea, plain enough, and he'd better be +up to Umbagog, cuttin' timber for his ship, than havin' +rows with tutors, and blowin' the roof off the colleges, as +one o' them 'ere kind o' fellers is apt to when he don't +have work to use up his steam. Why, mother, there's +more gas got up in them Brunswick buildin's, from young +men that are spilin' for hard work, than you could shake +a stick at! But Mis' Pennel told me yesterday she was +'spectin' Moses home to-day."</p> + +<p>"Oho! that's at the bottom of Sally's bein' up there," +said Mrs. Kittridge.</p> + +<p>"Mis' Kittridge," said the Captain, "I take it you ain't +the woman as would expect a daughter of your bringin' up +to be a-runnin' after any young chap, be he who he may," +said the Captain.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Kittridge for once was fairly silenced by this home-thrust; +nevertheless, she did not the less think it quite<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> +possible, from all that she knew of Sally; for although that +young lady professed great hardness of heart and contempt +for all the young male generation of her acquaintance, yet +she had evidently a turn for observing their ways—probably +purely in the way of philosophical inquiry.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX</h2> + +<h3>EIGHTEEN</h3> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span>In fact, at this very moment our scene-shifter changes +the picture. Away rolls the image of Mrs. Kittridge's +kitchen, with its sanded floor, its scoured rows of bright +pewter platters, its great, deep fireplace, with wide stone +hearth, its little looking-glass with a bit of asparagus bush, +like a green mist, over it. <i>Exeunt</i> the image of Mrs. Kittridge, +with her hands floury from the bread she has been +moulding, and the dry, ropy, lean Captain, who has been +sitting tilting back in a splint-bottomed chair,—and the +next scene comes rolling in. It is a chamber in the house +of Zephaniah Pennel, whose windows present a blue panorama +of sea and sky. Through two windows you look +forth into the blue belt of Harpswell Bay, bordered on the +farther edge by Harpswell Neck, dotted here and there +with houses, among which rises the little white meeting-house, +like a mother-bird among a flock of chickens. The +third window, on the other side of the room, looks far out +to sea, where only a group of low, rocky islands interrupts +the clear sweep of the horizon line, with its blue infinitude +of distance.</p> + +<p>The furniture of this room, though of the barest and +most frigid simplicity, is yet relieved by many of those +touches of taste and fancy which the indwelling of a person +of sensibility and imagination will shed off upon the physical +surroundings. The bed was draped with a white spread, +embroidered with a kind of knotted tracery, the working +of which was considered among the female accomplishments<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> +of those days, and over the head of it was a painting of a +bunch of crimson and white trillium, executed with a fidelity +to Nature that showed the most delicate gifts of observation. +Over the mantelpiece hung a painting of the Bay +of Genoa, which had accidentally found a voyage home in +Zephaniah Pennel's sea-chest, and which skillful fingers +had surrounded with a frame curiously wrought of moss +and sea-shells. Two vases of India china stood on the +mantel, filled with spring flowers, crowfoot, anemones, and +liverwort, with drooping bells of the twin-flower. The +looking-glass that hung over the table in one corner of the +room was fancifully webbed with long, drooping festoons +of that gray moss which hangs in such graceful wreaths +from the boughs of the pines in the deep forest shadows of +Orr's Island. On the table below was a collection of +books: a whole set of Shakespeare which Zephaniah Pennel +had bought of a Portland bookseller; a selection, in +prose and verse, from the best classic writers, presented to +Mara Lincoln, the fly-leaf said, by her sincere friend, +Theophilus Sewell; a Virgil, much thumbed, with an old, +worn cover, which, however, some adroit fingers had concealed +under a coating of delicately marbled paper;—there +was a Latin dictionary, a set of Plutarch's Lives, the Mysteries +of Udolpho, and Sir Charles Grandison, together +with Edwards on the Affections, and Boston's Fourfold +State;—there was an inkstand, curiously contrived from +a sea-shell, with pens and paper in that phase of arrangement +which betokened frequency of use; and, lastly, a +little work-basket, containing a long strip of curious and +delicate embroidery, in which the needle yet hanging +showed that the work was in progress.</p> + +<p>By a table at the sea-looking window sits our little Mara, +now grown to the maturity of eighteen summers, but retaining +still unmistakable signs of identity with the little +golden-haired, dreamy, excitable, fanciful "Pearl" of Orr's +<i>Island</i>.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span></p> + +<p>She is not quite of a middle height, with something +beautiful and child-like about the moulding of her delicate +form. We still see those sad, wistful, hazel eyes, over +which the lids droop with a dreamy languor, and whose +dark lustre contrasts singularly with the golden hue of the +abundant hair which waves in a thousand rippling undulations +around her face. The impression she produces is not +that of paleness, though there is no color in her cheek; but +her complexion has everywhere that delicate pink tinting +which one sees in healthy infants, and with the least emotion +brightens into a fluttering bloom. Such a bloom is on +her cheek at this moment, as she is working away, copying +a bunch of scarlet rock-columbine which is in a wine-glass +of water before her; every few moments stopping and holding +her work at a distance, to contemplate its effect. At +this moment there steps behind her chair a tall, lithe figure, +a face with a rich Spanish complexion, large black eyes, +glowing cheeks, marked eyebrows, and lustrous black hair +arranged in shining braids around her head. It is our old +friend, Sally Kittridge, whom common fame calls the handsomest +girl of all the region round Harpswell, Maquoit, +and Orr's Island. In truth, a wholesome, ruddy, blooming +creature she was, the sight of whom cheered and +warmed one like a good fire in December; and she seemed +to have enough and to spare of the warmest gifts of vitality +and joyous animal life. She had a well-formed mouth, +but rather large, and a frank laugh which showed all her +teeth sound—and a fortunate sight it was, considering +that they were white and even as pearls; and the hand +that she laid upon Mara's at this moment, though twice as +large as that of the little artist, was yet in harmony with +her vigorous, finely developed figure.</p> + +<p>"Mara Lincoln," she said, "you are a witch, a perfect +little witch, at painting. How you can make things look +so like, I don't see. Now, I could paint the things we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> +painted at Miss Plucher's; but then, dear me! they didn't +look at all like flowers. One needed to write under them +what they were made for."</p> + +<p>"Does this look like to you, Sally?" said Mara. "I +wish it would to me. Just see what a beautiful clear color +that flower is. All I can do, I can't make one like it. +My scarlet and yellows sink dead into the paper."</p> + +<p>"Why, I think your flowers are wonderful! You are a +real genius, that's what you are! I am only a common +girl; I can't do things as you can."</p> + +<p>"You can do things a thousand times more useful, Sally. +I don't pretend to compare with you in the useful arts, +and I am only a bungler in ornamental ones. Sally, I feel +like a useless little creature. If I could go round as you +can, and do business, and make bargains, and push ahead +in the world, I should feel that I was good for something; +but somehow I can't."</p> + +<p>"To be sure you can't," said Sally, laughing. "I +should like to see you try it."</p> + +<p>"Now," pursued Mara, in a tone of lamentation, "I +could no more get into a carriage and drive to Brunswick +as you can, than I could fly. I can't drive, Sally—something +is the matter with me; and the horses always know +it the minute I take the reins; they always twitch their +ears and stare round into the chaise at me, as much as to +say, 'What! you there?' and I feel sure they never will +mind me. And then how you can make those wonderful +bargains you do, I can't see!—you talk up to the clerks +and the men, and somehow you talk everybody round; but +as for me, if I only open my mouth in the humblest way +to dispute the price, everybody puts me down. I always +tremble when I go into a store, and people talk to me just +as if I was a little girl, and once or twice they have made +me buy things that I knew I didn't want, just because +they will talk me down."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh, Mara, Mara," said Sally, laughing till the tears +rolled down her cheeks, "what do <i>you</i> ever go a-shopping +for?—of course you ought always to send me. Why, +look at this dress—real India chintz; do you know I made +old Pennywhistle's clerk up in Brunswick give it to me +just for the price of common cotton? You see there was +a yard of it had got faded by lying in the shop-window, +and there were one or two holes and imperfections in it, +and you ought to have heard the talk I made! I abused +it to right and left, and actually at last I brought the poor +wretch to believe that he ought to be grateful to me for +taking it off his hands. Well, you see the dress I've +made of it. The imperfections didn't hurt it the least in +the world as I managed it,—and the faded breadth makes +a good apron, so you see. And just so I got that red +spotted flannel dress I wore last winter. It was moth-eaten +in one or two places, and I made them let me have it +at half-price;—made exactly as good a dress. But after +all, Mara, I can't trim a bonnet as you can, and I can't +come up to your embroidery, nor your lace-work, nor I can't +draw and paint as you can, and I can't sing like you; and +then as to all those things you talk with Mr. Sewell about, +why they're beyond my depth,—that's all I've got to +say. Now, you are made to have poetry written to you, +and all that kind of thing one reads of in novels. Nobody +would ever think of writing poetry to me, now, or sending +me flowers and rings, and such things. If a fellow +likes me, he gives me a quince, or a big apple; but, then, +Mara, there ain't any fellows round here that are fit to +speak to."</p> + +<p>"I'm sure, Sally, there always is a train following you +everywhere, at singing-school and Thursday lecture."</p> + +<p>"Yes—but what do I care for 'em?" said Sally, with +a toss of her head. "Why they follow me, I don't see. +I don't do anything to make 'em, and I tell 'em all that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> +they tire me to death; and still they will hang round. +What is the reason, do you suppose?"</p> + +<p>"What can it be?" said Mara, with a quiet kind of arch +drollery which suffused her face, as she bent over her +painting.</p> + +<p>"Well, you know I can't bear fellows—I think they +are hateful."</p> + +<p>"What! even Tom Hiers?" said Mara, continuing her +painting.</p> + +<p>"Tom Hiers! Do you suppose I care for him? He +would insist on waiting on me round all last winter, taking +me over in his boat to Portland, and up in his sleigh to +Brunswick; but I didn't care for him."</p> + +<p>"Well, there's Jimmy Wilson, up at Brunswick."</p> + +<p>"What! that little snip of a clerk! You don't suppose +I care for him, do you?—only he almost runs his head off +following me round when I go up there shopping; he's +nothing but a little dressed-up yard-stick! I never saw a +fellow yet that I'd cross the street to have another look at. +By the by, Mara, Miss Roxy told me Sunday that Moses +was coming down from Umbagog this week."</p> + +<p>"Yes, he is," said Mara; "we are looking for him +every day."</p> + +<p>"You must want to see him. How long is it since you +saw him?"</p> + +<p>"It is three years," said Mara. "I scarcely know what +he is like now. I was visiting in Boston when he came +home from his three-years' voyage, and he was gone into +the lumbering country when I came back. He seems almost +a stranger to me."</p> + +<p>"He's pretty good-looking," said Sally. "I saw him on +Sunday when he was here, but he was off on Monday, and +never called on old friends. Does he write to you often?"</p> + +<p>"Not very," said Mara; "in fact, almost never; and +when he does, there is so little in his letters."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Well, I tell you, Mara, you must not expect fellows to +write as girls can. They don't do it. Now, our boys, +when they write home, they tell the latitude and longitude, +and soil and productions, and such things. But if you or +I were only there, don't you think we should find something +more to say? Of course we should,—fifty thousand +little things that they never think of."</p> + +<p>Mara made no reply to this, but went on very intently +with her painting. A close observer might have noticed +a suppressed sigh that seemed to retreat far down into her +heart. Sally did not notice it.</p> + +<p>What was in that sigh? It was the sigh of a long, +deep, inner history, unwritten and untold—such as are +transpiring daily by thousands, and of which we take no +heed.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX</h2> + +<h3>REBELLION</h3> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span>We have introduced Mara to our readers as she appears +in her seventeenth year, at the time when she is expecting +the return of Moses as a young man of twenty; but we +cannot do justice to the feelings which are roused in her +heart by this expectation, without giving a chapter or two +to tracing the history of Moses since we left him as a boy +commencing the study of the Latin grammar with Mr. +Sewell. The reader must see the forces that acted upon +his early development, and what they have made of him.</p> + +<p>It is common for people who write treatises on education +to give forth their rules and theories with a self-satisfied +air, as if a human being were a thing to be made up, like +a batch of bread, out of a given number of materials combined +by an infallible recipe. Take your child, and do +thus and so for a given number of years, and he comes +out a thoroughly educated individual.</p> + +<p>But in fact, education is in many cases nothing more +than a blind struggle of parents and guardians with the +evolutions of some strong, predetermined character, individual, +obstinate, unreceptive, and seeking by an inevitable +law of its being to develop itself and gain free expression +in its own way. Captain Kittridge's confidence that he +would as soon undertake a boy as a Newfoundland pup, is +good for those whose idea of what is to be done for a human +being are only what would be done for a dog, namely, +give food, shelter, and world-room, and leave each to act +out his own nature without let or hindrance.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span></p> + +<p>But everybody takes an embryo human being with some +plan of one's own what it shall do or be. The child's +future shall shape out some darling purpose or plan, and +fulfill some long unfulfilled expectation of the parent. And +thus, though the wind of every generation sweeps its hopes +and plans like forest-leaves, none are whirled and tossed +with more piteous moans than those which come out green +and fresh to shade the happy spring-time of the cradle. +For the temperaments of children are often as oddly unsuited +to parents as if capricious fairies had been filling +cradles with changelings.</p> + +<p>A meek member of the Peace Society, a tender, devout, +poetical clergyman, receives an heir from heaven, and +straightway devotes him to the Christian ministry. But +lo! the boy proves a young war-horse, neighing for battle, +burning for gunpowder and guns, for bowie-knives and +revolvers, and for every form and expression of physical +force;—he might make a splendid trapper, an energetic +sea-captain, a bold, daring military man, but his whole +boyhood is full of rebukes and disciplines for sins which +are only the blind effort of the creature to express a nature +which his parent does not and cannot understand. So +again, the son that was to have upheld the old, proud merchant's +time-honored firm, that should have been mighty +in ledgers and great upon 'Change, breaks his father's heart +by an unintelligible fancy for weaving poems and romances. +A father of literary aspirations, balked of privileges of early +education, bends over the cradle of his son with but one +idea. This child shall have the full advantages of regular +college-training; and so for years he battles with a boy abhorring +study, and fitted only for a life of out-door energy +and bold adventure,—on whom Latin forms and Greek +quantities fall and melt aimless and useless, as snow-flakes +on the hide of a buffalo. Then the secret agonies,—the +long years of sorrowful watchings of those gentler nurses of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> +humanity who receive the infant into their bosom out of +the void unknown, and strive to read its horoscope through +the mists of their prayers and tears!—what perplexities,—what +confusion! Especially is this so in a community +where the moral and religious sense is so cultivated as in +New England, and frail, trembling, self-distrustful mothers +are told that the shaping and ordering not only of this +present life, but of an immortal destiny, is in their hands.</p> + +<p>On the whole, those who succeed best in the rearing of +children are the tolerant and easy persons who instinctively +follow nature and accept without much inquiry whatever +she sends; or that far smaller class, wise to discern spirits +and apt to adopt means to their culture and development, +who can prudently and carefully train every nature according +to its true and characteristic ideal.</p> + +<p>Zephaniah Pennel was a shrewd old Yankee, whose instincts +taught him from the first, that the waif that had +been so mysteriously washed out of the gloom of the sea +into his family, was of some different class and lineage from +that which might have filled a cradle of his own, and of a +nature which he could not perfectly understand. So he +prudently watched and waited, only using restraint enough +to keep the boy anchored in society, and letting him otherwise +grow up in the solitary freedom of his lonely seafaring +life.</p> + +<p>The boy was from childhood, although singularly attractive, +of a moody, fitful, unrestful nature,—eager, earnest, +but unsteady,—with varying phases of imprudent frankness +and of the most stubborn and unfathomable secretiveness. +He was a creature of unreasoning antipathies and +attractions. As Zephaniah Pennel said of him, he was as +full of hitches as an old bureau drawer. His peculiar +beauty, and a certain electrical power of attraction, seemed +to form a constant circle of protection and forgiveness +around him in the home of his foster-parents; and great<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> +as was the anxiety and pain which he often gave them, +they somehow never felt the charge of him as a weariness.</p> + +<p>We left him a boy beginning Latin with Mr. Sewell in +company with the little Mara. This arrangement progressed +prosperously for a time, and the good clergyman, +all whose ideas of education ran through the halls of a college, +began to have hopes of turning out a choice scholar. +But when the boy's ship of life came into the breakers of +that narrow and intricate channel which divides boyhood +from manhood, the difficulties that had always attended his +guidance and management wore an intensified form. How +much family happiness is wrecked just then and there! +How many mothers' and sisters' hearts are broken in the +wild and confused tossings and tearings of that stormy +transition! A whole new nature is blindly upheaving +itself, with cravings and clamorings, which neither the boy +himself nor often surrounding friends understand.</p> + +<p>A shrewd observer has significantly characterized the +period as the time when the boy wishes he were dead, and +everybody else wishes so too. The wretched, half-fledged, +half-conscious, anomalous creature has all the desires of the +man, and none of the rights; has a double and triple share +of nervous edge and intensity in every part of his nature, +and no definitely perceived objects on which to bestow it,—and, +of course, all sorts of unreasonable moods and +phases are the result.</p> + +<p>One of the most common signs of this period, in some +natures, is the love of contradiction and opposition,—a +blind desire to go contrary to everything that is commonly +received among the older people. The boy disparages the +minister, quizzes the deacon, thinks the school-master an +ass, and doesn't believe in the Bible, and seems to be +rather pleased than otherwise with the shock and flutter +that all these announcements create among peaceably disposed +grown people. No respectable hen that ever hatched<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> +out a brood of ducks was more puzzled what to do with +them than was poor Mrs. Pennel when her adopted nursling +came into this state. Was he a boy? an immortal +soul? a reasonable human being? or only a handsome goblin +sent to torment her?</p> + +<p>"What shall we do with him, father?" said she, one +Sunday, to Zephaniah, as he stood shaving before the little +looking-glass in their bedroom. "He can't be governed +like a child, and he won't govern himself like a man."</p> + +<p>Zephaniah stopped and strapped his razor reflectively.</p> + +<p>"We must cast out anchor and wait for day," he answered. +"Prayer is a long rope with a strong hold."</p> + +<p>It was just at this critical period of life that Moses Pennel +was drawn into associations which awoke the alarm of +all his friends, and from which the characteristic willfulness +of his nature made it difficult to attempt to extricate +him.</p> + +<p>In order that our readers may fully understand this part +of our history, we must give some few particulars as to the +peculiar scenery of Orr's Island and the state of the country +at this time.</p> + +<p>The coast of Maine, as we have elsewhere said, is remarkable +for a singular interpenetration of the sea with the +land, forming amid its dense primeval forests secluded +bays, narrow and deep, into which vessels might float with +the tide, and where they might nestle unseen and unsuspected +amid the dense shadows of the overhanging forest.</p> + +<p>At this time there was a very brisk business done all +along the coast of Maine in the way of smuggling. Small +vessels, lightly built and swift of sail, would run up into +these sylvan fastnesses, and there make their deposits and +transact their business so as entirely to elude the vigilance +of government officers.</p> + +<p>It may seem strange that practices of this kind should +ever have obtained a strong foothold in a community pecu<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span>liar +for its rigid morality and its orderly submission to law; +but in this case, as in many others, contempt of law grew +out of weak and unworthy legislation. The celebrated +embargo of Jefferson stopped at once the whole trade of +New England, and condemned her thousand ships to rot at +the wharves, and caused the ruin of thousands of families.</p> + +<p>The merchants of the country regarded this as a flagrant, +high-handed piece of injustice, expressly designed to cripple +New England commerce, and evasions of this unjust +law found everywhere a degree of sympathy, even in the +breasts of well-disposed and conscientious people. In resistance +to the law, vessels were constantly fitted out which +ran upon trading voyages to the West Indies and other +places; and although the practice was punishable as smuggling, +yet it found extensive connivance. From this beginning +smuggling of all kinds gradually grew up in the +community, and gained such a foothold that even after the +repeal of the embargo it still continued to be extensively +practiced. Secret depositories of contraband goods still +existed in many of the lonely haunts of islands off the +coast of Maine. Hid in deep forest shadows, visited only +in the darkness of the night, were these illegal stores of +merchandise. And from these secluded resorts they found +their way, no one knew or cared to say how, into houses +for miles around.</p> + +<p>There was no doubt that the practice, like all other +illegal ones, was demoralizing to the community, and particularly +fatal to the character of that class of bold, enterprising +young men who would be most likely to be drawn +into it.</p> + +<p>Zephaniah Pennel, who was made of a kind of straight-grained, +uncompromising oaken timber such as built the +Mayflower of old, had always borne his testimony at home +and abroad against any violations of the laws of the land, +however veiled under the pretext of righting a wrong or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> +resisting an injustice, and had done what he could in his +neighborhood to enable government officers to detect and +break up these unlawful depositories. This exposed him +particularly to the hatred and ill-will of the operators concerned +in such affairs, and a plot was laid by a few of the +most daring and determined of them to establish one of +their depositories on Orr's Island, and to implicate the +family of Pennel himself in the trade. This would +accomplish two purposes, as they hoped,—it would be a +mortification and defeat to him,—a revenge which they +coveted; and it would, they thought, insure his silence +and complicity for the strongest reasons.</p> + +<p>The situation and characteristics of Orr's Island peculiarly +fitted it for the carrying out of a scheme of this kind, +and for this purpose we must try to give our readers a +more definite idea of it.</p> + +<p>The traveler who wants a ride through scenery of more +varied and singular beauty than can ordinarily be found on +the shores of any land whatever, should start some fine +clear day along the clean sandy road, ribboned with strips +of green grass, that leads through the flat pitch-pine forests +of Brunswick toward the sea. As he approaches the salt +water, a succession of the most beautiful and picturesque +lakes seems to be lying softly cradled in the arms of wild, +rocky forest shores, whose outlines are ever changing with +the windings of the road.</p> + +<p>At a distance of about six or eight miles from Brunswick +he crosses an arm of the sea, and comes upon the first +of the interlacing group of islands which beautifies the +shore. A ride across this island is a constant succession of +pictures, whose wild and solitary beauty entirely distances +all power of description. The magnificence of the evergreen +forests,—their peculiar air of sombre stillness,—the +rich intermingling ever and anon of groves of birch, +beech, and oak, in picturesque knots and tufts, as if set<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> +for effect by some skillful landscape-gardener,—produce a +sort of strange dreamy wonder; while the sea, breaking +forth both on the right hand and the left of the road into +the most romantic glimpses, seems to flash and glitter like +some strange gem which every moment shows itself through +the framework of a new setting. Here and there little +secluded coves push in from the sea, around which lie soft +tracts of green meadow-land, hemmed in and guarded by +rocky pine-crowned ridges. In such sheltered spots may +be seen neat white houses, nestling like sheltered doves in +the beautiful solitude.</p> + +<p>When one has ridden nearly to the end of Great Island, +which is about four miles across, he sees rising before him, +from the sea, a bold romantic point of land, uplifting a +crown of rich evergreen and forest trees over shores of perpendicular +rock. This is Orr's Island.</p> + +<p>It was not an easy matter in the days of our past experience +to guide a horse and carriage down the steep, wild +shores of Great Island to the long bridge that connects it +with Orr's. The sense of wild seclusion reaches here the +highest degree; and one crosses the bridge with a feeling +as if genii might have built it, and one might be going over +it to fairy-land. From the bridge the path rises on to a +high granite ridge, which runs from one end of the island +to the other, and has been called the Devil's Back, with +that superstitious generosity which seems to have abandoned +all romantic places to so undeserving an owner.</p> + +<p>By the side of this ridge of granite is a deep, narrow +chasm, running a mile and a half or two miles parallel with +the road, and veiled by the darkest and most solemn shadows +of the primeval forest. Here scream the jays and the +eagles, and fish-hawks make their nests undisturbed; and +the tide rises and falls under black branches of evergreen, +from which depend long, light festoons of delicate gray +moss. The darkness of the forest is relieved by the deli<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span>cate +foliage and the silvery trunks of the great white +birches, which the solitude of centuries has allowed to grow +in this spot to a height and size seldom attained elsewhere.</p> + +<p>It was this narrow, rocky cove that had been chosen by +the smuggler Atkinson and his accomplices as a safe and +secluded resort for their operations. He was a seafaring +man of Bath, one of that class who always prefer uncertain +and doubtful courses to those which are safe and reputable. +He was possessed of many of those traits calculated to +make him a hero in the eyes of young men; was dashing, +free, and frank in his manners, with a fund of humor and +an abundance of ready anecdote which made his society +fascinating; but he concealed beneath all these attractions +a character of hard, grasping, unscrupulous selfishness, and +an utter destitution of moral principle.</p> + +<p>Moses, now in his sixteenth year, and supposed to be +in a general way doing well, under the care of the minister, +was left free to come and go at his own pleasure, unwatched +by Zephaniah, whose fishing operations often took him for +weeks from home. Atkinson hung about the boy's path, +engaging him first in fishing or hunting enterprises; plied +him with choice preparations of liquor, with which he +would enhance the hilarity of their expeditions; and finally +worked on his love of adventure and that impatient restlessness +incident to his period of life to draw him fully into +his schemes. Moses lost all interest in his lessons, often +neglecting them for days at a time—accounting for his +negligence by excuses which were far from satisfactory. +When Mara would expostulate with him about this, he +would break out upon her with a fierce irritation. Was +he always going to be tied to a girl's apron-string? He +was tired of study, and tired of old Sewell, whom he declared +an old granny in a white wig, who knew nothing of +the world. He wasn't going to college—it was altogether<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> +too slow for him—he was going to see life and push ahead +for himself.</p> + +<p>Mara's life during this time was intensely wearing. A +frail, slender, delicate girl of thirteen, she carried a heart +prematurely old with the most distressing responsibility +of mature life. Her love for Moses had always had in it +a large admixture of that maternal and care-taking element +which, in some shape or other, qualities the affection of +woman to man. Ever since that dream of babyhood, when +the vision of a pale mother had led the beautiful boy to +her arms, Mara had accepted him as something exclusively +her own, with an intensity of ownership that seemed almost +to merge her personal identity with his. She felt, and +saw, and enjoyed, and suffered in him, and yet was conscious +of a higher nature in herself, by which unwillingly +he was often judged and condemned. His faults affected +her with a kind of guilty pain, as if they were her own; +his sins were borne bleeding in her heart in silence, and +with a jealous watchfulness to hide them from every eye +but hers. She busied herself day and night interceding +and making excuses for him, first to her own sensitive +moral nature, and then with everybody around, for with +one or another he was coming into constant collision. She +felt at this time a fearful load of suspicion, which she dared +not express to a human being.</p> + +<p>Up to this period she had always been the only confidant +of Moses, who poured into her ear without reserve all +the good and the evil of his nature, and who loved her +with all the intensity with which he was capable of loving +anything. Nothing so much shows what a human being +is in moral advancement as the quality of his love. +Moses Pennel's love was egotistic, exacting, tyrannical, and +capricious—sometimes venting itself in expressions of +a passionate fondness, which had a savor of protecting +generosity in them, and then receding to the icy pole of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> +surly petulance. For all that, there was no resisting the +magnetic attraction with which in his amiable moods he +drew those whom he liked to himself.</p> + +<p>Such people are not very wholesome companions for those +who are sensitively organized and predisposed to self-sacrificing +love. They keep the heart in a perpetual freeze and +thaw, which, like the American northern climate, is so +particularly fatal to plants of a delicate habit. They could +live through the hot summer and the cold winter, but they +cannot endure the three or four months when it freezes +one day and melts the next,—when all the buds are +started out by a week of genial sunshine, and then frozen +for a fortnight. These fitful persons are of all others most +engrossing, because you are always sure in their good moods +that they are just going to be angels,—an expectation +which no number of disappointments seems finally to do +away. Mara believed in Moses's future as she did in her +own existence. He was going to do something great and +good,—that she was certain of. He would be a splendid +man! Nobody, she thought, knew him as she did; nobody +could know how good and generous he was <i>sometimes</i>, +and how frankly he would confess his faults, and what +noble aspirations he had!</p> + +<p>But there was no concealing from her watchful sense that +Moses was beginning to have secrets from her. He was +cloudy and murky; and at some of the most harmless inquiries +in the world, would flash out with a sudden temper, +as if she had touched some sore spot. Her bedroom +was opposite to his; and she became quite sure that night +after night, while she lay thinking of him, she heard him +steal down out of the house between two and three o'clock, +and not return till a little before day-dawn. Where he +went, and with whom, and what he was doing, was to her +an awful mystery,—and it was one she dared not share +with a human being. If she told her kind old grandfather,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> +she feared that any inquiry from him would only light as +a spark on that inflammable spirit of pride and insubordination +that was rising within him, and bring on an instantaneous +explosion. Mr. Sewell's influence she could hope +little more from; and as to poor Mrs. Pennel, such communications +would only weary and distress her, without +doing any manner of good. There was, therefore, only +that one unfailing Confidant—the Invisible Friend to +whom the solitary child could pour out her heart, and +whose inspirations of comfort and guidance never fail to +come again in return to true souls.</p> + +<p>One moonlight night, as she lay thus praying, her senses, +sharpened by watching, discerned a sound of steps treading +under her window, and then a low whistle. Her heart +beat violently, and she soon heard the door of Moses's room +open, and then the old chamber-stairs gave forth those inconsiderate +creaks and snaps that garrulous old stairs always +will when anybody is desirous of making them accomplices +in a night-secret. Mara rose, and undrawing her curtain, +saw three men standing before the house, and saw Moses +come out and join them. Quick as thought she threw on +her clothes and wrapping her little form in a dark cloak, +with a hood, followed them out. She kept at a safe distance +behind them,—so far back as just to keep them in +sight. They never looked back, and seemed to say but +little till they approached the edge of that deep belt of +forest which shrouds so large a portion of the island. She +hurried along, now nearer to them lest they should be lost +to view in the deep shadows, while they went on crackling +and plunging through the dense underbrush.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI</h2> + +<h3>THE TEMPTER</h3> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span>It was well for Mara that so much of her life had been +passed in wild forest rambles. She looked frail as the rays +of moonbeam which slid down the old white-bearded hemlocks, +but her limbs were agile and supple as steel; and +while the party went crashing on before, she followed with +such lightness that the slight sound of her movements was +entirely lost in the heavy crackling plunges of the party. +Her little heart was beating fast and hard; but could any +one have seen her face, as it now and then came into a +spot of moonshine, they might have seen it fixed in a deadly +expression of resolve and determination. She was going +after <i>him</i>—no matter where; she was resolved to know +who and what it was that was leading him away, as her +heart told her, to no good. Deeper and deeper into the +shadows of the forest they went, and the child easily kept +up with them.</p> + +<p>Mara had often rambled for whole solitary days in this +lonely wood, and knew all its rocks and dells the whole +three miles to the long bridge at the other end of the island. +But she had never before seen it under the solemn stillness +of midnight moonlight, which gives to the most familiar +objects such a strange, ghostly charm. After they had +gone a mile into the forest, she could see through the black +spruces silver gleams of the sea, and hear, amid the whirr +and sway of the pine-tops, the dash of the ever restless +tide which pushed up the long cove. It was at the full, +as she could discern with a rapid glance of her practiced<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> +eye, expertly versed in the knowledge of every change of +the solitary nature around.</p> + +<p>And now the party began to plunge straight down the +rocky ledge of the Devil's Back, on which they had been +walking hitherto, into the deep ravine where lay the cove. +It was a scrambling, precipitous way, over perpendicular +walls of rock, whose crevices furnished anchoring-places for +grand old hemlocks or silver-birches, and whose rough +sides, leathery with black flaps of lichen, were all tangled +and interlaced with thick netted bushes. The men plunged +down laughing, shouting, and swearing at their occasional +missteps, and silently as moonbeam or thistledown the +light-footed shadow went down after them.</p> + +<p>She suddenly paused behind a pile of rock, as, through +an opening between two great spruces, the sea gleamed out +like a sheet of looking-glass set in a black frame. And +here the child saw a small vessel swinging at anchor, with +the moonlight full on its slack sails, and she could hear the +gentle gurgle and lick of the green-tongued waves as they +dashed under it toward the rocky shore.</p> + +<p>Mara stopped with a beating heart as she saw the company +making for the schooner. The tide is high; will +they go on board and sail away with him where she cannot +follow? What could she do? In an ecstasy of fear +she kneeled down and asked God not to let him go,—to +give her at least one more chance to save him.</p> + +<p>For the pure and pious child had heard enough of the +words of these men, as she walked behind them, to fill her +with horror. She had never before heard an oath, but +there came back from these men coarse, brutal tones and +words of blasphemy that froze her blood with horror. And +Moses was going with them! She felt somehow as if they +must be a company of fiends bearing him to his ruin.</p> + +<p>For some time she kneeled there watching behind the +rock, while Moses and his companions went on board the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> +little schooner. She had no feeling of horror at the loneliness +of her own situation, for her solitary life had made +every woodland thing dear and familiar to her. She was +cowering down, on a loose, spongy bed of moss, which was +all threaded through and through with the green vines and +pale pink blossoms of the mayflower, and she felt its fragrant +breath streaming up in the moist moonlight. As +she leaned forward to look through a rocky crevice, her +arms rested on a bed of that brittle white moss she had +often gathered with so much admiration, and a scarlet rock-columbine, +such as she loved to paint, brushed her cheek,—and +all these mute fair things seemed to strive to keep +her company in her chill suspense of watchfulness. Two +whippoorwills, from a clump of silvery birches, kept calling +to each other in melancholy iteration, while she stayed there +still listening, and knowing by an occasional sound of +laughing, or the explosion of some oath, that the men were +not yet gone. At last they all appeared again, and came +to a cleared place among the dry leaves, quite near to the +rock where she was concealed, and kindled a fire which +they kept snapping and crackling by a constant supply of +green resinous hemlock branches.</p> + +<p>The red flame danced and leaped through the green fuel, +and leaping upward in tongues of flame, cast ruddy bronze +reflections on the old pine-trees with their long branches +waving with boards of white moss,—and by the firelight +Mara could see two men in sailor's dress with pistols in +their belts, and the man Atkinson, whom she had recollected +as having seen once or twice at her grandfather's. +She remembered how she had always shrunk from him with +a strange instinctive dislike, half fear, half disgust, when +he had addressed her with that kind of free admiration +which men of his class often feel themselves at liberty to +express to a pretty girl of her early age. He was a man +that might have been handsome, had it not been for a cer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span>tain +strange expression of covert wickedness. It was as if +some vile evil spirit, walking, as the Scriptures say, through +dry places, had lighted on a comely man's body, in which +he had set up housekeeping, making it look like a fair +house abused by an unclean owner.</p> + +<p>As Mara watched his demeanor with Moses, she could +think only of a loathsome black snake that she had once +seen in those solitary rocks;—she felt as if his handsome +but evil eye were charming him with an evil charm to his +destruction.</p> + +<p>"Well, Mo, my boy," she heard him say,—slapping +Moses on the shoulder,—"this is something like. We'll +have a 'tempus,' as the college fellows say,—put down +the clams to roast, and I'll mix the punch," he said, setting +over the fire a tea-kettle which they brought from the +ship.</p> + +<p>After their preparations were finished, all sat down to +eat and drink. Mara listened with anxiety and horror to +a conversation such as she never heard or conceived before. +It is not often that women hear men talk in the undisguised +manner which they use among themselves; but the conversation +of men of unprincipled lives, and low, brutal habits, +unchecked by the presence of respectable female society, +might well convey to the horror-struck child a feeling as if +she were listening at the mouth of hell. Almost every +word was preceded or emphasized by an oath; and what +struck with a death chill to her heart was, that Moses +swore too, and seemed to show that desperate anxiety to +seem <i>au fait</i> in the language of wickedness, which boys +often do at that age, when they fancy that to be ignorant +of vice is a mark of disgraceful greenness. Moses evidently +was bent on showing that he was not green,—ignorant of +the pure ear to which every such word came like the blast +of death.</p> + +<p>He drank a great deal, too, and the mirth among them<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> +grew furious and terrific. Mara, horrified and shocked as +she was, did not, however, lose that intense and alert presence +of mind, natural to persons in whom there is moral +strength, however delicate be their physical frame. She +felt at once that these men were playing upon Moses; that +they had an object in view; that they were flattering and +cajoling him, and leading him to drink, that they might +work out some fiendish purpose of their own. The man +called Atkinson related story after story of wild adventure, +in which sudden fortunes had been made by men who, he +said, were not afraid to take "the short cut across lots." +He told of piratical adventures in the West Indies,—of +the fun of chasing and overhauling ships,—and gave dazzling +accounts of the treasures found on board. It was +observable that all these stories were told on the line between +joke and earnest,—as frolics, as specimens of good +fun, and seeing life, etc.</p> + +<p>At last came a suggestion,—What if they should start +off together some fine day, "just for a spree," and try a +cruise in the West Indies, to see what they could pick up? +They had arms, and a gang of fine, whole-souled fellows. +Moses had been tied to Ma'am Pennel's apron-string long +enough. And "hark ye," said one of them, "Moses, they +say old Pennel has lots of dollars in that old sea-chest of +his'n. It would be a kindness to him to invest them for +him in an adventure."</p> + +<p>Moses answered with a streak of the boy innocence which +often remains under the tramping of evil men, like ribbons +of green turf in the middle of roads:—</p> + +<p>"You don't know Father Pennel,—why, he'd no more +come into it than"—</p> + +<p>A perfect roar of laughter cut short this declaration, and +Atkinson, slapping Moses on the back, said,—</p> + +<p>"By ——, Mo! you are the jolliest green dog! I shall +die a-laughing of your innocence some day. Why, my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> +boy, can't you see? Pennel's money can be invested without +asking him."</p> + +<p>"Why, he keeps it locked," said Moses.</p> + +<p>"And supposing you pick the lock?"</p> + +<p>"Not I, indeed," said Moses, making a sudden movement +to rise.</p> + +<p>Mara almost screamed in her ecstasy, but she had sense +enough to hold her breath.</p> + +<p>"Ho! see him now," said Atkinson, lying back, and +holding his sides while he laughed, and rolled over; "you +can get off anything on that muff,—any hoax in the +world,—he's so soft! Come, come, my dear boy, sit +down. I was only seeing how wide I could make you +open those great black eyes of your'n,—that's all."</p> + +<p>"You'd better take care how you joke with me," said +Moses, with that look of gloomy determination which Mara +was quite familiar with of old. It was the rallying effort +of a boy who had abandoned the first outworks of virtue +to make a stand for the citadel. And Atkinson, like a +prudent besieger after a repulse, returned to lie on his +arms.</p> + +<p>He began talking volubly on other subjects, telling stories, +and singing songs, and pressing Moses to drink.</p> + +<p>Mara was comforted to see that he declined drinking,—that +he looked gloomy and thoughtful, in spite of the jokes +of his companions; but she trembled to see, by the following +conversation, how Atkinson was skillfully and prudently +making apparent to Moses the extent to which +he had him in his power. He seemed to Mara like an +ugly spider skillfully weaving his web around a fly. She +felt cold and faint; but within her there was a heroic +strength.</p> + +<p>She was not going to faint; she would make herself bear +up. She was going to do something to get Moses out of +this snare,—but what? At last they rose.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span></p> + +<p>"It is past three o'clock," she heard one of them say.</p> + +<p>"I say, Mo," said Atkinson, "you must make tracks for +home, or you won't be in bed when Mother Pennel calls +you."</p> + +<p>The men all laughed at this joke, as they turned to go +on board the schooner.</p> + +<p>When they were gone, Moses threw himself down and +hid his face in his hands. He knew not what pitying little +face was looking down upon him from the hemlock shadows, +what brave little heart was determined to save him. +He was in one of those great crises of agony that boys pass +through when they first awake from the fun and frolic +of unlawful enterprises to find themselves sold under sin, +and feel the terrible logic of evil which constrains them to +pass from the less to greater crime. He felt that he was in +the power of bad, unprincipled, heartless men, who, if he +refused to do their bidding, had the power to expose him. +All he had been doing would come out. His kind old +foster-parents would know it. Mara would know it. Mr. +Sewell and Miss Emily would know the secrets of his life +that past month. He felt as if they were all looking at +him now. He had disgraced himself,—had sunk below +his education,—had been false to all his better knowledge +and the past expectations of his friends, living a mean, +miserable, dishonorable life,—and now the ground was +fast sliding from under him, and the next plunge might be +down a precipice from which there would be no return. +What he had done up to this hour had been done in the +roystering, inconsiderate gamesomeness of boyhood. It had +been represented to himself only as "sowing wild oats," +"having steep times," "seeing a little of life," and so on; +but this night he had had propositions of piracy and robbery +made to him, and he had not dared to knock down +the man that made them,—had not dared at once to break +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span>away from his company. He must meet him again,—must go on with him, or—he groaned in agony at the +thought.</p> + +<p>It was a strong indication of that repressed, considerate +habit of mind which love had wrought in the child, that +when Mara heard the boy's sobs rising in the stillness, she +did not, as she wished to, rush out and throw her arms +around his neck and try to comfort him.</p> + +<p>But she felt instinctively that she must not do this. +She must not let him know that she had discovered his +secret by stealing after him thus in the night shadows. +She knew how nervously he had resented even the compassionate +glances she had cast upon him in his restless, turbid +intervals during the past few weeks, and the fierceness +with which he had replied to a few timid inquiries. No,—though +her heart was breaking for him, it was a shrewd, +wise little heart, and resolved not to spoil all by yielding +to its first untaught impulses. She repressed herself as the +mother does who refrains from crying out when she sees +her unconscious little one on the verge of a precipice.</p> + +<p>When Moses rose and moodily began walking homeward, +she followed at a distance. She could now keep +farther off, for she knew the way through every part of the +forest, and she only wanted to keep within sound of his +footsteps to make sure that he was going home. When he +emerged from the forest into the open moonlight, she sat +down in its shadows and watched him as he walked over +the open distance between her and the house. He went +in; and then she waited a little longer for him to be quite +retired. She thought he would throw himself on the bed, +and then she could steal in after him. So she sat there +quite in the shadows.</p> + +<p>The grand full moon was riding high and calm in the +purple sky, and Harpswell Bay on the one hand, and the +wide, open ocean on the other, lay all in a silver shimmer +of light. There was not a sound save the plash of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> +tide, now beginning to go out, and rolling and rattling the +pebbles up and down as it came and went, and once in a +while the distant, mournful intoning of the whippoorwill. +There were silent lonely ships, sailing slowly to and fro +far out to sea, turning their fair wings now into bright +light and now into shadow, as they moved over the glassy +stillness. Mara could see all the houses on Harpswell +Neck and the white church as clear as in the daylight. It +seemed to her some strange, unearthly dream.</p> + +<p>As she sat there, she thought over her whole little life, +all full of one thought, one purpose, one love, one prayer, +for this being so strangely given to her out of that silent +sea, which lay so like a still eternity around her,—and +she revolved again what meant the vision of her childhood. +Did it not mean that she was to watch over him and save +him from some dreadful danger? That poor mother was +lying now silent and peaceful under the turf in the little +graveyard not far off, and <i>she</i> must care for her boy.</p> + +<p>A strong motherly feeling swelled out the girl's heart,—she +felt that she <i>must</i>, she would, somehow save that +treasure which had so mysteriously been committed to her. +So, when she thought she had given time enough for Moses +to be quietly asleep in his room, she arose and ran with +quick footsteps across the moonlit plain to the house.</p> + +<p>The front-door was standing wide open, as was always +the innocent fashion in these regions, with a half-angle of +moonlight and shadow lying within its dusky depths. +Mara listened a moment,—no sound: he had gone to bed +then. "Poor boy," she said, "I hope he is asleep; how +he must feel, poor fellow! It's all the fault of those +dreadful men!" said the little dark shadow to herself, as +she stole up the stairs past his room as guiltily as if she +were the sinner. Once the stairs creaked, and her heart +was in her mouth, but she gained her room and shut and +bolted the door. She kneeled down by her little white<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> +bed, and thanked God that she had come in safe, and then +prayed him to teach her what to do next. She felt chilly +and shivering, and crept into bed, and lay with her great +soft brown eyes wide open, intently thinking what she +should do.</p> + +<p>Should she tell her grandfather? Something instinctively +said No; that the first word from him which showed +Moses he was detected would at once send him off with +those wicked men. "He would never, never bear to have +this known," she said. Mr. Sewell?—ah, that was +worse. She herself shrank from letting him know what +Moses had been doing; she could not bear to lower him so +much in his eyes. He could not make allowances, she +thought. He is good, to be sure, but he is so old and +grave, and doesn't know how much Moses has been +tempted by these dreadful men; and then perhaps he +would tell Miss Emily, and they never would want Moses +to come there any more.</p> + +<p>"What shall I do?" she said to herself. "I must get +somebody to help me or tell me what to do. I can't tell +grandmamma; it would only make her ill, and she wouldn't +know what to do any more than I. Ah, I know what +I will do,—I'll tell Captain Kittridge; he was always so +kind to me; and he has been to sea and seen all sorts of +men, and Moses won't care so much perhaps to have him +know, because the Captain is such a funny man, and don't +take everything so seriously. Yes, that's it. I'll go +right down to the cove in the morning. God will bring +me through, I know He will;" and the little weary head +fell back on the pillow asleep. And as she slept, a smile +settled over her face, perhaps a reflection from the face of +her good angel, who always beholdeth the face of our +Father in Heaven.</p> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII</h2> + +<h3>A FRIEND IN NEED</h3> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span>Mara was so wearied with her night walk and the agitation +she had been through, that once asleep she slept long +after the early breakfast hour of the family. She was surprised +on awaking to hear the slow old clock downstairs +striking eight. She hastily jumped up and looked around +with a confused wonder, and then slowly the events of the +past night came back upon her like a remembered dream. +She dressed herself quickly, and went down to find the +breakfast things all washed and put away, and Mrs. Pennel +spinning.</p> + +<p>"Why, dear heart," said the old lady, "how came you +to sleep so?—I spoke to you twice, but I could not make +you hear."</p> + +<p>"Has Moses been down, grandma?" said Mara, intent +on the sole thought in her heart.</p> + +<p>"Why, yes, dear, long ago,—and cross enough he was; +that boy does get to be a trial,—but come, dear, I've +saved some hot cakes for you,—sit down now and eat your +breakfast."</p> + +<p>Mara made a feint of eating what her grandmother with +fond officiousness would put before her, and then rising up +she put on her sun-bonnet and started down toward the +cove to find her old friend.</p> + +<p>The queer, dry, lean old Captain had been to her all her +life like a faithful kobold or brownie, an unquestioning +servant of all her gentle biddings. She dared tell him anything +without diffidence or shamefacedness; and she felt<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> +that in this trial of her life he might have in his sea-receptacle +some odd old amulet or spell that should be of power +to help her. Instinctively she avoided the house, lest Sally +should see and fly out and seize her. She took a narrow +path through the cedars down to the little boat cove where +the old Captain worked so merrily ten years ago, in the +beginning of our story, and where she found him now, with +his coat off, busily planing a board.</p> + +<p>"Wal', now,—if this 'ere don't beat all!" he said, +looking up and seeing her; "why, you're looking after +Sally, I s'pose? She's up to the house."</p> + +<p>"No, Captain Kittridge, I'm come to see <i>you</i>."</p> + +<p>"You <i>be</i>?" said the Captain, "I swow! if I ain't a +lucky feller. But what's the matter?" he said, suddenly +observing her pale face and the tears in her eyes. "Hain't +nothin' bad happened,—hes there?"</p> + +<p>"Oh! Captain Kittridge, something dreadful; and nobody +but you can help me."</p> + +<p>"Want to know, now!" said the Captain, with a grave +face. "Well, come here, now, and sit down, and tell me +all about it. Don't you cry, there's a good girl! Don't, +now."</p> + +<p>Mara began her story, and went through with it in a +rapid and agitated manner; and the good Captain listened +in a fidgety state of interest, occasionally relieving his mind +by interjecting "Do tell, now!" "I swan,—if that ar +ain't too bad."</p> + +<p>"That ar's rediculous conduct in Atkinson. He ought +to be talked to," said the Captain, when she had finished, +and then he whistled and put a shaving in his mouth, +which he chewed reflectively.</p> + +<p>"Don't you be a mite worried, Mara," he said. "You +did a great deal better to come to me than to go to Mr. +Sewell or your grand'ther either; 'cause you see these 'ere +wild chaps they'll take things from me they wouldn't from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> +a church-member or a minister. Folks mustn't pull 'em +up with <i>too</i> short a rein,—they must kind o' flatter 'em +off. But that ar Atkinson's too rediculous for anything; +and if he don't mind, I'll serve him out. I know a thing +or two about him that I shall shake over his head if he +don't behave. Now I don't think so much of smugglin' +as some folks," said the Captain, lowering his voice to a +confidential tone. "I reely don't, now; but come to goin' +off piratin',—and tryin' to put a young boy up to robbin' +his best friends,—why, there ain't no kind o' sense in +that. It's p'ison mean of Atkinson. I shall tell him so, +and I shall talk to Moses."</p> + +<p>"Oh! I'm afraid to have you," said Mara, apprehensively.</p> + +<p>"Why, chickabiddy," said the old Captain, "you don't +understand me. I ain't goin' at him with no sermons,—I +shall jest talk to him this way: Look here now, Moses, +I shall say, there's Badger's ship goin' to sail in a fortnight +for China, and they want likely fellers aboard, and +I've got a hundred dollars that I'd like to send on a venture; +if you'll take it and go, why, we'll share the profits. +I shall talk like that, you know. Mebbe I sha'n't let him +know what I know, and mebbe I shall; jest tip him a +wink, you know; it depends on circumstances. But bless +you, child, these 'ere fellers ain't none of 'em 'fraid o' me, +you see, 'cause they know I know the ropes."</p> + +<p>"And can you make that horrid man let him alone?" +said Mara, fearfully.</p> + +<p>"Calculate I can. 'Spect if I's to tell Atkinson a few +things I know, he'd be for bein' scase in our parts. Now, +you see, I hain't minded doin' a small bit o' trade now +and then with them ar fellers myself; but this 'ere," said +the Captain, stopping and looking extremely disgusted, +"why, it's contemptible, it's rediculous!"</p> + +<p>"Do you think I'd better tell grandpapa?" said Mara.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Don't worry your little head. I'll step up and have +a talk with Pennel, this evening. He knows as well as I +that there is times when chaps must be seen to, and no +remarks made. Pennel knows that ar. Why, now, Mis' +Kittridge thinks our boys turned out so well all along of +her bringin' up, and I let her think so; keeps her sort o' +in spirits, you see. But Lord bless ye, child, there's been +times with Job, and Sam, and Pass, and Dass, and Dile, +and all on 'em finally, when, if I hadn't jest pulled a rope +here and turned a screw there, and said nothin' to nobody, +they'd a-been all gone to smash. I never told Mis' Kittridge +none o' their didos; bless you, 'twouldn't been o' +no use. I never told <i>them</i>, neither; but I jest kind o' +worked 'em off, you know; and they's all putty 'spectable +men now, as men go, you know; not like Parson Sewell, +but good, honest mates and ship-masters,—kind o' middlin' +people, you know. It takes a good many o' sich to +make up a world, d'ye see."</p> + +<p>"But oh, Captain Kittridge, did any of them use to +swear?" said Mara, in a faltering voice.</p> + +<p>"Wal', they did, consid'able," said the Captain;—then +seeing the trembling of Mara's lip, he added,—</p> + +<p>"Ef you could a-found this 'ere out any other way, it's +most a pity you'd a-heard him; 'cause he wouldn't never +have let out afore you. It don't do for gals to hear the +fellers talk when they's alone, 'cause fellers,—wal', you +see, fellers will be fellers, partic'larly when they're young. +Some on 'em, they never gits over it all their lives finally."</p> + +<p>"But oh! Captain Kittridge, that talk last night was so +dreadfully wicked! and Moses!—oh, it was dreadful to +hear him!"</p> + +<p>"Wal', yes, it was," said the Captain, consolingly; +"but don't you cry, and don't you break your little heart. +I expect he'll come all right, and jine the church one +of these days; 'cause there's old Pennel, he prays,—fact<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> +now, I think there's consid'able in some people's prayers, +and he's one of the sort. And you pray, too; and I'm +quite sure the good Lord <i>must</i> hear you. I declare sometimes +I wish you'd jest say a good word to Him for me; +I should like to get the hang o' things a little better than +I do, somehow, I reely should. I've gi'n up swearing +years ago. Mis' Kittridge, she broke me o' that, and now +I don't never go further than 'I vum' or 'I swow,' or +somethin' o' that sort; but you see I'm old;—Moses is +young; but then he's got eddication and friends, and he'll +come all right. Now you jest see ef he don't!"</p> + +<p>This miscellaneous budget of personal experiences and +friendly consolation which the good Captain conveyed to +Mara may possibly make you laugh, my reader, but the +good, ropy brown man was doing his best to console his +little friend; and as Mara looked at him he was almost +glorified in her eyes—he had power to save Moses, and he +would do it. She went home to dinner that day with her +heart considerably lightened. She refrained, in a guilty +way, from even looking at Moses, who was gloomy and +moody.</p> + +<p>Mara had from nature a good endowment of that kind of +innocent hypocrisy which is needed as a staple in the lives +of women who bridge a thousand awful chasms with smiling, +unconscious looks, and walk, singing and scattering +flowers, over abysses of fear, while their hearts are dying +within them.</p> + +<p>She talked more volubly than was her wont with Mrs. +Pennel, and with her old grandfather; she laughed and +seemed in more than usual spirits, and only once did she +look up and catch the gloomy eye of Moses. It had that +murky, troubled look that one may see in the eye of a boy +when those evil waters which cast up mire and dirt have +once been stirred in his soul. They fell under her clear +glance, and he made a rapid, impatient movement, as if it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> +hurt him to be looked at. The evil spirit in boy or man +cannot bear the "touch of celestial temper;" and the sensitiveness +to eyebeams is one of the earliest signs of conscious, +inward guilt.</p> + +<p>Mara was relieved, as he flung out of the house after +dinner, to see the long, dry figure of Captain Kittridge +coming up and seizing Moses by the button. From the +window she saw the Captain assuming a confidential air +with him; and when they had talked together a few moments, +she saw Moses going with great readiness after him +down the road to his house.</p> + +<p>In less than a fortnight, it was settled Moses was to sail +for China, and Mara was deep in the preparations for his +outfit. Once she would have felt this departure as the +most dreadful trial of her life. Now it seemed to her a +deliverance for him, and she worked with a cheerful alacrity, +which seemed to Moses more than was proper, considering +<i>he</i> was going away.</p> + +<p>For Moses, like many others of his sex, boy or man, had +quietly settled in his own mind that the whole love of +Mara's heart was to be his, to have and to hold, to use +and to draw on, when and as he liked. He reckoned on +it as a sort of inexhaustible, uncounted treasure that was +his own peculiar right and property, and therefore he felt +abused at what he supposed was a disclosure of some deficiency +on her part.</p> + +<p>"You seem to be very glad to be rid of me," he said to +her in a bitter tone one day, as she was earnestly busy in +her preparations.</p> + +<p>Now the fact was, that Moses had been assiduously +making himself disagreeable to Mara for the fortnight past, +by all sorts of unkind sayings and doings; and he knew it +too; yet he felt a right to feel very much abused at the +thought that she could possibly want him to be going. If +she had been utterly desolate about it, and torn her hair<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> +and sobbed and wailed, he would have asked what she +could be crying about, and begged not to be bored with +scenes; but as it was, this cheerful composure was quite +unfeeling.</p> + +<p>Now pray don't suppose Moses to be a monster of an +uncommon species. We take him to be an average specimen +of a boy of a certain kind of temperament in the +transition period of life. Everything is chaos within; the +flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the +flesh, and "light and darkness, and mind and dust, and +passion and pure thoughts, mingle and contend," without +end or order. He wondered at himself sometimes that he +could say such cruel things as he did to his faithful little +friend—to one whom, after all, he did love and trust +before all other human beings.</p> + +<p>There is no saying why it is that a man or a boy, not +radically destitute of generous comprehensions, will often +cruelly torture and tyrannize over a woman whom he both +loves and reveres, who stands in his soul in his best +hours as the very impersonation of all that is good and +beautiful. It is as if some evil spirit at times possessed +him, and compelled him to utter words which were felt at +the moment to be mean and hateful. Moses often wondered +at himself, as he lay awake nights, how he could +have said and done the things he had, and felt miserably +resolved to make it up somehow before he went away; +but he did not.</p> + +<p>He could not say, "Mara, I have done wrong," though +he every day meant to do it, and sometimes sat an hour in +her presence, feeling murky and stony, as if possessed by +a dumb spirit; then he would get up and fling stormily +out of the house.</p> + +<p>Poor Mara wondered if he really would go without one +kind word. She thought of all the years they had been +together, and how he had been her only thought and love.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> +What had become of her brother?—the Moses that once +she used to know—frank, careless, not ill-tempered, and +who sometimes seemed to love her and think she was the +best little girl in the world? Where was he gone to—this +friend and brother of her childhood, and would he +never come back?</p> + +<p>At last came the evening before his parting; the sea-chest +was all made up and packed; and Mara's fingers had +been busy with everything, from more substantial garments +down to all those little comforts and nameless conveniences +that only a woman knows how to improvise. Mara thought +certainly she should get a few kind words, as Moses looked +it over. But he only said, "All right;" and then added +that "there was a button off one of the shirts." Mara's +busy fingers quickly replaced it, and Moses was annoyed at +the tear that fell on the button. What was she crying for +now? He knew very well, but he felt stubborn and cruel. +Afterwards he lay awake many a night in his berth, and +acted this last scene over differently. He took Mara in his +arms and kissed her; he told her she was his best friend, +his good angel, and that he was not worthy to kiss the +hem of her garment; but the next day, when he thought +of writing a letter to her, he didn't, and the good mood +passed away. Boys do not acquire an ease of expression +in letter-writing as early as girls, and a voyage to China +furnished opportunities few and far between of sending +letters.</p> + +<p>Now and then, through some sailing ship, came missives +which seemed to Mara altogether colder and more unsatisfactory +than they would have done could she have appreciated +the difference between a boy and a girl in power of +epistolary expression; for the power of really representing +one's heart on paper, which is one of the first spring flowers +of early womanhood, is the latest blossom on the slow-growing +tree of manhood. To do Moses justice, these<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> +seeming cold letters were often written with a choking +lump in his throat, caused by thinking over his many sins +against his little good angel; but then that past account +was so long, and had so much that it pained him to think +of, that he dashed it all off in the shortest fashion, and said +to himself, "One of these days when I see her I'll make +it all up."</p> + +<p>No man—especially one that is living a rough, busy, +out-of-doors life—can form the slightest conception of +that veiled and secluded life which exists in the heart of a +sensitive woman, whose sphere is narrow, whose external +diversions are few, and whose mind, therefore, acts by a +continual introversion upon itself. They know nothing +how their careless words and actions are pondered and +turned again in weary, quiet hours of fruitless questioning. +What did he mean by this? and what did he intend by +that?—while he, the careless buffalo, meant nothing, or +has forgotten what it was, if he did. Man's utter ignorance +of woman's nature is a cause of a great deal of unsuspected +cruelty which he practices toward her.</p> + +<p>Mara found one or two opportunities of writing to Moses; +but her letters were timid and constrained by a sort of +frosty, discouraged sense of loneliness; and Moses, though +he knew he had no earthly right to expect this to be otherwise, +took upon him to feel as an abused individual, whom +nobody loved—whose way in the world was destined to +be lonely and desolate. So when, at the end of three +years, he arrived suddenly at Brunswick in the beginning +of winter, and came, all burning with impatience, to the +home at Orr's Island, and found that Mara had gone to +Boston on a visit, he resented it as a personal slight.</p> + +<p>He might have inquired why she should expect him, +and whether her whole life was to be spent in looking out +of the window to watch for him. He might have remembered +that he had warned her of his approach by no letter.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> +But no. "Mara didn't care for him—she had forgotten +all about him—she was having a good time in Boston, +just as likely as not with some train of admirers, and he +had been tossing on the stormy ocean, and she had thought +nothing of it." How many things he had meant to say! +He had never felt so good and so affectionate. He would +have confessed all the sins of his life to her, and asked her +pardon—and she wasn't there!</p> + +<p>Mrs. Pennel suggested that he might go to Boston after +her.</p> + +<p>No, he was not going to do that. He would not intrude +on her pleasures with the memory of a rough, hard-working +sailor. He was alone in the world, and had his own way +to make, and so best go at once up among lumbermen, and +cut the timber for the ship that was to carry Cæsar and his +fortunes.</p> + +<p>When Mara was informed by a letter from Mrs. Pennel, +expressed in the few brief words in which that good woman +generally embodied her epistolary communications, that +Moses had been at home, and gone to Umbagog without +seeing her, she felt at her heart only a little closer stricture +of cold, quiet pain, which had become a habit of her inner +life.</p> + +<p>"He did not love her—he was cold and selfish," said +the inner voice. And faintly she pleaded, in answer, +"He is a man—he has seen the world—and has so much +to do and think of, no wonder."</p> + +<p>In fact, during the last three years that had parted them, +the great change of life had been consummated in both. +They had parted boy and girl; they would meet man and +woman. The time of this meeting had been announced.</p> + +<p>And all this is the history of that sigh, so very quiet +that Sally Kittridge never checked the rattling flow of her +conversation to observe it.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII</h2> + +<h3>THE BEGINNING OF THE STORY</h3> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span>We have in the last three chapters brought up the history +of our characters to the time when our story opens, +when Mara and Sally Kittridge were discussing the expected +return of Moses. Sally was persuaded by Mara to +stay and spend the night with her, and did so without +much fear of what her mother would say when she returned; +for though Mrs. Kittridge still made bustling demonstrations +of authority, it was quite evident to every one that +the handsome grown-up girl had got the sceptre into her +own hands, and was reigning in the full confidence of +being, in one way or another, able to bring her mother into +all her views.</p> + +<p>So Sally stayed—to have one of those long night-talks +in which girls delight, in the course of which all sorts of +intimacies and confidences, that shun the daylight, open +like the night-blooming cereus in strange successions. One +often wonders by daylight at the things one says very naturally +in the dark.</p> + +<p>So the two girls talked about Moses, and Sally dilated +upon his handsome, manly air the one Sunday that he had +appeared in Harpswell meeting-house.</p> + +<p>"He didn't know me at all, if you'll believe it," said +Sally. "I was standing with father when he came out, +and he shook hands with him, and looked at me as if I'd +been an entire stranger."</p> + +<p>"I'm not in the least surprised," said Mara; "you're +grown so and altered."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Well, now, you'd hardly know him, Mara," said Sally. +"He is a man—a real man; everything about him is different; +he holds up his head in such a proud way. Well, +he always did that when he was a boy; but when he +speaks, he has such a deep voice! How boys do alter in +a year or two!"</p> + +<p>"Do you think I have altered much, Sally?" said +Mara; "at least, do you think <i>he</i> would think so?"</p> + +<p>"Why, Mara, you and I have been together so much, I +can't tell. We don't notice what goes on before us every +day. I really should like to see what Moses Pennel will +think when he sees you. At any rate, he can't order you +about with such a grand air as he used to when you were +younger."</p> + +<p>"I think sometimes he has quite forgotten about me," +said Mara.</p> + +<p>"Well, if I were you, I should put him in mind of myself +by one or two little ways," said Sally. "I'd plague +him and tease him. I'd lead him such a life that he couldn't +forget me,—that's what I would."</p> + +<p>"I don't doubt you would, Sally; and he might like you +all the better for it. But you know that sort of thing +isn't my way. People must act in character."</p> + +<p>"Do you know, Mara," said Sally, "I always thought +Moses was hateful in his treatment of you? Now I'd no +more marry that fellow than I'd walk into the fire; but it +would be a just punishment for his sins to have to marry +me! Wouldn't I serve him out, though!"</p> + +<p>With which threat of vengeance on her mind Sally +Kittridge fell asleep, while Mara lay awake pondering,—wondering +if Moses would come to-morrow, and what he +would be like if he did come.</p> + +<p>The next morning as the two girls were wiping breakfast +dishes in a room adjoining the kitchen, a step was +heard on the kitchen-floor, and the first that Mara knew<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> +she found herself lifted from the floor in the arms of a tall +dark-eyed young man, who was kissing her just as if he +had a right to. She knew it must be Moses, but it seemed +strange as a dream, for all she had tried to imagine it beforehand.</p> + +<p>He kissed her over and over, and then holding her off +at arm's length, said, "Why, Mara, you have grown to be +a beauty!"</p> + +<p>"And what was she, I'd like to know, when you went +away, Mr. Moses?" said Sally, who could not long keep +out of a conversation. "She was handsome when you were +only a great ugly boy."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, Miss Sally!" said Moses, making a profound +bow.</p> + +<p>"Thank me for what?" said Sally, with a toss.</p> + +<p>"For your intimation that I am a handsome young man +now," said Moses, sitting with his arm around Mara, and +her hand in his.</p> + +<p>And in truth he was as handsome now for a man as he +was in the promise of his early childhood. All the oafishness +and surly awkwardness of the half-boy period was +gone. His great black eyes were clear and confident: his +dark hair clustering in short curls round his well-shaped +head; his black lashes, and fine form, and a certain confident +ease of manner, set him off to the greatest advantage.</p> + +<p>Mara felt a peculiar dreamy sense of strangeness at this +brother who was not a brother,—this Moses so different +from the one she had known. The very tone of his voice, +which when he left had the uncertain cracked notes which +indicate the unformed man, were now mellowed and settled. +Mara regarded him shyly as he talked, blushed uneasily, +and drew away from his arm around her, as if this +handsome, self-confident young man were being too familiar. +In fact, she made apology to go out into the other +room to call Mrs. Pennel.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span></p> + +<p>Moses looked after her as she went with admiration. +"What a little woman she has grown!" he said, naïvely.</p> + +<p>"And what did you expect she would grow?" said +Sally. "You didn't expect to find her a girl in short +clothes, did you?"</p> + +<p>"Not exactly, Miss Sally," said Moses, turning his attention +to her; "and some other people are changed too."</p> + +<p>"Like enough," said Sally, carelessly. "I should think +so, since somebody never spoke a word to one the Sunday +he was at meeting."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you remember that, do you? On my word, +Sally"—</p> + +<p>"Miss Kittridge, if you please, sir," said Sally, turning +round with the air of an empress.</p> + +<p>"Well, then, Miss Kittridge," said Moses, making a +bow; "now let me finish my sentence. I never dreamed +who you were."</p> + +<p>"Complimentary," said Sally, pouting.</p> + +<p>"Well, hear me through," said Moses; "you had grown +so handsome, Miss Kittridge."</p> + +<p>"Oh! that indeed! I suppose you mean to say I was +a fright when you left?"</p> + +<p>"Not at all—not at all," said Moses; "but handsome +things may grow handsomer, you know."</p> + +<p>"I don't like flattery," said Sally.</p> + +<p>"I never flatter, Miss Kittridge," said Moses.</p> + +<p>Our young gentleman and young lady of Orr's Island +went through with this customary little lie of civilized society +with as much gravity as if they were practicing in +the court of Versailles,—she looking out from the corner +of her eye to watch the effect of her words, and he laying +his hand on his heart in the most edifying gravity. They +perfectly understood one another.</p> + +<p>But, says the reader, seems to me Sally Kittridge does +all the talking! So she does,—so she always will,—for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> +it is her nature to be bright, noisy, and restless; and one +of these girls always overcrows a timid and thoughtful one, +and makes her, for the time, seem dim and faded, as does +rose color when put beside scarlet.</p> + +<p>Sally was a born coquette. It was as natural for her to +want to flirt with every man she saw, as for a kitten to +scamper after a pin-ball. Does the kitten care a fig for +the pin-ball, or the dry leaves, which she whisks, and +frisks, and boxes, and pats, and races round and round +after? No; it's nothing but kittenhood; every hair of +her fur is alive with it. Her sleepy green eyes, when she +pretends to be dozing, are full of it; and though she looks +wise a moment, and seems resolved to be a discreet young +cat, let but a leaf sway—off she goes again, with a frisk +and a rap. So, though Sally had scolded and flounced +about Moses's inattention to Mara in advance, she contrived +even in this first interview to keep him talking with nobody +but herself;—not because she wanted to draw him +from Mara, or meant to; not because she cared a pin for +him; but because it was her nature, as a frisky young cat. +And Moses let himself be drawn, between bantering and +contradicting, and jest and earnest, at some moments almost +to forget that Mara was in the room.</p> + +<p>She took her sewing and sat with a pleased smile, sometimes +breaking into the lively flow of conversation, or +eagerly appealed to by both parties to settle some rising +quarrel.</p> + +<p>Once, as they were talking, Moses looked up and saw +Mara's head, as a stray sunbeam falling upon the golden +hair seemed to make a halo around her face. Her large +eyes were fixed upon him with an expression so intense and +penetrative, that he felt a sort of wincing uneasiness. +"What makes you look at me so, Mara?" he said, suddenly.</p> + +<p>A bright flush came in her cheek as she answered, "I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> +didn't know I was looking. It all seems so strange to me. +I am trying to make out who and what you are."</p> + +<p>"It's not best to look too deep," Moses said, laughing, +but with a slight shade of uneasiness.</p> + +<p>When Sally, late in the afternoon, declared that she +must go home, she couldn't stay another minute, Moses +rose to go with her.</p> + +<p>"What are you getting up for?" she said to Moses, as +he took his hat.</p> + +<p>"To go home with you, to be sure."</p> + +<p>"Nobody asked you to," said Sally.</p> + +<p>"I'm accustomed to asking myself," said Moses.</p> + +<p>"Well, I suppose I must have you along," said Sally. +"Father will be glad to see you, of course."</p> + +<p>"You'll be back to tea, Moses," said Mara, "will you +not? Grandfather will be home, and want to see you."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I shall be right back," said Moses, "I have a little +business to settle with Captain Kittridge."</p> + +<p>But Moses, however, did stay at tea with Mrs. Kittridge, +who looked graciously at him through the bows of her +black horn spectacles, having heard her liege lord observe +that Moses was a smart chap, and had done pretty well in +a money way.</p> + +<p>How came he to stay? Sally told him every other +minute to go; and then when he had got fairly out of the +door, called him back to tell him that there was something +she had heard about him. And Moses of course came back; +wanted to know what it was; and couldn't be told, it was +a secret; and then he would be ordered off, and reminded +that he promised to go straight home; and then when he +got a little farther off she called after him a second time, +to tell him that he would be very much surprised if he +knew how she found it out, etc., etc.,—till at last tea +being ready, there was no reason why he shouldn't have +a cup. And so it was sober moonrise before Moses found +himself going home.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Hang that girl!" he said to himself; "don't she know +what she's about, though?"</p> + +<p>There our hero was mistaken. Sally never did know +what she was about,—had no plan or purpose more than a +blackbird; and when Moses was gone laughed to think how +many times she had made him come back.</p> + +<p>"Now, confound it all," said Moses, "I care more for +our little Mara than a dozen of her; and what have I been +fooling all this time for?—now Mara will think I don't +love her."</p> + +<p>And, in fact, our young gentleman rather set his heart +on the sensation he was going to make when he got home. +It is flattering, after all, to feel one's power over a susceptible +nature; and Moses, remembering how entirely and +devotedly Mara had loved him all through childhood, never +doubted but he was the sole possessor of uncounted treasure +in her heart, which he could develop at his leisure and use +as he pleased. He did not calculate for one force which +had grown up in the meanwhile between them,—and that +was the power of womanhood. He did not know the intensity +of that kind of pride, which is the very life of the +female nature, and which is most vivid and vigorous in the +most timid and retiring.</p> + +<p>Our little Mara was tender, self-devoting, humble, and +religious, but she was woman after all to the tips of her +fingers,—quick to feel slights, and determined with the +intensest determination, that no man should wrest from +her one of those few humble rights and privileges, which +Nature allows to woman. Something swelled and trembled +in her when she felt the confident pressure of that bold +arm around her waist,—like the instinct of a wild bird to +fly. Something in the deep, manly voice, the determined, +self-confident air, aroused a vague feeling of defiance and +resistance in her which she could scarcely explain to herself. +Was he to assume a right to her in this way with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span>out +even asking? When he did not come to tea nor long +after, and Mrs. Pennel and her grandfather wondered, she +laughed, and said gayly,—</p> + +<p>"Oh, he knows he'll have time enough to see me. +Sally seems more like a stranger."</p> + +<p>But when Moses came home after moonrise, determined +to go and console Mara for his absence, he was surprised +to hear the sound of a rapid and pleasant conversation, in +which a masculine and feminine voice were intermingled in +a lively duet. Coming a little nearer, he saw Mara sitting +knitting in the doorway, and a very good-looking young +man seated on a stone at her feet, with his straw hat flung +on the ground, while he was looking up into her face, as +young men often do into pretty faces seen by moonlight. +Mara rose and introduced Mr. Adams of Boston to Mr. +Moses Pennel.</p> + +<p>Moses measured the young man with his eye as if he +could have shot him with a good will. And his temper +was not at all bettered as he observed that he had the easy +air of a man of fashion and culture, and learned by a few +moments of the succeeding conversation, that the acquaintance +had commenced during Mara's winter visit to Boston.</p> + +<p>"I was staying a day or two at Mr. Sewell's," he said, +carelessly, "and the night was so fine I couldn't resist the +temptation to row over."</p> + +<p>It was now Moses's turn to listen to a conversation in +which he could bear little part, it being about persons and +places and things unfamiliar to him; and though he could +give no earthly reason why the conversation was not the +most proper in the world,—yet he found that it made him +angry.</p> + +<p>In the pauses, Mara inquired, prettily, how he found +the Kittridges, and reproved him playfully for staying, in +despite of his promise to come home. Moses answered +with an effort to appear easy and playful, that there was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> +no reason, it appeared, to hurry on her account, since she +had been so pleasantly engaged.</p> + +<p>"That is true," said Mara, quietly; "but then grandpapa +and grandmamma expected you, and they have gone to +bed, as you know they always do after tea."</p> + +<p>"They'll keep till morning, I suppose," said Moses, +rather gruffly.</p> + +<p>"Oh yes; but then as you had been gone two or three +months, naturally they wanted to see a little of you at +first."</p> + +<p>The stranger now joined in the conversation, and began +talking with Moses about his experiences in foreign parts, +in a manner which showed a man of sense and breeding. +Moses had a jealous fear of people of breeding,—an apprehension +lest they should look down on one whose life had +been laid out of the course of their conventional ideas; and +therefore, though he had sufficient ability and vigor of +mind to acquit himself to advantage in this conversation, +it gave him all the while a secret uneasiness. After a few +moments, he rose up moodily, and saying that he was very +much fatigued, he went into the house to retire.</p> + +<p>Mr. Adams rose to go also, and Moses might have felt +in a more Christian frame of mind, had he listened to the +last words of the conversation between him and Mara.</p> + +<p>"Do you remain long in Harpswell?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"That depends on circumstances," he replied. "If I +do, may I be permitted to visit you?"</p> + +<p>"As a friend—yes," said Mara; "I shall always be +happy to see you."</p> + +<p>"No more?"</p> + +<p>"No more," replied Mara.</p> + +<p>"I had hoped," he said, "that you would reconsider."</p> + +<p>"It is impossible," said she; and soft voices can pronounce +that word, <i>impossible</i>, in a very fateful and decisive +manner.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Well, God bless you, then, Miss Lincoln," he said, and +was gone.</p> + +<p>Mara stood in the doorway and saw him loosen his boat +from its moorings and float off in the moonlight, with a +long train of silver sparkles behind.</p> + +<p>A moment after Moses was looking gloomily over her +shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Who is that puppy?" he said.</p> + +<p>"He is not a puppy, but a very fine young man," said +Mara.</p> + +<p>"Well, that very fine young man, then?"</p> + +<p>"I thought I told you. He is a Mr. Adams of Boston, +and a distant connection of the Sewells. I met him when +I was visiting at Judge Sewell's in Boston."</p> + +<p>"You seemed to be having a very pleasant time together?"</p> + +<p>"We were," said Mara, quietly.</p> + +<p>"It's a pity I came home as I did. I'm sorry I interrupted +you," said Moses, with a sarcastic laugh.</p> + +<p>"You didn't interrupt us; he had been here almost two +hours."</p> + +<p>Now Mara saw plainly enough that Moses was displeased +and hurt, and had it been in the days of her fourteenth +summer, she would have thrown her arms around his neck, +and said, "Moses, I don't care a fig for that man, and I +love you better than all the world." But this the young +lady of eighteen would not do; so she wished him good-night +very prettily, and pretended not to see anything +about it.</p> + +<p>Mara was as near being a saint as human dust ever +is; but—she was a woman saint; and therefore may be +excused for a little gentle vindictiveness. She was, in a +merciful way, rather glad that Moses had gone to bed dissatisfied, +and rather glad that he did not know what she +might have told him—quite resolved that he should not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> +know at present. Was he to know that she liked nobody +so much as him? Not he, unless he loved her more than +all the world, and said so first. Mara was resolved upon +that. He might go where he liked—flirt with whom he +liked—come back as late as he pleased; never would +she, by word or look, give him reason to think she cared.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV</h2> + +<h3>DESIRES AND DREAMS</h3> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span>Moses passed rather a restless and uneasy night on his +return to the home-roof which had sheltered his childhood. +All his life past, and all his life expected, seemed to boil +and seethe and ferment in his thoughts, and to go round +and round in never-ceasing circles before him.</p> + +<p>Moses was <i>par excellence</i> proud, ambitious, and willful. +These words, generally supposed to describe positive vices +of the mind, in fact are only the overaction of certain very +valuable portions of our nature, since one can conceive all +three to raise a man immensely in the scale of moral being, +simply by being applied to right objects. He who is too +proud even to admit a mean thought—who is ambitious +only of ideal excellence—who has an inflexible will only +in the pursuit of truth and righteousness—may be a saint +and a hero.</p> + +<p>But Moses was neither a saint nor a hero, but an undeveloped +chaotic young man, whose pride made him sensitive +and restless; whose ambition was fixed on wealth and +worldly success; whose willfulness was for the most part +a blind determination to compass his own points, with the +leave of Providence or without. There was no God in his +estimate of life—and a sort of secret unsuspected determination +at the bottom of his heart that there should be +none. He feared religion, from a suspicion which he entertained +that it might hamper some of his future schemes. +He did not wish to put himself under its rules, lest he +might find them in some future time inconveniently strict.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span></p> + +<p>With such determinations and feelings, the Bible—necessarily +an excessively uninteresting book to him—he +never read, and satisfied himself with determining in a +general way that it was not worth reading, and, as was the +custom with many young men in America at that period, +announced himself as a skeptic, and seemed to value himself +not a little on the distinction. Pride in skepticism is +a peculiar distinction of young men. It takes years and +maturity to make the discovery that the power of faith is +nobler than the power of doubt; and that there is a celestial +wisdom in the ingenuous propensity to trust, which +belongs to honest and noble natures. Elderly skeptics +generally regard their unbelief as a misfortune.</p> + +<p>Not that Moses was, after all, without "the angel in +him." He had a good deal of the susceptibility to poetic +feeling, the power of vague and dreamy aspiration, the +longing after the good and beautiful, which is God's witness +in the soul. A noble sentiment in poetry, a fine scene +in nature, had power to bring tears in his great dark eyes, +and he had, under the influence of such things, brief inspired +moments in which he vaguely longed to do, or be, +something grand or noble. But this, however, was something +apart from the real purpose of his life,—a sort of +voice crying in the wilderness,—to which he gave little +heed. Practically, he was determined with all his might, +to have a good time in this life, whatever another might +be,—if there were one; and that he would do it by the +strength of his right arm. Wealth he saw to be the lamp +of Aladdin, which commanded all other things. And the +pursuit of wealth was therefore the first step in his programme.</p> + +<p>As for plans of the heart and domestic life, Moses was +one of that very common class who had more desire to be +loved than power of loving. His cravings and dreams +were not for somebody to be devoted to, but for somebody<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> +who should be devoted to him. And, like most people +who possess this characteristic, he mistook it for an affectionate +disposition.</p> + +<p>Now the chief treasure of his heart had always been his +little sister Mara, chiefly from his conviction that he was +the one absorbing thought and love of her heart. He had +never figured life to himself otherwise than with Mara at +his side, his unquestioning, devoted friend. Of course he +and his plans, his ways and wants, would always be in +the future, as they always had been, her sole thought. +These sleeping partnerships in the interchange of affection, +which support one's heart with a basis of uncounted +wealth, and leave one free to come and go, and buy and +sell, without exaction or interference, are a convenience certainly, +and the loss of them in any way is like the sudden +breaking of a bank in which all one's deposits are laid.</p> + +<p>It had never occurred to Moses how or in what capacity +he should always stand banker to the whole wealth of love +that there was in Mara's heart, and what provision he +should make on his part for returning this incalculable debt. +But the interview of this evening had raised a new thought +in his mind. Mara, as he saw that day, was no longer +a little girl in a pink sun-bonnet. She was a woman,—a +little one, it is true, but every inch a woman,—and a +woman invested with a singular poetic charm of appearance, +which, more than beauty, has the power of awakening feeling +in the other sex.</p> + +<p>He felt in himself, in the experience of that one day, +that there was something subtle and veiled about her, +which set the imagination at work; that the wistful, plaintive +expression of her dark eyes, and a thousand little shy +and tremulous movements of her face, affected him more +than the most brilliant of Sally Kittridge's sprightly sallies. +Yes, there would be people falling in love with her +fast enough, he thought even here, where she is as secluded<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> +as a pearl in an oyster-shell,—it seems means were found +to come after her,—and then all the love of her heart, that +priceless love, would go to another.</p> + +<p>Mara would be absorbed in some one else, would love +some one else, as he knew she could, with heart and soul +and mind and strength. When he thought of this, it +affected him much as it would if one were turned out of a +warm, smiling apartment into a bleak December storm. +What should he do, if that treasure which he had taken +most for granted in all his valuations of life should suddenly +be found to belong to another? Who was this fellow +that seemed so free to visit her, and what had passed +between them? Was Mara in love with him, or going to +be? There is no saying how the consideration of this +question enhanced in our hero's opinion both her beauty +and all her other good qualities.</p> + +<p>Such a brave little heart! such a good, clear little head! +and such a pretty hand and foot! She was always so +cheerful, so unselfish, so devoted! When had he ever seen +her angry, except when she had taken up some childish +quarrel of his, and fought for him like a little Spartan? +Then she was pious, too. She was born religious, thought +our hero, who, in common with many men professing skepticism +for their own particular part, set a great value on +religion in that unknown future person whom they are fond +of designating in advance as "my wife." Yes, Moses +meant his wife should be pious, and pray for him, while he +did as he pleased.</p> + +<p>"Now there's that witch of a Sally Kittridge," he said +to himself; "I wouldn't have such a girl for a wife. +Nothing to her but foam and frisk,—no heart more than +a bobolink! But isn't she amusing? By George! isn't +she, though?"</p> + +<p>"But," thought Moses, "it's time I settled this matter +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span>who is to be my wife. I won't marry till I'm rich,—that's flat. My wife isn't to rub and grub. So at it I +must go to raise the wind. I wonder if old Sewell really +does know anything about my parents. Miss Emily would +have it that there was some mystery that he had the key +of; but I never could get any thing from him. He always +put me off in such a smooth way that I couldn't tell +whether he did or he didn't. But, now, supposing I have +relatives, family connections, then who knows but what +there may be property coming to me? That's an idea +worth looking after, surely."</p> + +<p>There's no saying with what vividness ideas and images +go through one's wakeful brain when the midnight moon +is making an exact shadow of your window-sash, with +panes of light, on your chamber-floor. How vividly we +all have loved and hated and planned and hoped and feared +and desired and dreamed, as we tossed and turned to and +fro upon such watchful, still nights. In the stillness, the +tide upon one side of the Island replied to the dash on the +other side in unbroken symphony, and Moses began to +remember all the stories gossips had told him of how he +had floated ashore there, like a fragment of tropical seaweed +borne landward by a great gale. He positively wondered +at himself that he had never thought of it more, and +the more he meditated, the more mysterious and inexplicable +he felt. Then he had heard Miss Roxy once speaking +something about a bracelet, he was sure he had; but afterwards +it was hushed up, and no one seemed to know anything +about it when he inquired. But in those days he +was a boy,—he was nobody,—now he was a young man. +He could go to Mr. Sewell, and demand as his right a fair +answer to any questions he might ask. If he found, as +was quite likely, that there was nothing to be known, his +mind would be thus far settled,—he should trust only to +his own resources.</p> + +<p>So far as the state of the young man's finances were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> +concerned, it would be considered in those simple times +and regions an auspicious beginning of life. The sum intrusted +to him by Captain Kittridge had been more than +doubled by the liberality of Zephaniah Pennel, and Moses +had traded upon it in foreign parts with a skill and energy +that brought a very fair return, and gave him, in the eyes +of the shrewd, thrifty neighbors, the prestige of a young +man who was marked for success in the world.</p> + +<p>He had already formed an advantageous arrangement +with his grandfather and Captain Kittridge, by which a +ship was to be built, which he should command, and thus +the old Saturday afternoon dream of their childhood be fulfilled. +As he thought of it, there arose in his mind a picture +of Mara, with her golden hair and plaintive eyes and +little white hands, reigning as a fairy queen in the captain's +cabin, with a sort of wish to carry her off and make +sure that no one else ever should get her from him.</p> + +<p>But these midnight dreams were all sobered down by the +plain matter-of-fact beams of the morning sun, and nothing +remained of immediate definite purpose except the resolve, +which came strongly upon Moses as he looked across the +blue band of Harpswell Bay, that he would go that morning +and have a talk with Mr. Sewell.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV</h2> + +<h3>MISS EMILY</h3> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span>Miss Roxy Toothache was seated by the window of +the little keeping-room where Miss Emily Sewell sat on +every-day occasions. Around her were the insignia of her +power and sway. Her big tailor's goose was heating between +Miss Emily's bright brass fire-irons; her great pin-cushion +was by her side, bristling with pins of all sizes, +and with broken needles thriftily made into pins by heads +of red sealing-wax, and with needles threaded with all varieties +of cotton, silk, and linen; her scissors hung martially +by her side; her black bombazette work-apron was on; and +the expression of her iron features was that of deep responsibility, +for she was making the minister a new Sunday vest!</p> + +<p>The good soul looks not a day older than when we left +her, ten years ago. Like the gray, weather-beaten rocks +of her native shore, her strong features had an unchangeable +identity beyond that of anything fair and blooming. +There was of course no chance for a gray streak in her +stiff, uncompromising mohair frisette, which still pushed +up her cap-border bristlingly as of old, and the clear, high +winds and bracing atmosphere of that rough coast kept +her in an admirable state of preservation.</p> + +<p>Miss Emily had now and then a white hair among her +soft, pretty brown ones, and looked a little thinner; but +the round, bright spot of bloom on each cheek was there +just as of yore,—and just as of yore she was thinking of +her brother, and filling her little head with endless calculations +to keep him looking fresh and respectable, and his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> +housekeeping comfortable and easy, on very limited means. +She was now officiously and anxiously attending on Miss +Roxy, who was in the midst of the responsible operation +which should conduce greatly to this end.</p> + +<p>"Does that twist work well?" she said, nervously; +"because I believe I've got some other upstairs in my India +box."</p> + +<p>Miss Roxy surveyed the article; bit a fragment off, as if +she meant to taste it; threaded a needle and made a few +cabalistical stitches; and then pronounced, <i>ex cathedrâ</i>, +that it would do. Miss Emily gave a sigh of relief. After +buttons and tapes and linings, and various other items +had been also discussed, the conversation began to flow +into general channels.</p> + +<p>"Did you know Moses Pennel had got home from Umbagog?" +said Miss Roxy.</p> + +<p>"Yes. Captain Kittridge told brother so this morning. +I wonder he doesn't call over to see us."</p> + +<p>"Your brother took a sight of interest in that boy," said +Miss Roxy. "I was saying to Ruey, this morning, that +if Moses Pennel ever did turn out well, he ought to have +a large share of the credit."</p> + +<p>"Brother always did feel a peculiar interest in him; it +was such a strange providence that seemed to cast in his +lot among us," said Miss Emily.</p> + +<p>"As sure as you live, there he is a-coming to the front +door," said Miss Roxy.</p> + +<p>"Dear me," said Miss Emily, "and here I have on this +old faded chintz. Just so sure as one puts on any old rag, +and thinks nobody will come, company is sure to call."</p> + +<p>"Law, I'm sure I shouldn't think of calling him company," +said Miss Roxy.</p> + +<p>A rap at the door put an end to this conversation, and +very soon Miss Emily introduced our hero into the little +sitting-room, in the midst of a perfect stream of apologies<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> +relating to her old dress and the littered condition of the +sitting-room, for Miss Emily held to the doctrine of those +who consider any sign of human occupation and existence +in a room as being disorder—however reputable and respectable +be the cause of it.</p> + +<p>"Well, really," she said, after she had seated Moses by +the fire, "how time does pass, to be sure; it don't seem +more than yesterday since you used to come with your +Latin books, and now here you are a grown man! I must +run and tell Mr. Sewell. He will be so glad to see you."</p> + +<p>Mr. Sewell soon appeared from his study in morning-gown +and slippers, and seemed heartily responsive to the +proposition which Moses soon made to him to have some +private conversation with him in his study.</p> + +<p>"I declare," said Miss Emily, as soon as the study-door +had closed upon her brother and Moses, "what a handsome +young man he is! and what a beautiful way he has with +him!—so deferential! A great many young men nowadays +seem to think nothing of their minister; but he comes to +seek advice. Very proper. It isn't every young man that +appreciates the privilege of having elderly friends. I declare, +what a beautiful couple he and Mara Lincoln would +make! Don't Providence seem in a peculiar way to have +designed them for each other?"</p> + +<p>"I hope not," said Miss Roxy, with her grimmest expression.</p> + +<p>"You don't! Why not?"</p> + +<p>"I never liked him," said Miss Roxy, who had possessed +herself of her great heavy goose, and was now thumping +and squeaking it emphatically on the press-board. "She's +a thousand times too good for Moses Pennel,"—thump. +"I ne'er had no faith in him,"—thump. "He's dreffle +unstiddy,"—thump. "He's handsome, but he knows +it,"—thump. "He won't never love nobody so much as +he does himself,"—thump, <i>fortissimo con spirito</i>.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Well, really now, Miss Roxy, you mustn't always remember +the sins of his youth. Boys must sow their wild +oats. He was unsteady for a while, but now everybody +says he's doing well; and as to his knowing he's handsome, +and all that, I don't see as he does. See how polite +and deferential he was to us all, this morning; and he +spoke so handsomely to you."</p> + +<p>"I don't want none of his politeness," said Miss Roxy, +inexorably; "and as to Mara Lincoln, she might have +better than him any day. Miss Badger was a-tellin' Captain +Brown, Sunday noon, that she was very much admired +in Boston."</p> + +<p>"So she was," said Miss Emily, bridling. "I never +reveal secrets, or I might tell something,—but there has +been a young man,—but I promised not to speak of it, +and I sha'n't."</p> + +<p>"If you mean Mr. Adams," said Miss Roxy, "you need +n't worry about keepin' that secret, 'cause that ar was all +talked over atween meetin's a-Sunday noon; for Mis' Kittridge +she used to know his aunt Jerushy, her that married +Solomon Peters, and Mis' Captain Badger she says that he +has a very good property, and is a professor in the Old +South church in Boston."</p> + +<p>"Dear me," said Miss Emily, "how things do get +about!"</p> + +<p>"People will talk, there ain't no use trying to help it," +said Miss Roxy; "but it's strongly borne in on my mind +that it ain't Adams, nor 't ain't Moses Pennel that's to +marry her. I've had peculiar exercises of mind about that +ar child,—well I have;" and Miss Roxy pulled a large +spotted bandanna handkerchief out of her pocket, and blew +her nose like a trumpet, and then wiped the withered corners +of her eyes, which were humid as some old Orr's +Island rock wet with sea-spray.</p> + +<p>Miss Emily had a secret love of romancing. It was one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> +of the recreations of her quiet, monotonous life to build +air-castles, which she furnished regardless of expense, and +in which she set up at housekeeping her various friends +and acquaintances, and she had always been bent on weaving +a romance on the history of Mara and Moses Pennel. +The good little body had done her best to second Mr. +Sewell's attempts toward the education of the children. It +was little busy Miss Emily who persuaded honest Zephaniah +and Mary Pennel that talents such as Mara's ought +to be cultivated, and that ended in sending her to Miss +Plucher's school in Portland. There her artistic faculties +were trained into creating funereal monuments out of chenille +embroidery, fully equal to Miss Emily's own; also to +painting landscapes, in which the ground and all the trees +were one unvarying tint of blue-green; and also to creating +flowers of a new and particular construction, which, as +Sally Kittridge remarked, were pretty, but did not look +like anything in heaven or earth. Mara had obediently +and patiently done all these things; and solaced herself +with copying flowers and birds and landscapes as near as +possible like nature, as a recreation from these more dignified +toils.</p> + +<p>Miss Emily also had been the means of getting Mara +invited to Boston, where she saw some really polished +society, and gained as much knowledge of the forms of +artificial life as a nature so wholly and strongly individual +could obtain. So little Miss Emily regarded Mara as her +godchild, and was intent on finishing her up into a romance +in real life, of which a handsome young man, who had +been washed ashore in a shipwreck, should be the hero.</p> + +<p>What would she have said could she have heard the conversation +that was passing in her brother's study? Little +could she dream that the mystery, about which she had +timidly nibbled for years, was now about to be unrolled;—but +it was even so. But, upon what she does not see,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> +good reader, you and I, following invisibly on tiptoe, will +make our observations.</p> + +<p>When Moses was first ushered into Mr. Sewell's study, +and found himself quite alone, with the door shut, his +heart beat so that he fancied the good man must hear it. +He knew well what he wanted and meant to say, but he +found in himself all that shrinking and nervous repugnance +which always attends the proposing of any decisive question.</p> + +<p>"I thought it proper," he began, "that I should call and +express my sense of obligation to you, sir, for all the kindness +you showed me when a boy. I'm afraid in those +thoughtless days I did not seem to appreciate it so much as +I do now."</p> + +<p>As Moses said this, the color rose in his cheeks, and +his fine eyes grew moist with a sort of subdued feeling that +made his face for the moment more than usually beautiful.</p> + +<p>Mr. Sewell looked at him with an expression of peculiar +interest, which seemed to have something almost of pain in +it, and answered with a degree of feeling more than he +commonly showed,—</p> + +<p>"It has been a pleasure to me to do anything I could +for you, my young friend. I only wish it could have been +more. I congratulate you on your present prospects in +life. You have perfect health; you have energy and enterprise; +you are courageous and self-reliant, and, I trust, +your habits are pure and virtuous. It only remains that +you add to all this that fear of the Lord which is the +beginning of wisdom."</p> + +<p>Moses bowed his head respectfully, and then sat silent +a moment, as if he were looking through some cloud where +he vainly tried to discover objects.</p> + +<p>Mr. Sewell continued, gravely,—</p> + +<p>"You have the greatest reason to bless the kind Providence +which has cast your lot in such a family, in such a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span> +community. I have had some means in my youth of comparing +other parts of the country with our New England, +and it is my opinion that a young man could not ask a +better introduction into life than the wholesome nurture of +a Christian family in our favored land."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Sewell," said Moses, raising his head, and suddenly +looking him straight in the eyes, "do you know anything +of my family?"</p> + +<p>The question was so point-blank and sudden, that for +a moment Mr. Sewell made a sort of motion as if he dodged +a pistol-shot, and then his face assumed an expression of +grave thoughtfulness, while Moses drew a long breath. It +was out,—the question had been asked.</p> + +<p>"My son," replied Mr. Sewell, "it has always been my +intention, when you had arrived at years of discretion, to +make you acquainted with all that I know or suspect in +regard to your life. I trust that when I tell you all I do +know, you will see that I have acted for the best in the +matter. It has been my study and my prayer to do so."</p> + +<p>Mr. Sewell then rose, and unlocking the cabinet, of +which we have before made mention, in his apartment, +drew forth a very yellow and time-worn package of papers, +which he untied. From these he selected one which enveloped +an old-fashioned miniature case.</p> + +<p>"I am going to show you," he said, "what only you +and my God know that I possess. I have not looked at it +now for ten years, but I have no doubt that it is the likeness +of your mother."</p> + +<p>Moses took it in his hand, and for a few moments there +came a mist over his eyes,—he could not see clearly. He +walked to the window as if needing a clearer light.</p> + +<p>What he saw was a painting of a beautiful young girl, +with large melancholy eyes, and a clustering abundance of +black, curly hair. The face was of a beautiful, clear oval, +with that warm brunette tint in which the Italian painters<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> +delight. The black eyebrows were strongly and clearly +defined, and there was in the face an indescribable expression +of childish innocence and shyness, mingled with a +kind of confiding frankness, that gave the picture the +charm which sometimes fixes itself in faces for which we +involuntarily make a history. She was represented as simply +attired in a white muslin, made low in the neck, and +the hands and arms were singularly beautiful. The picture, +as Moses looked at it, seemed to stand smiling at him +with a childish grace,—a tender, ignorant innocence which +affected him deeply.</p> + +<p>"My young friend," said Mr. Sewell, "I have written +all that I know of the original of this picture, and the reasons +I have for thinking her your mother.</p> + +<p>"You will find it all in this paper, which, if I had been +providentially removed, was to have been given you in +your twenty-first year. You will see in the delicate nature +of the narrative that it could not properly have been imparted +to you till you had arrived at years of understanding. +I trust when you know all that you will be satisfied +with the course I have pursued. You will read it at your +leisure, and after reading I shall be happy to see you +again."</p> + +<p>Moses took the package, and after exchanging salutations +with Mr. Sewell, hastily left the house and sought +his boat.</p> + +<p>When one has suddenly come into possession of a letter +or paper in which is known to be hidden the solution of +some long-pondered secret, of the decision of fate with +regard to some long-cherished desire, who has not been +conscious of a sort of pain,—an unwillingness at once to +know what is therein? We turn the letter again and +again, we lay it by and return to it, and defer from moment +to moment the opening of it. So Moses did not sit +down in the first retired spot to ponder the paper. He put<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> +it in the breast pocket of his coat, and then, taking up his +oars, rowed across the bay. He did not land at the house, +but passed around the south point of the Island, and rowed +up the other side to seek a solitary retreat in the rocks, +which had always been a favorite with him in his early +days.</p> + +<p>The shores of the Island, as we have said, are a precipitous +wall of rock, whose long, ribbed ledges extend far out +into the sea. At high tide these ledges are covered with +the smooth blue sea quite up to the precipitous shore. +There was a place, however, where the rocky shore shelved +over, forming between two ledges a sort of grotto, whose +smooth floor of shells and many-colored pebbles was never +wet by the rising tide. It had been the delight of Moses +when a boy, to come here and watch the gradual rise of the +tide till the grotto was entirely cut off from all approach, +and then to look out in a sort of hermit-like security over +the open ocean that stretched before him. Many an hour +he had sat there and dreamed of all the possible fortunes +that might be found for him when he should launch away +into that blue smiling futurity.</p> + +<p>It was now about half-tide, and Moses left his boat and +made his way over the ledge of rocks toward his retreat. +They were all shaggy and slippery with yellow seaweeds, +with here and there among them wide crystal pools, where +purple and lilac and green mosses unfolded their delicate +threads, and thousands of curious little shell-fish were +tranquilly pursuing their quiet life. The rocks where the +pellucid water lay were in some places crusted with barnacles, +which were opening and shutting the little white scaly +doors of their tiny houses, and drawing in and out those +delicate pink plumes which seem to be their nerves of enjoyment. +Moses and Mara had rambled and played here +many hours of their childhood, amusing themselves with +catching crabs and young lobsters and various little fish for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> +these rocky aquariums, and then studying at their leisure +their various ways. Now he had come hither a man, to +learn the secret of his life.</p> + +<p>Moses stretched himself down on the clean pebbly shore +of the grotto, and drew forth Mr. Sewell's letter.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXVI</h2> + +<h3>DOLORES</h3> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span>Mr. Sewell's letter ran as follows:—</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">My Dear Young Friend</span>,—It has always been my +intention when you arrived at years of maturity to acquaint +you with some circumstances which have given me reason +to conjecture your true parentage, and to let you know what +steps I have taken to satisfy my own mind in relation to +these conjectures. In order to do this, it will be necessary +for me to go back to the earlier years of my life, and give +you the history of some incidents which are known to none +of my most intimate friends. I trust I may rely on your +honor that they will ever remain as secrets with you.</p> + +<p>I graduated from Harvard University in ——. At the +time I was suffering somewhat from an affection of the +lungs, which occasioned great alarm to my mother, many +of whose family had died of consumption. In order to +allay her uneasiness, and also for the purpose of raising +funds for the pursuit of my professional studies, I accepted +a position as tutor in the family of a wealthy gentleman at +St. Augustine, in Florida.</p> + +<p>I cannot do justice to myself,—to the motives which +actuated me in the events which took place in this family, +without speaking with the most undisguised freedom of the +character of all the parties with whom I was connected.</p> + +<p>Don José Mendoza was a Spanish gentleman of large +property, who had emigrated from the Spanish West Indies +to Florida, bringing with him an only daughter, who had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> +been left an orphan by the death of her mother at a very +early age. He brought to this country a large number of +slaves;—and shortly after his arrival, married an American +lady: a widow with three children. By her he had +four other children. And thus it will appear that the +family was made up of such a variety of elements as only +the most judicious care could harmonize. But the character +of the father and mother was such that judicious care +was a thing not to be expected of either.</p> + +<p>Don José was extremely ignorant and proud, and had +lived a life of the grossest dissipation. Habits of absolute +authority in the midst of a community of a very low moral +standard had produced in him all the worst vices of despots. +He was cruel, overbearing, and dreadfully passionate. +His wife was a woman who had pretensions to beauty, +and at times could make herself agreeable, and even fascinating, +but she was possessed of a temper quite as violent +and ungoverned as his own.</p> + +<p>Imagine now two classes of slaves, the one belonging to +the mistress, and the other brought into the country by +the master, and each animated by a party spirit and jealousy;—imagine +children of different marriages, inheriting +from their parents violent tempers and stubborn wills, +flattered and fawned on by slaves, and alternately petted +or stormed at, now by this parent and now by that, and +you will have some idea of the task which I undertook in +being tutor in this family.</p> + +<p>I was young and fearless in those days, as you are now, +and the difficulties of the position, instead of exciting +apprehension, only awakened the spirit of enterprise and +adventure.</p> + +<p>The whole arrangements of the household, to me fresh +from the simplicity and order of New England, had a singular +and wild sort of novelty which was attractive rather +than otherwise. I was well recommended in the family<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> +by an influential and wealthy gentleman of Boston, who +represented my family, as indeed it was, as among the oldest +and most respectable of Boston, and spoke in such terms +of me, personally, as I should not have ventured to use in +relation to myself. When I arrived, I found that two or +three tutors, who had endeavored to bear rule in this tempestuous +family, had thrown up the command after a short +trial, and that the parents felt some little apprehension of +not being able to secure the services of another,—a circumstance +which I did not fail to improve in making my +preliminary arrangements. I assumed an air of grave +hauteur, was very exacting in all my requisitions and stipulations, +and would give no promise of doing more than to +give the situation a temporary trial. I put on an air of +supreme indifference as to my continuance, and acted in +fact rather on the assumption that I should confer a favor +by remaining.</p> + +<p>In this way I succeeded in obtaining at the outset a position +of more respect and deference than had been enjoyed +by any of my predecessors. I had a fine apartment, a servant +exclusively devoted to me, a horse for riding, and saw +myself treated among the servants as a person of consideration +and distinction.</p> + +<p>Don José and his wife both had in fact a very strong +desire to retain my services, when after the trial of a week +or two, it was found that I really could make their discordant +and turbulent children to some extent obedient and +studious during certain portions of the day; and in fact I +soon acquired in the whole family that ascendancy which +a well-bred person who respects himself, and can keep his +temper, must have over passionate and undisciplined +natures.</p> + +<p>I became the receptacle of the complaints of all, and a +sort of confidential adviser. Don José imparted to me +with more frankness than good taste his chagrins with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span> +regard to his wife's indolence, ill-temper, and bad management, +and his wife in turn omitted no opportunity to vent +complaints against her husband for similar reasons. I +endeavored, to the best of my ability, to act a friendly part +by both. It never was in my nature to see anything that +needed to be done without trying to do it, and it was impossible +to work at all without becoming so interested in +my work as to do far more than I had agreed to do. I +assisted Don José about many of his affairs; brought his +neglected accounts into order; and suggested from time to +time arrangements which relieved the difficulties which +had been brought on by disorder and neglect. In fact, I +became, as he said, quite a necessary of life to him.</p> + +<p>In regard to the children, I had a more difficult task. +The children of Don José by his present wife had been +systematically stimulated by the negroes into a chronic +habit of dislike and jealousy toward her children by a +former husband. On the slightest pretext, they were constantly +running to their father with complaints; and as the +mother warmly espoused the cause of her first children, +criminations and recriminations often convulsed the whole +family.</p> + +<p>In ill-regulated families in that region, the care of the +children is from the first in the hands of half-barbarized +negroes, whose power of moulding and assimilating childish +minds is peculiar, so that the teacher has to contend constantly +with a savage element in the children which seems +to have been drawn in with the mother's milk. It is, in +a modified way, something the same result as if the child +had formed its manners in Dahomey or on the coast of +Guinea. In the fierce quarrels which were carried on between +the children of this family, I had frequent occasion +to observe this strange, savage element, which sometimes +led to expressions and actions which would seem incredible +in civilized society.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span></p> + +<p>The three children by Madame Mendoza's former husband +were two girls of sixteen and eighteen and a boy of +fourteen. The four children of the second marriage consisted +of three boys and a daughter,—the eldest being not +more than thirteen.</p> + +<p>The natural capacity of all the children was good, although, +from self-will and indolence, they had grown up +in a degree of ignorance which could not have been tolerated +except in a family living an isolated plantation life in +the midst of barbarized dependents. Savage and untaught +and passionate as they were, the work of teaching them +was not without its interest to me. A power of control +was with me a natural gift; and then that command of +temper which is the common attribute of well-trained persons +in the Northern states, was something so singular in +this family as to invest its possessor with a certain awe; +and my calm, energetic voice, and determined manner, +often acted as a charm on their stormy natures.</p> + +<p>But there was one member of the family of whom I have +not yet spoken,—and yet all this letter is about her,—the +daughter of Don José by his first marriage. Poor +Dolores! poor child! God grant she may have entered +into his rest!</p> + +<p>I need not describe her. You have seen her picture. +And in the wild, rude, discordant family, she always reminded +me of the words, "a lily among thorns." She +was in her nature unlike all the rest, and, I may say, unlike +any one I ever saw. She seemed to live a lonely kind +of life in this disorderly household, often marked out as +the object of the spites and petty tyrannies of both parties. +She was regarded with bitter hatred and jealousy by Madame +Mendoza, who was sure to visit her with unsparing +bitterness and cruelty after the occasional demonstrations +of fondness she received from her father. Her exquisite +beauty and the gentle softness of her manners made her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> +such a contrast to her sisters as constantly excited their +ill-will. Unlike them all, she was fastidiously neat in her +personal habits, and orderly in all the little arrangements +of life.</p> + +<p>She seemed to me in this family to be like some shy, +beautiful pet creature in the hands of rude, unappreciated +owners, hunted from quarter to quarter, and finding rest +only by stealth. Yet she seemed to have no perception of +the harshness and cruelty with which she was treated. +She had grown up with it; it was the habit of her life to +study peaceable methods of averting or avoiding the various +inconveniences and annoyances of her lot, and secure to +herself a little quiet.</p> + +<p>It not unfrequently happened, amid the cabals and +storms which shook the family, that one party or the other +took up and patronized Dolores for a while, more, as it +would appear, out of hatred for the other than any real +love to her. At such times it was really affecting to see +with what warmth the poor child would receive these +equivocal demonstrations of good-will—the nearest approaches +to affection which she had ever known—and the +bitterness with which she would mourn when they were +capriciously withdrawn again. With a heart full of affection, +she reminded me of some delicate, climbing plant +trying vainly to ascend the slippery side of an inhospitable +wall, and throwing its neglected tendrils around every weed +for support.</p> + +<p>Her only fast, unfailing friend was her old negro nurse, +or Mammy, as the children called her. This old creature, +with the cunning and subtlety which had grown up from +years of servitude, watched and waited upon the interests +of her little mistress, and contrived to carry many points +for her in the confused household. Her young mistress +was her one thought and purpose in living. She would +have gone through fire and water to serve her; and this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span> +faithful, devoted heart, blind and ignorant though it were, +was the only unfailing refuge and solace of the poor hunted +child.</p> + +<p>Dolores, of course, became my pupil among the rest. +Like the others, she had suffered by the neglect and interruptions +in the education of the family, but she was intelligent +and docile, and learned with a surprising rapidity. +It was not astonishing that she should soon have formed +an enthusiastic attachment to me, as I was the only intelligent, +cultivated person she had ever seen, and treated her +with unvarying consideration and delicacy. The poor +thing had been so accustomed to barbarous words and manners +that simple politeness and the usages of good society +seemed to her cause for the most boundless gratitude.</p> + +<p>It is due to myself, in view of what follows, to say that +I was from the first aware of the very obvious danger which +lay in my path in finding myself brought into close and +daily relations with a young creature so confiding, so attractive, +and so singularly circumstanced. I knew that it +would be in the highest degree dishonorable to make the +slightest advances toward gaining from her that kind of +affection which might interfere with her happiness in such +future relations as her father might arrange for her. According +to the European fashion, I know that Dolores was +in her father's hands, to be disposed of for life according +to his pleasure, as absolutely as if she had been one of his +slaves. I had every reason to think that his plans on this +subject were matured, and only waited for a little more +teaching and training on my part, and her fuller development +in womanhood, to be announced to her.</p> + +<p>In looking back over the past, therefore, I have not to +reproach myself with any dishonest and dishonorable breach +of trust; for I was from the first upon my guard, and so +much so that even the jealousy my other scholars never +accused me of partiality. I was not in the habit of giving<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> +very warm praise, and was in my general management anxious +rather to be just than conciliatory, knowing that with +the kind of spirits I had to deal with, firmness and justice +went farther than anything else. If I approved Dolores +oftener than the rest, it was seen to be because she never +failed in a duty; if I spent more time with her lessons, it +was because her enthusiasm for study led her to learn +longer ones and study more things; but I am sure there +was never a look or a word toward her that went beyond +the proprieties of my position.</p> + +<p>But yet I could not so well guard my heart. I was +young and full of feeling. She was beautiful; and more +than that, there was something in her Spanish nature at +once so warm and simple, so artless and yet so unconsciously +poetic, that her presence was a continual charm. +How well I remember her now,—all her little ways,—the +movements of her pretty little hands,—the expression +of her changeful face as she recited to me,—the grave, +rapt earnestness with which she listened to all my instructions!</p> + +<p>I had not been with her many weeks before I felt conscious +that it was her presence that charmed the whole +house, and made the otherwise perplexing and distasteful +details of my situation agreeable. I had a dim perception +that this growing passion was a dangerous thing for myself; +but was it a reason, I asked, why I should relinquish a +position in which I felt that I was useful, and when I +could do for this lovely child what no one else could do? +I call her a child,—she always impressed me as such,—though +she was in her sixteenth year and had the early +womanly development of Southern climates. She seemed +to me like something frail and precious, needing to be +guarded and cared for; and when reason told me that I +risked my own happiness in holding my position, love +argued on the other hand that I was her only friend, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span> +that I should be willing to risk something myself for the +sake of protecting and shielding her. For there was no +doubt that my presence in the family was a restraint upon +the passions which formerly vented themselves so recklessly +on her, and established a sort of order in which she +found more peace than she had ever known before.</p> + +<p>For a long time in our intercourse I was in the habit of +looking on myself as the only party in danger. It did not +occur to me that this heart, so beautiful and so lonely, +might, in the want of all natural and appropriate objects +of attachment, fasten itself on me unsolicited, from the +mere necessity of loving. She seemed to me so much too +beautiful, too perfect, to belong to a lot in life like mine, +that I could not suppose it possible this could occur without +the most blameworthy solicitation on my part; and it +is the saddest and most affecting proof to me how this poor +child had been starved for sympathy and love, that she +should have repaid such cold services as mine with such an +entire devotion. At first her feelings were expressed +openly toward me, with the dutiful air of a good child. +She placed flowers on my desk in the morning, and made +quaint little nosegays in the Spanish fashion, which she +gave me, and busied her leisure with various ingenious +little knick-knacks of fancy work, which she brought me. +I treated them all as the offerings of a child while with +her, but I kept them sacredly in my own room. To tell +the truth, I have some of the poor little things now.</p> + +<p>But after a while I could not help seeing how she loved +me; and then I felt as if I ought to go; but how could I? +The pain to myself I could have borne; but how could I +leave her to all the misery of her bleak, ungenial position? +She, poor thing, was so unconscious of what I knew,—for +I was made clear-sighted by love. I tried the more +strictly to keep to the path I had marked out for myself, +but I fear I did not always do it; in fact, many things<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> +seemed to conspire to throw us together. The sisters, who +were sometimes invited out to visit on neighboring estates, +were glad enough to dispense with the presence and attractions +of Dolores, and so she was frequently left at home to +study with me in their absence. As to Don José, although +he always treated me with civility, yet he had such an ingrained +and deep-rooted idea of his own superiority of +position, that I suppose he would as soon have imagined +the possibility of his daughter's falling in love with one of +his horses. I was a great convenience to him. I had a +knack of governing and carrying points in his family that +it had always troubled and fatigued him to endeavor to +arrange,—and that was all. So that my intercourse with +Dolores was as free and unwatched, and gave me as many +opportunities of enjoying her undisturbed society, as heart +could desire.</p> + +<p>At last came the crisis, however. After breakfast one +morning, Don José called Dolores into his library and announced +to her that he had concluded for her a treaty of +marriage, and expected her husband to arrive in a few +days. He expected that this news would be received by +her with the glee with which a young girl hears of a new +dress or of a ball-ticket, and was quite confounded at the +grave and mournful silence in which she received it. She +said no word, made no opposition, but went out from the +room and shut herself up in her own apartment, and spent +the day in tears and sobs.</p> + +<p>Don José, who had rather a greater regard for Dolores +than for any creature living, and who had confidently expected +to give great delight by the news he had imparted, +was quite confounded by this turn of things. If there +had been one word of either expostulation or argument, he +would have blazed and stormed in a fury of passion; but +as it was, this broken-hearted submission, though vexatious, +was perplexing. He sent for me, and opened his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> +mind, and begged me to talk with Dolores and show her +the advantages of the alliance, which the poor foolish +child, he said, did not seem to comprehend. The man was +immensely rich, and had a splendid estate in Cuba. It +was a most desirable thing.</p> + +<p>I ventured to inquire whether his person and manners +were such as would be pleasing to a young girl, and could +gather only that he was a man of about fifty, who had +been most of his life in the military service, and was now +desirous of making an establishment for the repose of his +latter days, at the head of which he would place a handsome +and tractable woman, and do well by her.</p> + +<p>I represented that it would perhaps be safer to say no +more on the subject until Dolores had seen him, and to +this he agreed. Madame Mendoza was very zealous in the +affair, for the sake of getting clear of the presence of +Dolores in the family, and her sisters laughed at her for +her dejected appearance. They only wished, they said, +that so much luck might happen to them. For myself, I +endeavored to take as little notice as possible of the affair, +though what I felt may be conjectured. I knew,—I was +perfectly certain,—that Dolores loved me as I loved her. +I knew that she had one of those simple and unworldly +natures which wealth and splendor could not satisfy, and +whose life would lie entirely in her affections. Sometimes +I violently debated with myself whether honor required +me to sacrifice her happiness as well as my own, and I felt +the strongest temptation to ask her to be my wife and fly +with me to the Northern states, where I did not doubt my +ability to make for her a humble and happy home.</p> + +<p>But the sense of honor is often stronger than all reasoning, +and I felt that such a course would be the betrayal of +a trust; and I determined at least to command myself till +I should see the character of the man who was destined to +be her husband.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span></p> + +<p>Meanwhile the whole manner of Dolores was changed. +She maintained a stony, gloomy silence, performed all her +duties in a listless way, and occasionally, when I commented +on anything in her lessons or exercises, would +break into little flashes of petulance, most strange and unnatural +in her. Sometimes I could feel that she was looking +at me earnestly, but if I turned my eyes toward her, +hers were instantly averted; but there was in her eyes a +peculiar expression at times, such as I have seen in the eye +of a hunted animal when it turned at bay,—a sort of desperate +resistance,—which, taken in connection with her +fragile form and lovely face, produced a mournful impression.</p> + +<p>One morning I found Dolores sitting alone in the schoolroom, +leaning her head on her arms. She had on her wrist +a bracelet of peculiar workmanship, which she always wore,—the +bracelet which was afterwards the means of confirming +her identity. She sat thus some moments in silence, +and then she raised her head and began turning this bracelet +round and round upon her arm, while she looked fixedly +before her. At last she spoke abruptly, and said,—</p> + +<p>"Did I ever tell you that this was <i>my mother's</i> hair? +It is my mother's hair,—and she was the only one that +ever loved me; except poor old Mammy, nobody else loves +me,—nobody ever will."</p> + +<p>"My dear Miss Dolores," I began.</p> + +<p>"Don't call me dear," she said; "you don't care for +me,—nobody does,—papa doesn't, and I always loved +him; everybody in the house wants to get rid of me, +whether I like to go or not. I have always tried to be +good and do all you wanted, and I should think <i>you</i> might +care for me a little, but you don't."</p> + +<p>"Dolores," I said, "I do care for you more than I do +for any one in the world; I love you more than my own +soul."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span></p> + +<p>These were the very words I never meant to say, but +somehow they seemed to utter themselves against my will. +She looked at me for a moment as if she could not believe +her hearing, and then the blood flushed her face, and she +laid her head down on her arms.</p> + +<p>At this moment Madame Mendoza and the other girls +came into the room in a clamor of admiration about a diamond +bracelet which had just arrived as a present from her +future husband. It was a splendid thing, and had for its +clasp his miniature, surrounded by the largest brilliants.</p> + +<p>The enthusiasm of the party even at this moment could +not say anything in favor of the beauty of this miniature, +which, though painted on ivory, gave the impression of a +coarse-featured man, with a scar across one eye.</p> + +<p>"No matter for the beauty," said one of the girls, "so +long as it is set with such diamonds."</p> + +<p>"Come, Dolores," said another, giving her the present, +"pull off that old hair bracelet, and try this on."</p> + +<p>Dolores threw the diamond bracelet from her with a +vehemence so unlike her gentle self as to startle every one.</p> + +<p>"I shall not take off my mother's bracelet for a gift from +a man I never knew," she said. "I hate diamonds. I +wish those who like such things might have them."</p> + +<p>"Was ever anything so odd?" said Madame Mendoza.</p> + +<p>"Dolores always was odd," said another of the girls; +"nobody ever could tell what she would like."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXVII</h2> + +<h3>HIDDEN THINGS</h3> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span>The next day Señor Don Guzman de Cardona arrived, +and the whole house was in a commotion of excitement. +There was to be no school, and everything was bustle and +confusion. I passed my time in my own room in reflecting +severely upon myself for the imprudent words by which I +had thrown one more difficulty in the way of this poor +harassed child.</p> + +<p>Dolores this day seemed perfectly passive in the hands +of her mother and sisters, who appeared disposed to show +her great attention. She allowed them to array her in her +most becoming dress, and made no objection to anything +except removing the bracelet from her arm. "Nobody's +gifts should take the place of her mother's," she said, and +they were obliged to be content with her wearing of the +diamond bracelet on the other arm.</p> + +<p>Don Guzman was a large, plethoric man, with coarse +features and heavy gait. Besides the scar I have spoken +of, his face was adorned here and there with pimples, +which were not set down in the miniature. In the course +of the first hour's study, I saw him to be a man of much +the same stamp as Dolores's father—sensual, tyrannical, +passionate. He seemed in his own way to be much struck +with the beauty of his intended wife, and was not wanting +in efforts to please her. All that I could see in her was +the settled, passive paleness of despair. She played, sang, +exhibited her embroidery and painting, at the command of +Madame Mendoza, with the air of an automaton; and Don<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> +Guzman remarked to her father on the passive obedience +as a proper and hopeful trait. Once only when he, in +presenting her a flower, took the liberty of kissing her +cheek, did I observe the flashing of her eye and a movement +of disgust and impatience, that she seemed scarcely +able to restrain.</p> + +<p>The marriage was announced to take place the next +week, and a holiday was declared through the house. +Nothing was talked of or discussed but the <i>corbeille de +mariage</i> which the bridegroom had brought—the dresses, +laces, sets of jewels, and cashmere shawls. Dolores never +had been treated with such attention by the family in +her life. She rose immeasurably in the eyes of all as the +future possessor of such wealth and such an establishment +as awaited her. Madame Mendoza had visions of future +visits in Cuba rising before her mind, and overwhelmed +her daughter-in-law with flatteries and caresses, which she +received in the same passive silence as she did everything +else.</p> + +<p>For my own part, I tried to keep entirely by myself. I +remained in my room reading, and took my daily rides, +accompanied by my servant—seeing Dolores only at mealtimes, +when I scarcely ventured to look at her. One +night, however, as I was walking through a lonely part of +the garden, Dolores suddenly stepped out from the shrubbery +and stood before me. It was bright moonlight, by +which her face and person were distinctly shown. How +well I remember her as she looked then! She was dressed +in white muslin, as she was fond of being, but it had been +torn and disordered by the haste with which she had come +through the shrubbery. Her face was fearfully pale, and +her great, dark eyes had an unnatural brightness. She laid +hold on my arm.</p> + +<p>"Look here," she said, "I saw you and came down to +speak with you."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span></p> + +<p>She panted and trembled, so that for some moments she +could not speak another word. "I want to ask you," she +gasped, after a pause, "whether I heard you right? Did +you say"—</p> + +<p>"Yes, Dolores, you did. I did say what I had no right +to say, like a dishonorable man."</p> + +<p>"But is it true? Are you sure it is true?" she said, +scarcely seeming to hear my words.</p> + +<p>"God knows it is," said I despairingly.</p> + +<p>"Then why don't you save me? Why do you let them +sell me to this dreadful man? He don't love me—he +never will. Can't you take me away?"</p> + +<p>"Dolores, I am a poor man. I cannot give you any of +these splendors your father desires for you."</p> + +<p>"Do you think I care for them? I love you more than +all the world together. And if you do really love me, why +should we not be happy with each other?"</p> + +<p>"Dolores," I said, with a last effort to keep calm, "I am +much older than you, and know the world, and ought not +to take advantage of your simplicity. You have been so +accustomed to abundant wealth and all it can give, that +you cannot form an idea of what the hardships and discomforts +of marrying a poor man would be. You are unused +to having the least care, or making the least exertion +for yourself. All the world would say that I acted a very +dishonorable part to take you from a position which offers +you wealth, splendor, and ease, to one of comparative hardship. +Perhaps some day you would think so yourself."</p> + +<p>While I was speaking, Dolores turned me toward the +moonlight, and fixed her great dark eyes piercingly upon +me, as if she wanted to read my soul. "Is that all?" she +said; "is that the only reason?"</p> + +<p>"I do not understand you," said I.</p> + +<p>She gave me such a desolate look, and answered in a +tone of utter dejection, "Oh, I didn't know, but perhaps<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> +<i>you</i> might not want me. All the rest are so glad to sell +me to anybody that will take me. But you really do love +me, don't you?" she added, laying her hand on mine.</p> + +<p>What answer I made I cannot say. I only know that +every vestige of what is called reason and common sense +left me at that moment, and that there followed an hour of +delirium in which I—we both were <i>very</i> happy—we forgot +everything but each other, and we arranged all our +plans for flight. There was fortunately a ship lying in the +harbor of St. Augustine, the captain of which was known +to me. In course of a day or two passage was taken, and +my effects transported on board. Nobody seemed to suspect +us. Everything went on quietly up to the day before +that appointed for sailing. I took my usual rides, and did +everything as much as possible in my ordinary way, to disarm +suspicion, and none seemed to exist. The needed +preparations went gayly forward. On the day I mentioned, +when I had ridden some distance from the house, +a messenger came post-haste after me. It was a boy who +belonged specially to Dolores. He gave me a little hurried +note. I copy it:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Papa has found all out, and it is dreadful. No one +else knows, and he means to kill you when you come back. +Do, if you love me, hurry and get on board the ship. I +shall never get over it, if evil comes on you for my sake. +I shall let them do what they please with me, if God will +only save <i>you</i>. I will try to be good. Perhaps if I bear +my trials well, he will let me die soon. That is all I ask. +I love you, and always shall, to death and after.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dolores.</span>"</p></div> + +<p>There was the end of it all. I escaped on the ship. I +read the marriage in the paper. Incidentally I afterwards +heard of her as living in Cuba, but I never saw her again<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span> +till I saw her in her coffin. Sorrow and death had changed +her so much that at first the sight of her awakened only a +vague, painful remembrance. The sight of the hair bracelet +which I had seen on her arm brought all back, and I +felt sure that my poor Dolores had strangely come to sleep +her last sleep near me.</p> + +<p>Immediately after I became satisfied who you were, I +felt a painful degree of responsibility for the knowledge. +I wrote at once to a friend of mine in the neighborhood of +St. Augustine, to find out any particulars of the Mendoza +family. I learned that its history had been like that of +many others in that region. Don José had died in a bilious +fever, brought on by excessive dissipation, and at his +death the estate was found to be so incumbered that the +whole was sold at auction. The slaves were scattered +hither and thither to different owners, and Madame Mendoza, +with her children and remains of fortune, had gone +to live in New Orleans.</p> + +<p>Of Dolores he had heard but once since her marriage. +A friend had visited Don Guzman's estates in Cuba. He +was living in great splendor, but bore the character of a +hard, cruel, tyrannical master, and an overbearing man. +His wife was spoken of as being in very delicate health,—avoiding +society and devoting herself to religion.</p> + +<p>I would here take occasion to say that it was understood +when I went into the family of Don José, that I should +not in any way interfere with the religious faith of the +children, the family being understood to belong to the +Roman Catholic Church. There was so little like religion +of any kind in the family, that the idea of their belonging +to any faith savored something of the ludicrous. In the +case of poor Dolores, however, it was different. The +earnestness of her nature would always have made any +religious form a reality to her. In her case I was glad to +remember that the Romish Church, amid many corruptions,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span> +preserves all the essential beliefs necessary for our salvation, +and that many holy souls have gone to heaven through +its doors. I therefore was only careful to direct her principal +attention to the more spiritual parts of her own faith, +and to dwell on the great themes which all Christian people +hold in common.</p> + +<p>Many of my persuasion would not have felt free to do +this, but my liberty of conscience in this respect was perfect. +I have seen that if you break the cup out of which +a soul has been used to take the wine of the gospel, you +often spill the very wine itself. And after all, these forms +are but shadows of which the substance is Christ.</p> + +<p>I am free to say, therefore, that the thought that +your poor mother was devoting herself earnestly to religion, +although after the forms of a church with which I +differ, was to me a source of great consolation, because I +knew that in that way alone could a soul like hers find +peace.</p> + +<p>I have never rested from my efforts to obtain more information. +A short time before the incident which cast you +upon our shore, I conversed with a sea-captain who had +returned from Cuba. He stated that there had been an +attempt at insurrection among the slaves of Don Guzman, +in which a large part of the buildings and out-houses of +the estate had been consumed by fire. On subsequent inquiry +I learned that Don Guzman had sold his estates and +embarked for Boston with his wife and family, and that +nothing had subsequently been heard of him.</p> + +<p>Thus, my young friend, I have told you all that I know +of those singular circumstances which have cast your lot on +our shores. I do not expect at your time of life you will +take the same view of this event that I do. You may +possibly—very probably will—consider it a loss not to +have been brought up as you might have been in the splendid +establishment of Don Guzman, and found yourself heir<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span> +to wealth and pleasure without labor or exertion. Yet I +am quite sure in that case that your value as a human +being would have been immeasurably less. I think I have +seen in you the elements of passions, which luxury and +idleness and the too early possession of irresponsible power, +might have developed with fatal results. You have simply +to reflect whether you would rather be an energetic, intelligent, +self-controlled man, capable of guiding the affairs of +life and of acquiring its prizes,—or to be the reverse of +all this, with its prizes bought for you by the wealth of +parents. I hope mature reflection will teach you to regard +with gratitude that disposition of the All-Wise, which cast +your lot as it has been cast.</p> + +<p>Let me ask one thing in closing. I have written for +you here many things most painful for me to remember, +because I wanted you to love and honor the memory of +your mother. I wanted that her memory should have +something such a charm for you as it has for me. With +me, her image has always stood between me and all other +women; but I have never even intimated to a living being +that such a passage in my history ever occurred,—no, not +even to my sister, who is nearer to me than any other +earthly creature.</p> + +<p>In some respects I am a singular person in my habits, +and having once written this, you will pardon me if I observe +that it will never be agreeable to me to have the subject +named between us. Look upon me always as a friend, +who would regard nothing as a hardship by which he might +serve the son of one so dear.</p> + +<p>I have hesitated whether I ought to add one circumstance +more. I think I will do so, trusting to your good +sense not to give it any undue weight.</p> + +<p>I have never ceased making inquiries in Cuba, as I found +opportunity, in regard to your father's property, and late +investigations have led me to the conclusion that he left a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span> +considerable sum of money in the hands of a notary, whose +address I have, which, if your identity could be proved, +would come in course of law to you. I have written an +account of all the circumstances which, in my view, identify +you as the son of Don Guzman de Cardona, and had +them properly attested in legal form.</p> + +<p>This, together with your mother's picture and the bracelet, +I recommend you to take on your next voyage, and to +see what may result from the attempt. How considerable +the sum may be which will result from this, I cannot say, +but as Don Guzman's fortune was very large, I am in hopes +it may prove something worth attention.</p> + +<p>At any time you may wish to call, I will have all these +things ready for you.</p> + +<p style="margin-left:20em"> +I am, with warm regard,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Your sincere friend,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 7em;"><span class="smcap">Theophilus Sewell</span>.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>When Moses had finished reading this letter, he laid it +down on the pebbles beside him, and, leaning back against +a rock, looked moodily out to sea. The tide had washed +quite up to within a short distance of his feet, completely +isolating the little grotto where he sat from all the surrounding +scenery, and before him, passing and repassing on +the blue bright solitude of the sea, were silent ships, going +on their wondrous pathless ways to unknown lands. The +letter had stirred all within him that was dreamy and +poetic: he felt somehow like a leaf torn from a romance, +and blown strangely into the hollow of those rocks. Something +too of ambition and pride stirred within him. He +had been born an heir of wealth and power, little as they +had done for the happiness of his poor mother; and when +he thought he might have had these two wild horses which +have run away with so many young men, he felt, as young +men all do, an impetuous desire for their possession, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> +he thought as so many do, "Give them to me, and I'll risk +my character,—I'll risk my happiness."</p> + +<p>The letter opened a future before him which was something +to speculate upon, even though his reason told him +it was uncertain, and he lay there dreamily piling one air-castle +on another,—unsubstantial as the great islands of +white cloud that sailed through the sky and dropped their +shadows in the blue sea.</p> + +<p>It was late in the afternoon when he bethought him he +must return home, and so climbing from rock to rock he +swung himself upward on to the island, and sought the +brown cottage. As he passed by the open window he +caught a glimpse of Mara sewing. He walked softly up +to look in without her seeing him. She was sitting with +the various articles of his wardrobe around her, quietly and +deftly mending his linen, singing soft snatches of an old +psalm-tune.</p> + +<p>She seemed to have resumed quite naturally that quiet +care of him and his, which she had in all the earlier years +of their life. He noticed again her little hands,—they +seemed a sort of wonder to him. Why had he never seen, +when a boy, how pretty they were? And she had such +dainty little ways of taking up and putting down things as +she measured and clipped; it seemed so pleasant to have +her handling his things; it was as if a good fairy were +touching them, whose touch brought back peace. But +then, he thought, by and by she will do all this for some +one else. The thought made him angry. He really felt +abused in anticipation. She was doing all this for him +just in sisterly kindness, and likely as not thinking of +somebody else whom she loved better all the time. It is +astonishing how cool and dignified this consideration made +our hero as he faced up to the window. He was, after +all, in hopes she might blush, and look agitated at seeing +him suddenly; but she did not. The foolish boy did not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> +know the quick wits of a girl, and that all the while that +he had supposed himself so sly, and been holding his breath +to observe, Mara had been perfectly cognizant of his presence, +and had been schooling herself to look as unconscious +and natural as possible. So she did,—only saying,—</p> + +<p>"Oh, Moses, is that you? Where have you been all +day?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I went over to see Parson Sewell, and get my +pastoral lecture, you know."</p> + +<p>"And did you stay to dinner?"</p> + +<p>"No; I came home and went rambling round the rocks, +and got into our old cave, and never knew how the time +passed."</p> + +<p>"Why, then you've had no dinner, poor boy," said +Mara, rising suddenly. "Come in quick, you must be fed, +or you'll get dangerous and eat somebody."</p> + +<p>"No, no, don't get anything," said Moses, "it's almost +supper-time, and I'm not hungry."</p> + +<p>And Moses threw himself into a chair, and began abstractedly +snipping a piece of tape with Mara's very best +scissors.</p> + +<p>"If you please, sir, don't demolish that; I was going to +stay one of your collars with it," said Mara.</p> + +<p>"Oh, hang it, I'm always in mischief among girls' +things," said Moses, putting down the scissors and picking +up a bit of white wax, which with equal unconsciousness, +he began kneading in his hands, while he was dreaming +over the strange contents of the morning's letter.</p> + +<p>"I hope Mr. Sewell didn't say anything to make you +look so very gloomy," said Mara.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Sewell?" said Moses, starting; "no, he didn't; +in fact, I had a pleasant call there; and there was that +confounded old sphinx of a Miss Roxy there. Why don't +she die? She must be somewhere near a hundred years +old by this time."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Never thought to ask her why she didn't die," said +Mara; "but I presume she has the best of reasons for +living."</p> + +<p>"Yes, that's so," said Moses; "every old toadstool, and +burdock, and mullein lives and thrives and lasts; no danger +of their dying."</p> + +<p>"You seem to be in a charitable frame of mind," said +Mara.</p> + +<p>"Confound it all! I hate this world. If I could have +my own way now,—if I could have just what I wanted, +and do just as I please exactly, I might make a pretty +good thing of it."</p> + +<p>"And pray what would you have?" said Mara.</p> + +<p>"Well, in the first place, riches."</p> + +<p>"In the first place?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, in the first place, I say; for money buys everything +else."</p> + +<p>"Well, supposing so," said Mara, "for argument's sake, +what would you buy with it?"</p> + +<p>"Position in society, respect, consideration,—and I'd +have a splendid place, with everything elegant. I have +ideas enough, only give me the means. And then I'd +have a wife, of course."</p> + +<p>"And how much would you pay for her?" said Mara, +looking quite cool.</p> + +<p>"I'd buy her with all the rest,—a girl that wouldn't +look at <i>me</i> as I am,—would take me for all the rest, you +know,—that's the way of the world."</p> + +<p>"It is, is it?" said Mara. "I don't understand such +matters much."</p> + +<p>"Yes; it's the way with all you girls," said Moses; +"it's the way you'll marry when you do."</p> + +<p>"Don't be so fierce about it. I haven't done it yet," +said Mara; "but now, really, I must go and set the supper-table +when I have put these things away,"—and Mara<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span> +gathered an armful of things together, and tripped singing +upstairs, and arranged them in the drawer of Moses's room. +"Will his wife like to do all these little things for him as +I do?" she thought. "It's natural I should. I grew up +with him, and love him, just as if he were my own brother,—he +is all the brother I ever had. I love him more +than anything else in the world, and this wife he talks +about could do no more."</p> + +<p>"She don't care a pin about me," thought Moses; "it's +only a habit she has got, and her strict notions of duty, +that's all. She is housewifely in her instincts, and seizes +all neglected linen and garments as her lawful prey,—she +would do it just the same for her grandfather;" and Moses +drummed moodily on the window-pane.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII</h2> + +<h3>A COQUETTE</h3> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span>The timbers of the ship which was to carry the fortunes +of our hero were laid by the side of Middle Bay, and all +these romantic shores could hardly present a lovelier scene. +This beautiful sheet of water separates Harpswell from a +portion of Brunswick. Its shores are rocky and pine-crowned, +and display the most picturesque variety of outline. +Eagle Island, Shelter Island, and one or two smaller +ones, lie on the glassy surface like soft clouds of green +foliage pierced through by the steel-blue tops of arrowy +pine-trees.</p> + +<p>There were a goodly number of shareholders in the projected +vessel; some among the most substantial men in the +vicinity. Zephaniah Pennel had invested there quite a +solid sum, as had also our friend Captain Kittridge. Moses +had placed therein the proceeds of his recent voyage, which +enabled him to buy a certain number of shares, and he +secretly revolved in his mind whether the sum of money +left by his father might not enable him to buy the whole +ship. Then a few prosperous voyages, and his fortune was +made!</p> + +<p>He went into the business of building the new vessel +with all the enthusiasm with which he used, when a boy, +to plan ships and mould anchors. Every day he was off at +early dawn in his working-clothes, and labored steadily +among the men till evening. No matter how early he rose, +however, he always found that a good fairy had been before +him and prepared his dinner, daintily sometimes adding<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> +thereto a fragrant little bunch of flowers. But when his +boat returned home at evening, he no longer saw her as +in the days of girlhood waiting far out on the farthest +point of rock for his return. Not that she did not watch +for it and run out many times toward sunset; but the moment +she had made out that it was surely he, she would +run back into the house, and very likely find an errand +in her own room, where she would be so deeply engaged +that it would be necessary for him to call her down before +she could make her appearance. Then she came smiling, +chatty, always gracious, and ready to go or to come as he +requested,—the very cheerfulest of household fairies,—but +yet for all that there was a cobweb invisible barrier +around her that for some reason or other he could not break +over. It vexed and perplexed him, and day after day he +determined to whistle it down,—ride over it rough-shod,—and +be as free as he chose with this apparently soft, unresistant, +airy being, who seemed so accessible. Why +shouldn't he kiss her when he chose, and sit with his arm +around her waist, and draw her familiarly upon his knee,—this +little child-woman, who was as a sister to him? +Why, to be sure? Had she ever frowned or scolded as +Sally Kittridge did when he attempted to pass the air-line +that divides man from womanhood? Not at all. She had +neither blushed nor laughed, nor ran away. If he kissed +her, she took it with the most matter-of-fact composure; if +he passed his arm around her, she let it remain with unmoved +calmness; and so somehow he did these things less +and less, and wondered why.</p> + +<p>The fact is, our hero had begun an experiment with his +little friend that we would never advise a young man to +try on one of these intense, quiet, soft-seeming women, +whose whole life is inward. He had determined to find +out whether she loved him before he committed himself to +her; and the strength of a whole book of martyrs is in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span> +women to endure and to bear without flinching before they +will surrender the gate of this citadel of silence. Moreover, +our hero had begun his siege with precisely the worst +weapons.</p> + +<p>For on the night that he returned and found Mara conversing +with a stranger, the suspicion arose in his mind +that somehow Mara might be particularly interested in him, +and instead of asking her, which anybody might consider +the most feasible step in the case, he asked Sally Kittridge.</p> + +<p>Sally's inborn, inherent love of teasing was up in a +moment. Did she know anything of that Mr. Adams? +Of course she did,—a young lawyer of one of the best +Boston families,—a splendid fellow; she wished any such +luck might happen to her! Was Mara engaged to him? +What would he give to know? Why didn't he ask +Mara? Did he expect her to reveal her friend's secrets? +Well, she shouldn't,—report said Mr. Adams was well-to-do +in the world, and had expectations from an uncle,—and +didn't Moses think he was interesting in conversation? +Everybody said what a conquest it was for an Orr's Island +girl, etc., etc. And Sally said the rest with many a malicious +toss and wink and sly twinkle of the dimples of her +cheek, which might mean more or less, as a young man of +imaginative temperament was disposed to view it. Now +this was all done in pure simple love of teasing. We incline +to think phrenologists have as yet been very incomplete +in their classification of faculties, or they would have +appointed a separate organ for this propensity of human +nature. Certain persons, often the most kind-hearted in +the world, and who would not give pain in any serious +matter, seem to have an insatiable appetite for those small +annoyances we commonly denominate teasing,—and Sally +was one of this number.</p> + +<p>She diverted herself infinitely in playing upon the excitability +of Moses,—in awaking his curiosity, and baffling<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span> +it, and tormenting him with a whole phantasmagoria of +suggestions and assertions, which played along so near the +line of probability, that one could never tell which might +be fancy and which might be fact.</p> + +<p>Moses therefore pursued the line of tactics for such cases +made and provided, and strove to awaken jealousy in Mara +by paying marked and violent attentions to Sally. He +went there evening after evening, leaving Mara to sit alone +at home. He made secrets with her, and alluded to them +before Mara. He proposed calling his new vessel the Sally +Kittridge; but whether all these things made Mara jealous +or not, he could never determine. Mara had no peculiar +gift for acting, except in this one point; but here all the +vitality of nature rallied to her support, and enabled her to +preserve an air of the most unperceiving serenity. If she +shed any tears when she spent a long, lonesome evening, +she was quite particular to be looking in a very placid +frame when Moses returned, and to give such an account of +the books, or the work, or paintings which had interested +her, that Moses was sure to be vexed. Never were her +inquiries for Sally more cordial,—never did she seem +inspired by a more ardent affection for her.</p> + +<p>Whatever may have been the result of this state of +things in regard to Mara, it is certain that Moses succeeded +in convincing the common fame of that district that he and +Sally were destined for each other, and the thing was regularly +discussed at quilting frolics and tea-drinkings around, +much to Miss Emily's disgust and Aunt Roxy's grave satisfaction, +who declared that "Mara was altogether too good +for Moses Pennel, but Sally Kittridge would make him +stand round,"—by which expression she was understood +to intimate that Sally had in her the rudiments of the same +kind of domestic discipline which had operated so favorably +in the case of Captain Kittridge.</p> + +<p>These things, of course, had come to Mara's ears. She<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> +had overheard the discussions on Sunday noons as the people +between meetings sat over their doughnuts and cheese, +and analyzed their neighbors' affairs, and she seemed to +smile at them all. Sally only laughed, and declared that +it was no such thing; that she would no more marry Moses +Pennel, or any other fellow, than she would put her head +into the fire. What did she want of any of them? She +knew too much to get married,—that she did. She was +going to have her liberty for one while yet to come, etc., +etc.; but all these assertions were of course supposed to +mean nothing but the usual declarations in such cases. +Mara among the rest thought it quite likely that this thing +was yet to be.</p> + +<p>So she struggled and tried to reason down a pain which +constantly ached in her heart when she thought of this. +She ought to have foreseen that it must some time end in +this way. Of course she must have known that Moses +would some time choose a wife; and how fortunate that, +instead of a stranger, he had chosen her most intimate +friend. Sally was careless and thoughtless, to be sure, but +she had a good generous heart at the bottom, and she hoped +she would love Moses at least as well as <i>she</i> did, and then +she would always live with them, and think of any little +things that Sally might forget.</p> + +<p>After all, Sally was so much more capable and efficient +a person than herself,—so much more bustling and energetic, +she would make altogether a better housekeeper, and +doubtless a better wife for Moses. But then it was so hard +that he did not tell her about it. Was she not his sister?—his +confidant for all his childhood?—and why should +he shut up his heart from her now? But then she must +guard herself from being jealous,—that would be mean +and wicked. So Mara, in her zeal of self-discipline, pushed +on matters; invited Sally to tea to meet Moses; and when +she came, left them alone together while she busied herself<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span> +in hospitable cares. She sent Moses with errands and +commissions to Sally, which he was sure to improve into +protracted visits; and in short, no young match-maker +ever showed more good-will to forward the union of two +chosen friends than Mara showed to unite Moses and Sally.</p> + +<p>So the flirtation went on all summer, like a ship under +full sail, with prosperous breezes; and Mara, in the many +hours that her two best friends were together, tried heroically +to persuade herself that she was not unhappy. She +said to herself constantly that she never had loved Moses +other than as a brother, and repeated and dwelt upon the +fact to her own mind with a pertinacity which might have +led her to suspect the reality of the fact, had she had experience +enough to look closer. True, it was rather lonely, +she said, but that she was used to,—she always had been +and always should be. Nobody would ever love her in +return as she loved; which sentence she did not analyze +very closely, or she might have remembered Mr. Adams +and one or two others, who had professed more for her than +she had found herself able to return. That general proposition +about nobody is commonly found, if sifted to the +bottom, to have specific relation to somebody whose name +never appears in the record.</p> + +<p>Nobody could have conjectured from Mara's calm, gentle +cheerfulness of demeanor, that any sorrow lay at the bottom +of her heart; she would not have owned it to herself.</p> + +<p>There are griefs which grow with years, which have no +marked beginnings,—no especial dates; they are not +events, but slow perceptions of disappointment, which bear +down on the heart with a constant and equable pressure +like the weight of the atmosphere, and these things are +never named or counted in words among life's sorrows; +yet through them, as through an unsuspected inward +wound, life, energy, and vigor slowly bleed away, and the +persons, never owning even to themselves the weight of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> +the pressure,—standing, to all appearance, fair and cheerful, +are still undermined with a secret wear of this inner +current, and ready to fall with the first external pressure.</p> + +<p>There are persons often brought into near contact by the +relations of life, and bound to each other by a love so close, +that they are perfectly indispensable to each other, who yet +act upon each other as a file upon a diamond, by a slow +and gradual friction, the pain of which is so equable, so +constantly diffused through life, as scarcely ever at any +time to force itself upon the mind as a reality.</p> + +<p>Such had been the history of the affection of Mara for +Moses. It had been a deep, inward, concentrated passion +that had almost absorbed self-consciousness, and made her +keenly alive to all the moody, restless, passionate changes +of his nature; it had brought with it that craving for sympathy +and return which such love ever will, and yet it was +fixed upon a nature so different and so uncomprehending +that the action had for years been one of pain more than +pleasure. Even now, when she had him at home with her +and busied herself with constant cares for him, there was +a sort of disturbing, unquiet element in the history of +every day. The longing for him to come home at night,—the +wish that he would stay with her,—the uncertainty +whether he would or would not go and spend the evening +with Sally,—the musing during the day over all that he +had done and said the day before, were a constant interior +excitement. For Moses, besides being in his moods quite +variable and changeable, had also a good deal of the dramatic +element in him, and put on sundry appearances in +the way of experiment.</p> + +<p>He would feign to have quarreled with Sally, that he +might detect whether Mara would betray some gladness; +but she only evinced concern and a desire to make up the +difficulty. He would discuss her character and her fitness +to make a man happy in matrimony in the style that young<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span> +gentlemen use who think their happiness a point of great +consequence in the creation; and Mara, always cool, and +firm, and sensible, would talk with him in the most maternal +style possible, and caution him against trifling with +her affections. Then again he would be lavish in his praise +of Sally's beauty, vivacity, and energy, and Mara would +join with the most apparently unaffected delight. Sometimes +he ventured, on the other side, to rally her on some +future husband, and predict the days when all the attentions +which she was daily bestowing on him would be for +another; and here, as everywhere else, he found his little +Sphinx perfectly inscrutable. Instinct teaches the grass-bird, +who hides her eggs under long meadow grass, to +creep timidly yards from the nest, and then fly up boldly +in the wrong place; and a like instinct teaches shy girls all +kinds of unconscious stratagems when the one secret of +their life is approached. They may be as truthful in all +other things as the strictest Puritan, but here they deceive +by an infallible necessity. And meanwhile, where was +Sally Kittridge in all this matter? Was her heart in the +least touched by the black eyes and long lashes? Who +can say? Had she a heart? Well, Sally was a good girl. +When one got sufficiently far down through the foam and +froth of the surface to find what was in the depths of her +nature, there was abundance there of good womanly feeling, +generous and strong, if one could but get at it.</p> + +<p>She was the best and brightest of daughters to the old +Captain, whose accounts she kept, whose clothes she +mended, whose dinner she often dressed and carried to him, +from loving choice; and Mrs. Kittridge regarded her housewifely +accomplishments with pride, though she never spoke +to her otherwise than in words of criticism and rebuke, as +in her view an honest mother should who means to keep +a flourishing sprig of a daughter within limits of a proper +humility.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span></p> + +<p>But as for any sentiment or love toward any person of +the other sex, Sally, as yet, had it not. Her numerous +admirers were only so many subjects for the exercise of her +dear delight of teasing, and Moses Pennel, the last and +most considerable, differed from the rest only in the fact +that he was a match for her in this redoubtable art and +science, and this made the game she was playing with him +altogether more stimulating than that she had carried on +with any other of her admirers. For Moses could sulk +and storm for effect, and clear off as bright as Harpswell +Bay after a thunder-storm—for effect also. Moses could +play jealous, and make believe all those thousand-and-one +shadowy nothings that coquettes, male and female, get up +to carry their points with; and so their quarrels and their +makings-up were as manifold as the sea-breezes that ruffled +the ocean before the Captain's door.</p> + +<p>There is but one danger in play of this kind, and that +is, that deep down in the breast of every slippery, frothy, +elfish Undine sleeps the germ of an unawakened soul, +which suddenly, in the course of some such trafficking with +the outward shows and seemings of affection, may wake up +and make of the teasing, tricksy elf a sad and earnest woman—a +creature of loves and self-denials and faithfulness +unto death—in short, something altogether too good, too +sacred to be trifled with; and when a man enters the game +protected by a previous attachment which absorbs all his +nature, and the woman awakes in all her depth and +strength to feel the real meaning of love and life, she finds +that she has played with one stronger than she, at a terrible +disadvantage.</p> + +<p>Is this mine lying dark and evil under the saucy little +feet of our Sally? Well, we should not of course be surprised +some day to find it so.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXIX</h2> + +<h3>NIGHT TALKS</h3> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span>October is come, and among the black glooms of the +pine forests flare out the scarlet branches of the rock-maple, +and the beech-groves are all arrayed in gold, through which +the sunlight streams in subdued richness. October is +come with long, bright, hazy days, swathing in purple +mists the rainbow brightness of the forests, and blending +the otherwise gaudy and flaunting colors into wondrous harmonies +of splendor. And Moses Pennel's ship is all built +and ready, waiting only a favorable day for her launching.</p> + +<p>And just at this moment Moses is sauntering home from +Captain Kittridge's in company with Sally, for Mara has +sent him to bring her to tea with them. Moses is in high +spirits; everything has succeeded to his wishes; and as +the two walk along the high, bold, rocky shore, his eye +glances out to the open ocean, where the sun is setting, and +the fresh wind blowing, and the white sails flying, and +already fancies himself a sea-king, commanding his own +place, and going from land to land.</p> + +<p>"There hasn't been a more beautiful ship built here +these twenty years," he says, in triumph.</p> + +<p>"Oho, Mr. Conceit," said Sally, "that's only because +it's yours now—your geese are all swans. I wish you +could have seen the Typhoon, that Ben Drummond sailed +in—a real handsome fellow he was. What a pity there +aren't more like him!"</p> + +<p>"I don't enter on the merits of Ben Drummond's +beauty," said Moses; "but I don't believe the Typhoon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span> +was one whit superior to our ship. Besides, Miss Sally, +I thought you were going to take it under your especial +patronage, and let me honor it with your name."</p> + +<p>"How absurd you always will be talking about that—why +don't you call it after Mara?"</p> + +<p>"After Mara?" said Moses. "I don't want to—it +wouldn't be appropriate—one wants a different kind of +girl to name a ship after—something bold and bright and +dashing!"</p> + +<p>"Thank you, sir, but I prefer not to have my bold and +dashing qualities immortalized in this way," said Sally; +"besides, sir, how do I know that you wouldn't run me +on a rock the very first thing? When I give my name to +a ship, it must have an experienced commander," she +added, maliciously, for she knew that Moses was specially +vulnerable on this point.</p> + +<p>"As you please," said Moses, with heightened color. +"Allow me to remark that he who shall ever undertake to +command the 'Sally Kittridge' will have need of all his +experience—and then, perhaps, not be able to know the +ways of the craft."</p> + +<p>"See him now," said Sally, with a malicious laugh; +"we are getting wrathy, are we?"</p> + +<p>"Not I," said Moses; "it would cost altogether too +much exertion to get angry at every teasing thing you +choose to say, Miss Sally. By and by I shall be gone, and +then won't your conscience trouble you?"</p> + +<p>"My conscience is all easy, so far as you are concerned, +sir; your self-esteem is too deep-rooted to suffer much from +my poor little nips—they produce no more impression +than a cat-bird pecking at the cones of that spruce-tree +yonder. Now don't you put your hand where your heart +is supposed to be—there's nobody at home there, you +know. There's Mara coming to meet us;" and Sally +bounded forward to meet Mara with all those demonstra<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span>tions +of extreme delight which young girls are fond of +showering on each other.</p> + +<p>"It's such a beautiful evening," said Mara, "and we +are all in such good spirits about Moses's ship, and I told +him you must come down and hold counsel with us as to +what was to be done about the launching; and the name, +you know, that is to be decided on—are you going to let +it be called after you?"</p> + +<p>"Not I, indeed. I should always be reading in the +papers of horrible accidents that had happened to the 'Sally +Kittridge.'"</p> + +<p>"Sally has so set her heart on my being unlucky," said +Moses, "that I believe if I make a prosperous voyage, the +disappointment would injure her health."</p> + +<p>"She doesn't mean what she says," said Mara; "but I +think there are some objections in a young lady's name +being given to a ship."</p> + +<p>"Then I suppose, Mara," said Moses, "that you would +not have yours either?"</p> + +<p>"I would be glad to accommodate you in anything <i>but</i> +that," said Mara, quietly; but she added, "Why need the +ship be named for anybody? A ship is such a beautiful, +graceful thing, it should have a fancy name."</p> + +<p>"Well, suggest one," said Moses.</p> + +<p>"Don't you remember," said Mara, "one Saturday afternoon, +when you and Sally and I launched your little ship +down in the cove after you had come from your first voyage +at the Banks?"</p> + +<p>"I do," said Sally. "We called that the Ariel, Mara, +after that old torn play you were so fond of. That's a +pretty name for a ship."</p> + +<p>"Why not take that?" said Mara.</p> + +<p>"I bow to the decree," said Moses. "The Ariel it +shall be."</p> + +<p>"Yes; and you remember," said Sally, "Mr. Moses<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span> +here promised at that time that he would build a ship, and +take us two round the world with him."</p> + +<p>Moses's eyes fell upon Mara as Sally said these words +with a sort of sudden earnestness of expression which +struck her. He was really feeling very much about something, +under all the bantering disguise of his demeanor, +she said to herself. Could it be that he felt unhappy +about his prospects with Sally? That careless liveliness +of hers might wound him perhaps now, when he felt that +he was soon to leave her.</p> + +<p>Mara was conscious herself of a deep undercurrent of +sadness as the time approached for the ship to sail that +should carry Moses from her, and she could not but think +some such feeling must possess her mind. In vain she +looked into Sally's great Spanish eyes for any signs of a +lurking softness or tenderness concealed under her sparkling +vivacity. Sally's eyes were admirable windows of +exactly the right size and color for an earnest, tender spirit +to look out of, but just now there was nobody at the casement +but a slippery elf peering out in tricksy defiance.</p> + +<p>When the three arrived at the house, tea was waiting on +the table for them. Mara fancied that Moses looked sad +and preoccupied as they sat down to the tea-table, which +Mrs. Pennel had set forth festively, with the best china +and the finest tablecloth and the choicest sweetmeats. In +fact, Moses did feel that sort of tumult and upheaving of +the soul which a young man experiences when the great +crisis comes which is to plunge him into the struggles of +manhood. It is a time when he wants sympathy and is +grated upon by uncomprehending merriment, and therefore +his answers to Sally grew brief and even harsh at times, +and Mara sometimes perceived him looking at herself with +a singular fixedness of expression, though he withdrew his +eyes whenever she turned hers to look on him. Like many +another little woman, she had fixed a theory about her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span> +friends, into which she was steadily interweaving all the +facts she saw. Sally <i>must</i> love Moses, because she had +known her from childhood as a good and affectionate girl, +and it was impossible that she could have been going on +with Moses as she had for the last six months without +loving him. She must evidently have seen that he cared +for her; and in how many ways had she shown that she +liked his society and him! But then evidently she did +not understand him, and Mara felt a little womanly self-pluming +on the thought that <i>she</i> knew him so much better. +She was resolved that she would talk with Sally about it, +and show her that she was disappointing Moses and hurting +his feelings. Yes, she said to herself, Sally has a +kind heart, and her coquettish desire to conceal from him +the extent of her affection ought now to give way to the +outspoken tenderness of real love.</p> + +<p>So Mara pressed Sally with the old-times request to stay +and sleep with her; for these two, the only young girls +in so lonely a neighborhood, had no means of excitement +or dissipation beyond this occasional sleeping together—by +which is meant, of course, lying awake all night talking.</p> + +<p>When they were alone together in their chamber, Sally +let down her long black hair, and stood with her back to +Mara brushing it. Mara sat looking out of the window, +where the moon was making a wide sheet of silver-sparkling +water. Everything was so quiet that the restless dash of +the tide could be plainly heard. Sally was rattling away +with her usual gayety.</p> + +<p>"And so the launching is to come off next Thursday. +What shall you wear?"</p> + +<p>"I'm sure I haven't thought," said Mara.</p> + +<p>"Well, I shall try and finish my blue merino for the +occasion. What fun it will be! I never was on a ship +when it was launched, and I think it will be something +perfectly splendid!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span></p> + +<p>"But doesn't it sometimes seem sad to think that after +all this Moses will leave us to be gone so long?"</p> + +<p>"What do I care?" said Sally, tossing back her long +hair as she brushed it, and then stopping to examine one +of her eyelashes.</p> + +<p>"Sally dear, you often speak in that way," said Mara, +"but really and seriously, you do yourself great injustice. +You could not certainly have been going on as you have +these six months past with a man you did not care for."</p> + +<p>"Well, I do care for him, 'sort o','" said Sally; "but +is that any reason I should break my heart for his going?—that's +too much for any man."</p> + +<p>"But, Sally, you <i>must</i> know that Moses loves you."</p> + +<p>"I'm not so sure," said Sally, freakishly tossing her +head and laughing.</p> + +<p>"If he did not," said Mara, "why has he sought you so +much, and taken every opportunity to be with you? I'm +sure I've been left here alone hour after hour, when my +only comfort was that it was because my two best friends +loved each other, as I know they must some time love +some one better than they do me."</p> + +<p>The most practiced self-control must fail some time, and +Mara's voice faltered on these last words, and she put her +hands over her eyes. Sally turned quickly and looked at +her, then giving her hair a sudden fold round her shoulders, +and running to her friend, she kneeled down on the +floor by her, and put her arms round her waist, and looked +up into her face with an air of more gravity than she commonly +used.</p> + +<p>"Now, Mara, what a wicked, inconsistent fool I have +been! Did you feel lonesome?—did you care? I ought +to have seen that; but I'm selfish, I love admiration, and +I love to have some one to flatter me, and run after me; +and so I've been going on and on in this silly way. But +I didn't know you cared—indeed, I didn't—you are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span> +such a deep little thing. Nobody can ever tell what you +feel. I never shall forgive myself, if you have been lonesome, +for you are worth five hundred times as much as I +am. You really do love Moses. I don't."</p> + +<p>"I do love him as a dear brother," said Mara.</p> + +<p>"Dear fiddlestick," said Sally. "Love is love; and +when a person loves all she can, it isn't much use to talk +so. I've been a wicked sinner, that I have. Love? Do +you suppose I would bear with Moses Pennel all his ins +and outs and ups and downs, and be always putting him +before myself in everything, as you do? No, I couldn't; +I haven't it in me; but you have. He's a sinner, too, +and deserves to get me for a wife. But, Mara, I have +tormented him well—there's some comfort in that."</p> + +<p>"It's no comfort to me," said Mara. "I see his heart +is set on you—the happiness of his life depends on you—and +that he is pained and hurt when you give him only +cold, trifling words when he needs real true love. It is +a serious thing, dear, to have a strong man set his whole +heart on you. It will do him a great good or a great evil, +and you ought not to make light of it."</p> + +<p>"Oh, pshaw, Mara, you don't know these fellows; they +are only playing games with us. If they once catch us, +they have no mercy; and for one here's a child that isn't +going to be caught. I can see plain enough that Moses +Pennel has been trying to get me in love with him, but he +doesn't love me. No, he doesn't," said Sally, reflectively. +"He only wants to make a conquest of me, and +I'm just the same. I want to make a conquest of him,—at +least I have been wanting to,—but now I see it's +a false, wicked kind of way to do as we've been doing."</p> + +<p>"And is it really possible, Sally, that you don't love +him?" said Mara, her large, serious eyes looking into +Sally's. "What! be with him so much,—seem to like +him so much,—look at him as I have seen you do,—and +not love him!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I can't help my eyes; they will look so," said Sally, +hiding her face in Mara's lap with a sort of coquettish consciousness. +"I tell you I've been silly and wicked; but +he's just the same exactly."</p> + +<p>"And you have worn his ring all summer?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, and he has worn mine; and I have a lock of his +hair, and he has a lock of mine; yet I don't believe he +cares for them a bit. Oh, his heart is safe enough. If +he has any, it isn't with me: that I know."</p> + +<p>"But if you found it were, Sally? Suppose you found +that, after all, you were the one love and hope of his life; +that all he was doing and thinking was for you; that he +was laboring, and toiling, and leaving home, so that he +might some day offer you a heart and home, and be your +best friend for life? Perhaps he dares not tell you how +he really does feel."</p> + +<p>"It's no such thing! it's no such thing!" said Sally, +lifting up her head, with her eyes full of tears, which she +dashed angrily away. "What am I crying for? I hate +him. I'm glad he's going away. Lately it has been such +a trouble to me to have things go on so. I'm really getting +to dislike him. You are the one he ought to love. +Perhaps all this time you are the one he does love," said +Sally, with a sudden energy, as if a new thought had +dawned in her mind.</p> + +<p>"Oh, no; he does not even love me as he once did, +when we were children," said Mara. "He is so shut up +in himself, so reserved, I know nothing about what passes +in his heart."</p> + +<p>"No more does anybody," said Sally. "Moses Pennel +isn't one that says and does things straightforward because +he feels so; but he says and does them to see what <i>you</i> +will do. That's his way. Nobody knows why he has +been going on with me as he has. He has had his own +reasons, doubtless, as I have had mine."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span></p> + +<p>"He has admired you very much, Sally," said Mara, +"and praised you to me very warmly. He thinks you are +so handsome. I could tell you ever so many things he +has said about you. He knows as I do that you are a +more enterprising, practical sort of body than I am, too. +Everybody thinks you are engaged. I have heard it spoken +of everywhere."</p> + +<p>"Everybody is mistaken, then, as usual," said Sally. +"Perhaps Aunt Roxy was in the right of it when she said +that Moses would never be in love with anybody but himself."</p> + +<p>"Aunt Roxy has always been prejudiced and unjust to +Moses," said Mara, her cheeks flushing. "She never liked +him from a child, and she never can be made to see anything +good in him. I know that he has a deep heart,—a +nature that craves affection and sympathy; and it is only +because he is so sensitive that he is so reserved and conceals +his feelings so much. He has a noble, kind heart, +and I believe he truly loves you, Sally; it must be so."</p> + +<p>Sally rose from the floor and went on arranging her hair +without speaking. Something seemed to disturb her mind. +She bit her lip, and threw down the brush and comb violently. +In the clear depths of the little square of looking-glass +a face looked into hers, whose eyes were perturbed as +if with the shadows of some coming inward storm; the +black brows were knit, and the lips quivered. She drew +a long breath and burst out into a loud laugh.</p> + +<p>"What <i>are</i> you laughing at now?" said Mara, who +stood in her white night-dress by the window, with her +hair falling in golden waves about her face.</p> + +<p>"Oh, because these fellows are so funny," said Sally; +"it's such fun to see their actions. Come now," she +added, turning to Mara, "don't look so grave and sanctified. +It's better to laugh than cry about things, any time. +It's a great deal better to be made hard-hearted like me,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span> +and not care for anybody, than to be like you, for instance. +The idea of any one's being in love is the drollest thing to +me. I haven't the least idea how it feels. I wonder if +I ever shall be in love!"</p> + +<p>"It will come to you in its time, Sally."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes,—I suppose like the chicken-pox or the +whooping cough," said Sally; "one of the things to be +gone through with, and rather disagreeable while it lasts,—so +I hope to put it off as long as possible."</p> + +<p>"Well, come," said Mara, "we must not sit up all night."</p> + +<p>After the two girls were nestled into bed and the light +out, instead of the brisk chatter there fell a great silence +between them. The full round moon cast the reflection of +the window on the white bed, and the ever restless moan +of the sea became more audible in the fixed stillness. The +two faces, both young and fair, yet so different in their +expression, lay each still on its pillow,—their wide-open +eyes gleaming out in the shadow like mystical gems. Each +was breathing softly, as if afraid of disturbing the other. +At last Sally gave an impatient movement.</p> + +<p>"How lonesome the sea sounds in the night," she said. +"I wish it would ever be still."</p> + +<p>"I like to hear it," said Mara. "When I was in Boston, +for a while I thought I could not sleep, I used to +miss it so much."</p> + +<p>There was another silence, which lasted so long that +each girl thought the other asleep, and moved softly, but +at a restless movement from Sally, Mara spoke again.</p> + +<p>"Sally,—you asleep?"</p> + +<p>"No,—I thought you were."</p> + +<p>"I wanted to ask you," said Mara, "did Moses ever say +anything to you about me?—you know I told you how +much he said about you."</p> + +<p>"Yes; he asked me once if you were engaged to Mr. +Adams."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span></p> + +<p>"And what did you tell him?" said Mara, with increasing +interest.</p> + +<p>"Well, I only plagued him. I sometimes made him +think you were, and sometimes that you were not; and +then again, that there was a deep mystery in hand. But +I praised and glorified Mr. Adams, and told him what a +splendid match it would be, and put on any little bits of +embroidery here and there that I could lay hands on. I +used to make him sulky and gloomy for a whole evening +sometimes. In that way it was one of the best weapons I +had."</p> + +<p>"Sally, what does make you love to tease people so?" +said Mara.</p> + +<p>"Why, you know the hymn says,—</p> + +<p style="margin-left:2em"> +'Let dogs delight to bark and bite,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For God hath made them so;</span><br /> +Let bears and lions growl and fight,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For 'tis their nature too.'</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>That's all the account I can give of it."</p> + +<p>"But," said Mara, "I never can rest easy a moment +when I see I am making a person uncomfortable."</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't tease anybody but the men. I don't +tease father or mother or you,—but men are fair game; +they are such thumby, blundering creatures, and we can +confuse them so."</p> + +<p>"Take care, Sally, it's playing with edge tools; you +may lose your heart some day in this kind of game."</p> + +<p>"Never you fear," said Sally; "but aren't you sleepy?—let's +go to sleep."</p> + +<p>Both girls turned their faces resolutely in opposite directions, +and remained for an hour with their large eyes looking +out into the moonlit chamber, like the fixed stars over +Harpswell Bay. At last sleep drew softly down the +fringy curtains.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXX" id="CHAPTER_XXX"></a>CHAPTER XXX</h2> + +<h3>THE LAUNCH OF THE ARIEL</h3> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span>In the plain, simple regions we are describing,—where +the sea is the great avenue of active life, and the pine forests +are the great source of wealth,—ship-building is an +engrossing interest, and there is no fête that calls forth the +community like the launching of a vessel. And no wonder; +for what is there belonging to this workaday world +of ours that has such a never-failing fund of poetry and +grace as a ship? A ship is a beauty and a mystery wherever +we see it: its white wings touch the regions of the +unknown and the imaginative; they seem to us full of the +odors of quaint, strange, foreign shores, where life, we +fondly dream, moves in brighter currents than the muddy, +tranquil tides of every day.</p> + +<p>Who that sees one bound outward, with her white +breasts swelling and heaving, as if with a reaching expectancy, +does not feel his own heart swell with a longing impulse +to go with her to the far-off shores? Even at dingy, +crowded wharves, amid the stir and tumult of great cities, +the coming in of a ship is an event that never can lose its +interest. But on these romantic shores of Maine, where +all is so wild and still, and the blue sea lies embraced in +the arms of dark, solitary forests, the sudden incoming of +a ship from a distant voyage is a sort of romance. Who +that has stood by the blue waters of Middle Bay, engirdled +as it is by soft slopes of green farming land, interchanged +here and there with heavy billows of forest-trees, or rocky, +pine-crowned promontories, has not felt that sense of seclu<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span>sion +and solitude which is so delightful? And then what +a wonder! There comes a ship from China, drifting in +like a white cloud,—the gallant creature! how the waters +hiss and foam before her! with what a great free, generous +plash she throws out her anchors, as if she said a cheerful +"Well done!" to some glorious work accomplished! The +very life and spirit of strange romantic lands come with +her; suggestions of sandal-wood and spice breathe through +the pine-woods; she is an oriental queen, with hands full +of mystical gifts; "all her garments smell of myrrh and +cassia, out of the ivory palaces, whereby they have made +her glad." No wonder men have loved ships like birds, +and that there have been found brave, rough hearts that in +fatal wrecks chose rather to go down with their ocean love +than to leave her in the last throes of her death-agony.</p> + +<p>A ship-building, a ship-sailing community has an unconscious +poetry ever underlying its existence. Exotic ideas +from foreign lands relieve the trite monotony of life; the +ship-owner lives in communion with the whole world, and +is less likely to fall into the petty commonplaces that infest +the routine of inland life.</p> + +<p>Never arose a clearer or lovelier October morning than +that which was to start the Ariel on her watery pilgrimage. +Moses had risen while the stars were yet twinkling over +their own images in Middle Bay, to go down and see that +everything was right; and in all the houses that we know +in the vicinity, everybody woke with the one thought of +being ready to go to the launching.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Pennel and Mara were also up by starlight, busy +over the provisions for the ample cold collation that was to +be spread in a barn adjoining the scene,—the materials +for which they were packing into baskets covered with nice +clean linen cloths, ready for the little sail-boat which lay +within a stone's throw of the door in the brightening dawn, +her white sails looking rosy in the advancing light.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span></p> + +<p>It had been agreed that the Pennels and the Kittridges +should cross together in this boat with their contributions +of good cheer.</p> + +<p>The Kittridges, too, had been astir with the dawn, intent +on their quota of the festive preparations, in which Dame +Kittridge's housewifely reputation was involved,—for it +had been a disputed point in the neighborhood whether she +or Mrs. Pennel made the best doughnuts; and of course, +with this fact before her mind, her efforts in this line had +been all but superhuman.</p> + +<p>The Captain skipped in and out in high feather,—occasionally +pinching Sally's cheek, and asking if she were +going as captain or mate upon the vessel after it was +launched, for which he got in return a fillip of his sleeve +or a sly twitch of his coat-tails, for Sally and her old father +were on romping terms with each other from early childhood, +a thing which drew frequent lectures from the always +exhorting Mrs. Kittridge.</p> + +<p>"Such levity!" she said, as she saw Sally in full chase +after his retreating figure, in order to be revenged for some +sly allusions he had whispered in her ear.</p> + +<p>"Sally Kittridge! Sally Kittridge!" she called, "come +back this minute. What are you about? I should think +your father was old enough to know better."</p> + +<p>"Lawful sakes, Polly, it kind o' renews one's youth to +get a new ship done," said the Captain, skipping in at another +door. "Sort o' puts me in mind o' that <i>I</i> went out +cap'en in when I was jist beginning to court you, as somebody +else is courtin' our Sally here."</p> + +<p>"Now, father," said Sally, threateningly, "what did I +tell you?"</p> + +<p>"It's really <i>lemancholy</i>," said the Captain, "to think +how it does distress gals to talk to 'em 'bout the fellers, +when they ain't thinkin' o' nothin' else all the time. +They can't even laugh without sayin' he-he-he!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Now, father, you know I've told you five hundred +times that I don't care a cent for Moses Pennel,—that +he's a hateful creature," said Sally, looking very red and +determined.</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes," said the Captain, "I take that ar's the reason +you've ben a-wearin' the ring he gin you and them +ribbins you've got on your neck this blessed minute, and +why you've giggled off to singin'-school, and Lord knows +where with him all summer,—that ar's clear now."</p> + +<p>"But, father," said Sally, getting redder and more earnest, +"I don't care for him really, and I've told him so. +I keep telling him so, and he will run after me."</p> + +<p>"Haw! haw!" laughed the Captain; "he will, will he? +Jist so, Sally; that ar's jist the way your ma there talked +to me, and it kind o' 'couraged me along. I knew that +gals always has to be read back'ard jist like the writin' in +the Barbary States."</p> + +<p>"Captain Kittridge, will you stop such ridiculous talk?" +said his helpmeet; "and jist carry this 'ere basket of cold +chicken down to the landin' agin the Pennels come round +in the boat; and you must step spry, for there's two more +baskets a-comin'."</p> + +<p>The Captain shouldered the basket and walked toward +the sea with it, and Sally retired to her own little room to +hold a farewell consultation with her mirror before she +went.</p> + +<p>You will perhaps think from the conversation that you +heard the other night, that Sally now will cease all thought +of coquettish allurement in her acquaintance with Moses, +and cause him to see by an immediate and marked change +her entire indifference. Probably, as she stands thoughtfully +before her mirror, she is meditating on the propriety +of laying aside the ribbons he gave her—perhaps she will +alter that arrangement of her hair which is one that he +himself particularly dictated as most becoming to the char<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span>acter +of her face. She opens a little drawer, which looks +like a flower garden, all full of little knots of pink and blue +and red, and various fancies of the toilet, and looks into +it reflectively. She looses the ribbon from her hair and +chooses another,—but Moses gave her that too, and said, +she remembers, that when she wore that "he should know +she had been thinking of him." Sally is Sally yet—as +full of sly dashes of coquetry as a tulip is of streaks.</p> + +<p>"There's no reason I should make myself look like a +fright because I don't care for him," she says; "besides, +after all that he has said, he ought to say more,—he +ought at least to give me a chance to say no,—he <i>shall</i>, +too," said the gypsy, winking at the bright, elfish face in +the glass.</p> + +<p>"Sally Kittridge, Sally Kittridge," called her mother, +"how long will you stay prinkin'?—come down this +minute."</p> + +<p>"Law now, mother," said the Captain, "gals must prink +afore such times; it's as natural as for hens to dress their +feathers afore a thunder-storm."</p> + +<p>Sally at last appeared, all in a flutter of ribbons and +scarfs, whose bright, high colors assorted well with the +ultramarine blue of her dress, and the vivid pomegranate +hue of her cheeks. The boat with its white sails flapping +was balancing and courtesying up and down on the waters, +and in the stern sat Mara; her shining white straw hat +trimmed with blue ribbons set off her golden hair and pink +shell complexion. The dark, even penciling of her eyebrows, +and the beauty of the brow above, the brown +translucent clearness of her thoughtful eyes, made her face +striking even with its extreme delicacy of tone. She was +unusually animated and excited, and her cheeks had a rich +bloom of that pure deep rose-color which flushes up in fair +complexions under excitement, and her eyes had a kind of +intense expression, for which they had always been remark<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span>able. +All the deep secluded yearning of repressed nature +was looking out of them, giving that pathos which every +one has felt at times in the silence of eyes.</p> + +<p>"Now bless that ar gal," said the Captain, when he saw +her. "Our Sally here's handsome, but she's got the real +New-Jerusalem look, she has—like them in the Revelations +that wears the fine linen, clean and white."</p> + +<p>"Bless you, Captain Kittridge! don't be a-makin' a fool +of yourself about no girl at your time o' life," said Mrs. +Kittridge, speaking under her breath in a nipping, energetic +tone, for they were coming too near the boat to speak +very loud.</p> + +<p>"Good mornin', Mis' Pennel; we've got a good day, +and a mercy it is so. 'Member when we launched the +North Star, that it rained guns all the mornin', and the +water got into the baskets when we was a-fetchin' the +things over, and made a sight o' pester."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Mrs. Pennel, with an air of placid satisfaction, +"everything seems to be going right about this vessel."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Kittridge and Sally were soon accommodated with +seats, and Zephaniah Pennel and the Captain began trimming +sail. The day was one of those perfect gems of days +which are to be found only in the jewel-casket of October, +a day neither hot nor cold, with an air so clear that every +distant pine-tree top stood out in vivid separateness, and +every woody point and rocky island seemed cut out in +crystalline clearness against the sky. There was so brisk +a breeze that the boat slanted quite to the water's edge on +one side, and Mara leaned over and pensively drew her +little pearly hand through the water, and thought of the +days when she and Moses took this sail together—she in +her pink sun-bonnet, and he in his round straw hat, with +a tin dinner-pail between them; and now, to-day the ship +of her childish dreams was to be launched. That launch<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span>ing +was something she regarded almost with superstitious +awe. The ship, built on one element, but designed to +have its life in another, seemed an image of the soul, +framed and fashioned with many a weary hammer-stroke in +this life, but finding its true element only when it sails out +into the ocean of eternity. Such was her thought as she +looked down the clear, translucent depths; but would it +have been of any use to try to utter it to anybody?—to +Sally Kittridge, for example, who sat all in a cheerful rustle +of bright ribbons beside her, and who would have shown +her white teeth all round at such a suggestion, and said, +"Now, Mara, who but you would have thought of that?"</p> + +<p>But there are souls sent into this world who seem to +have always mysterious affinities for the invisible and the +unknown—who see the face of everything beautiful +through a thin veil of mystery and sadness. The Germans +call this yearning of spirit home-sickness—the dim remembrances +of a spirit once affiliated to some higher sphere, of +whose lost brightness all things fair are the vague reminders. +As Mara looked pensively into the water, it seemed +to her that every incident of life came up out of its depths +to meet her. Her own face reflected in a wavering image, +sometimes shaped itself to her gaze in the likeness of the +pale lady of her childhood, who seemed to look up at her +from the waters with dark, mysterious eyes of tender longing. +Once or twice this dreamy effect grew so vivid that +she shivered, and drawing herself up from the water, tried +to take an interest in a very minute account which Mrs. +Kittridge was giving of the way to make corn-fritters which +should taste exactly like oysters. The closing direction +about the quantity of mace Mrs. Kittridge felt was too +sacred for common ears, and therefore whispered it into +Mrs. Pennel's bonnet with a knowing nod and a look from +her black spectacles which would not have been bad for a +priestess of Dodona in giving out an oracle. In this secret<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span> +direction about the <i>mace</i> lay the whole mystery of corn-oysters; +and who can say what consequences might ensue +from casting it in an unguarded manner before the world?</p> + +<p>And now the boat which has rounded Harpswell Point +is skimming across to the head of Middle Bay, where the +new ship can distinctly be discerned standing upon her +ways, while moving clusters of people were walking up +and down her decks or lining the shore in the vicinity. +All sorts of gossiping and neighborly chit-chat is being interchanged +in the little world assembling there.</p> + +<p>"I hain't seen the Pennels nor the Kittridges yet," said +Aunt Ruey, whose little roly-poly figure was made illustrious +in her best cinnamon-colored dyed silk. "There's +Moses Pennel a-goin' up that ar ladder. Dear me, what +a beautiful feller he is! it's a pity he ain't a-goin' to +marry Mara Lincoln, after all."</p> + +<p>"Ruey, do hush up," said Miss Roxy, frowning sternly +down from under the shadow of a preternatural black straw +bonnet, trimmed with huge bows of black ribbon, which +head-piece sat above her curls like a helmet. "Don't be +a-gettin' sentimental, Ruey, whatever else you get—and +talkin' like Miss Emily Sewell about match-makin'; I can't +stand it; it rises on my stomach, such talk does. As to +that ar Moses Pennel, folks ain't so certain as they thinks +what he'll do. Sally Kittridge may think he's a-goin' to +have her, because he's been a-foolin' round with her all +summer, and Sally Kittridge may jist find she's mistaken, +that's all."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Miss Ruey, "I 'member when I was a girl +my old aunt, Jerushy Hopkins, used to be always a-dwellin' +on this Scripture, and I've been havin' it brought up to +me this mornin': 'There are three things which are too +wonderful for me, yea, four, which I know not: the way +of an eagle in the air, the way of a serpent upon a rock, +the way of a ship in the sea, and the way of a man with a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span> +maid.' She used to say it as a kind o' caution to me when +she used to think Abram Peters was bein' attentive to me. +I've often reflected what a massy it was that ar never +come to nothin', for he's a poor drunken critter now."</p> + +<p>"Well, for my part," said Miss Roxy, fixing her eyes +critically on the boat that was just at the landing, "I +should say the ways of a maid with a man was full as particular +as any of the rest of 'em. Do look at Sally Kittridge +now. There's Tom Hiers a-helpin' her out of the +boat; and did you see the look she gin Moses Pennel as +she went by him? Wal', Moses has got Mara on his arm +anyhow; there's a gal worth six-and-twenty of the other. +Do see them ribbins and scarfs, and the furbelows, and the +way that ar Sally Kittridge handles her eyes. She's one +that one feller ain't never enough for."</p> + +<p>Mara's heart beat fast when the boat touched the shore, +and Moses and one or two other young men came to assist +in their landing. Never had he looked more beautiful +than at this moment, when flushed with excitement and +satisfaction he stood on the shore, his straw hat off, and his +black curls blowing in the sea-breeze. He looked at Sally +with a look of frank admiration as she stood there dropping +her long black lashes over her bright cheeks, and coquettishly +looking out from under them, but she stepped forward +with a little energy of movement, and took the offered +hand of Tom Hiers, who was gazing at her too with undisguised +rapture, and Moses, stepping into the boat, helped +Mrs. Pennel on shore, and then took Mara on his arm, +looking her over as he did so with a glance far less assured +and direct than he had given to Sally.</p> + +<p>"You won't be afraid to climb the ladders, Mara?" +said he.</p> + +<p>"Not if you help me," she said.</p> + +<p>Sally and Tom Hiers had already walked on toward the +vessel, she ostentatiously chatting and laughing with him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span> +Moses's brow clouded a little, and Mara noticed it. Moses +thought he did not care for Sally; he knew that the little +hand that was now lying on his arm was the one he wanted, +and yet he felt vexed when he saw Sally walk off triumphantly +with another. It was the dog-in-the-manger feeling +which possesses coquettes of both sexes. Sally, on all +former occasions, had shown a marked preference for him, +and professed supreme indifference to Tom Hiers.</p> + +<p>"It's all well enough," he said to himself, and he +helped Mara up the ladders with the greatest deference and +tenderness. "This little woman is worth ten such girls as +Sally, if one only could get her heart. Here we are on +our ship, Mara," he said, as he lifted her over the last +barrier and set her down on the deck. "Look over there, +do you see Eagle Island? Did you dream when we used +to go over there and spend the day that you ever would +be on <i>my</i> ship, as you are to-day? You won't be afraid, +will you, when the ship starts?"</p> + +<p>"I am too much of a sea-girl to fear on anything that +sails in water," said Mara with enthusiasm. "What a +splendid ship! how nicely it all looks!"</p> + +<p>"Come, let me take you over it," said Moses, "and +show you my cabin."</p> + +<p>Meanwhile the graceful little vessel was the subject of +various comments by the crowd of spectators below, and +the clatter of workmen's hammers busy in some of the last +preparations could yet be heard like a shower of hail-stones +under her.</p> + +<p>"I hope the ways are well greased," said old Captain +Eldritch. "'Member how the John Peters stuck in her +ways for want of their being greased?"</p> + +<p>"Don't you remember the Grand Turk, that keeled over +five minutes after she was launched?" said the quavering +voice of Miss Ruey; "there was jist such a company of +thoughtless young creatures aboard as there is now."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Well, there wasn't nobody hurt," said Captain Kittridge. +"If Mis' Kittridge would let me, I'd be glad to +go aboard this 'ere, and be launched with 'em."</p> + +<p>"I tell the Cap'n he's too old to be climbin' round and +mixin' with young folks' frolics," said Mrs. Kittridge.</p> + +<p>"I suppose, Cap'n Pennel, you've seen that the ways is +all right," said Captain Broad, returning to the old subject.</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, it's all done as well as hands can do it," said +Zephaniah. "Moses has been here since starlight this +morning, and Moses has pretty good faculty about such +matters."</p> + +<p>"Where's Mr. Sewell and Miss Emily?" said Miss +Ruey. "Oh, there they are over on that pile of rocks; +they get a pretty fair view there."</p> + +<p>Mr. Sewell and Miss Emily were sitting under a cedar-tree, +with two or three others, on a projecting point +whence they could have a clear view of the launching. +They were so near that they could distinguish clearly the +figures on deck, and see Moses standing with his hat off, +the wind blowing his curls back, talking earnestly to the +golden-haired little woman on his arm.</p> + +<p>"It is a launch into life for him," said Mr. Sewell, with +suppressed feeling.</p> + +<p>"Yes, and he has Mara on his arm," said Miss Emily; +"that's as it should be. Who is that that Sally Kittridge +is flirting with now? Oh, Tom Hiers. Well! he's good +enough for her. Why don't she take him?" said Miss +Emily, in her zeal jogging her brother's elbow.</p> + +<p>"I'm sure, Emily, I don't know," said Mr. Sewell +dryly; "perhaps he won't be taken."</p> + +<p>"Don't you think Moses looks handsome?" said Miss +Emily. "I declare there is something quite romantic and +Spanish about him; don't you think so, Theophilus?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I think so," said her brother, quietly looking, +externally, the meekest and most matter-of-fact of persons,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span> +but deep within him a voice sighed, "Poor Dolores, be +comforted, your boy is beautiful and prosperous!"</p> + +<p>"There, there!" said Miss Emily, "I believe she is +starting."</p> + +<p>All eyes of the crowd were now fixed on the ship; the +sound of hammers stopped; the workmen were seen flying +in every direction to gain good positions to see her go,—that +sight so often seen on those shores, yet to which use +cannot dull the most insensible.</p> + +<p>First came a slight, almost imperceptible, movement, +then a swift exultant rush, a dash into the hissing water, +and the air was rent with hurrahs as the beautiful ship +went floating far out on the blue seas, where her fairer life +was henceforth to be.</p> + +<p>Mara was leaning on Moses's arm at the instant the ship +began to move, but in the moment of the last dizzy rush +she felt his arm go tightly round her, holding her so close +that she could hear the beating of his heart.</p> + +<p>"Hurrah!" he said, letting go his hold the moment the +ship floated free, and swinging his hat in answer to the +hats, scarfs, and handkerchiefs, which fluttered from the +crowd on the shore. His eyes sparkled with a proud light +as he stretched himself upward, raising his head and throwing +back his shoulders with a triumphant movement. He +looked like a young sea-king just crowned; and the fact is +the less wonderful, therefore, that Mara felt her heart throb +as she looked at him, and that a treacherous throb of the +same nature shook the breezy ribbons fluttering over the +careless heart of Sally. A handsome young sea-captain, +treading the deck of his own vessel, is, in his time and +place, a prince.</p> + +<p>Moses looked haughtily across at Sally, and then passed +a half-laughing defiant flash of eyes between them. He +looked at Mara, who could certainly not have known what +was in her eyes at the moment,—an expression that made<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span> +his heart give a great throb, and wonder if he saw aright: +but it was gone a moment after, as all gathered around in +a knot exchanging congratulations on the fortunate way in +which the affair had gone off. Then came the launching +in boats to go back to the collation on shore, where were +high merry-makings for the space of one or two hours: and +thus was fulfilled the first part of Moses Pennel's Saturday +afternoon prediction.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXI" id="CHAPTER_XXXI"></a>CHAPTER XXXI</h2> + +<h3>GREEK MEETS GREEK</h3> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span>Moses was now within a day or two of the time of his +sailing, and yet the distance between him and Mara seemed +greater than ever. It is astonishing, when two people are +once started on a wrong understanding with each other, how +near they may live, how intimate they may be, how many +things they may have in common, how many words they +may speak, how closely they may seem to simulate intimacy, +confidence, friendship, while yet there lies a gulf +between them that neither crosses,—a reserve that neither +explores.</p> + +<p>Like most shy girls, Mara became more shy the more +really she understood the nature of her own feelings. The +conversation with Sally had opened her eyes to the secret +of her own heart, and she had a guilty feeling as if what +she had discovered must be discovered by every one else. +Yes, it was clear she loved Moses in a way that made him, +she thought, more necessary to her happiness than she could +ever be to his,—in a way that made it impossible to think +of him as wholly and for life devoted to another, without +a constant inner conflict. In vain had been all her little +stratagems practiced upon herself the whole summer long, +to prove to herself that she was glad that the choice had +fallen upon Sally. She saw clearly enough now that she +was not glad,—that there was no woman or girl living, +however dear, who could come for life between him and +her, without casting on her heart the shuddering sorrow of +a dim eclipse.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span></p> + +<p>But now the truth was plain to herself, her whole force +was directed toward the keeping of her secret. "I may +suffer," she thought, "but I will have strength not to be +silly and weak. Nobody shall know,—nobody shall dream +it,—and in the long, long time that he is away, I shall +have strength given me to overcome."</p> + +<p>So Mara put on her most cheerful and matter-of-fact kind +of face, and plunged into the making of shirts and knitting +of stockings, and talked of the coming voyage with such a +total absence of any concern, that Moses began to think, +after all, there could be no depth to her feelings, or that +the deeper ones were all absorbed by some one else.</p> + +<p>"You really seem to enjoy the prospect of my going +away," said he to her, one morning, as she was energetically +busying herself with her preparations.</p> + +<p>"Well, of course; you know your career must begin. +You must make your fortune; and it is pleasant to think +how favorably everything is shaping for you."</p> + +<p>"One likes, however, to be a little regretted," said Moses, +in a tone of pique.</p> + +<p>"A little regretted!" Mara's heart beat at these words, +but her hypocrisy was well practiced. She put down the +rebellious throb, and assuming a look of open, sisterly +friendliness, said, quite naturally, "Why, we shall all miss +you, of course."</p> + +<p>"Of course," said Moses,—"one would be glad to be +missed some other way than <i>of course</i>."</p> + +<p>"Oh, as to that, make yourself easy," said Mara. "We +shall all be dull enough when you are gone to content the +most exacting." Still she spoke, not stopping her stitching, +and raising her soft brown eyes with a frank, open +look into Moses's—no tremor, not even of an eyelid.</p> + +<p>"You men must have everything," she continued, gayly, +"the enterprise, the adventure, the novelty, the pleasure +of feeling that you are something, and can do something in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span> +the world; and besides all this, you want the satisfaction +of knowing that we women are following in chains behind +your triumphal car!"</p> + +<p>There was a dash of bitterness in this, which was a rare +ingredient in Mara's conversation.</p> + +<p>Moses took the word. "And you women sit easy at +home, sewing and singing, and forming romantic pictures +of our life as like its homely reality as romances generally +are to reality; and while we are off in the hard struggle +for position and the means of life, you hold your hearts +ready for the first rich man that offers a fortune ready +made."</p> + +<p>"The first!" said Mara. "Oh, you naughty! sometimes +we try two or three."</p> + +<p>"Well, then, I suppose this is from one of them," said +Moses, flapping down a letter from Boston, directed in a +masculine hand, which he had got at the post-office that +morning.</p> + +<p>Now Mara knew that this letter was nothing in particular, +but she was taken by surprise, and her skin was delicate +as peach-blossom, and so she could not help a sudden +blush, which rose even to her golden hair, vexed as she +was to feel it coming. She put the letter quietly in her +pocket, and for a moment seemed too discomposed to answer.</p> + +<p>"You do well to keep your own counsel," said Moses. +"No friend so near as one's self, is a good maxim. One +does not expect young girls to learn it so early, but it seems +they do."</p> + +<p>"And why shouldn't they as well as young men?" said +Mara. "Confidence begets confidence, they say."</p> + +<p>"I have no ambition to play confidant," said Moses; +"although as one who stands to you in the relation of older +brother and guardian, and just on the verge of a long voyage, +I might be supposed anxious to know."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span></p> + +<p>"And I have no ambition to be confidant," said Mara, +all her spirit sparkling in her eyes; "although when one +stands to you in the relation of an only sister, I might be +supposed perhaps to feel some interest to be in your confidence."</p> + +<p>The words "older brother" and "only sister" grated on +the ears of both the combatants as a decisive sentence. +Mara never looked so pretty in her life, for the whole force +of her being was awake, glowing and watchful, to guard +passage, door, and window of her soul, that no treacherous +hint might escape. Had he not just reminded her that he +was only an older brother? and what would he think if he +knew the truth?—and Moses thought the words <i>only sister</i> +unequivocal declaration of how the matter stood in her +view, and so he rose, and saying, "I won't detain you +longer from your letter," took his hat and went out.</p> + +<p>"Are you going down to Sally's?" said Mara, coming +to the door and looking out after him.</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Well, ask her to come home with you and spend the +evening. I have ever so many things to tell her."</p> + +<p>"I will," said Moses, as he lounged away.</p> + +<p>"The thing is clear enough," said Moses to himself. +"Why should I make a fool of myself any further? What +possesses us men always to set our hearts precisely on what +isn't to be had? There's Sally Kittridge likes me; I can +see that plainly enough, for all her mincing; and why +couldn't I have had the sense to fall in love with her? +She will make a splendid, showy woman. She has talent +and tact enough to rise to any position I may rise to, let +me rise as high as I will. She will always have skill and +energy in the conduct of life; and when all the froth and +foam of youth has subsided, she will make a noble woman. +Why, then, do I cling to this fancy? I feel that this little +flossy cloud, this delicate, quiet little puff of thistledown,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span> +on which I have set my heart, is the only thing for me, +and that without her my life will always be incomplete. +I remember all our early life. It was she who sought me, +and ran after me, and where has all that love gone to? +Gone to this fellow; that's plain enough. When a girl +like her is so comfortably cool and easy, it's because her +heart is off somewhere else."</p> + +<p>This conversation took place about four o'clock in as fine +an October afternoon as you could wish to see. The sun, +sloping westward, turned to gold the thousand blue scales +of the ever-heaving sea, and soft, pine-scented winds were +breathing everywhere through the forests, waving the long, +swaying films of heavy moss, and twinkling the leaves of +the silver birches that fluttered through the leafy gloom. +The moon, already in the sky, gave promise of a fine moonlight +night; and the wild and lonely stillness of the island, +and the thoughts of leaving in a few days, all conspired to +foster the restless excitement in our hero's mind into a +kind of romantic unrest.</p> + +<p>Now, in some such states, a man disappointed in one +woman will turn to another, because, in a certain way and +measure, her presence stills the craving and fills the void. +It is a sort of supposititious courtship,—a saying to one +woman, who is sympathetic and receptive, the words of +longing and love that another will not receive. To be sure +it is a game unworthy of any true man,—a piece of sheer, +reckless, inconsiderate selfishness. But men do it, as they +do many other unworthy things, from the mere promptings +of present impulse, and let consequences take care of themselves. +Moses met Sally that afternoon in just the frame +to play the lover in this hypothetical, supposititious way, +with words and looks and tones that came from feelings +given to another. And as to Sally? Well, for once, +Greek met Greek; for although Sally, as we showed her, +was a girl of generous impulses, she was yet in no danger<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span> +of immediate translation on account of superhuman goodness. +In short, Sally had made up her mind that Moses +should give her a chance to say that precious and golden +<i>No</i>, which should enable her to count him as one of her +captives,—and then he might go where he liked for all +her.</p> + +<p>So said the wicked elf, as she looked into her own great +eyes in the little square of mirror shaded by a misty asparagus +bush; and to this end there were various braidings +and adornings of the lustrous black hair, and coquettish earrings +were mounted that hung glancing and twinkling just +by the smooth outline of her glowing cheek,—and then +Sally looked at herself in a friendly way of approbation, +and nodded at the bright dimpled shadow with a look of +secret understanding. The real Sally and the Sally of the +looking-glass were on admirable terms with each other, and +both of one mind about the plan of campaign against the +common enemy. Sally thought of him as he stood kingly +and triumphant on the deck of his vessel, his great black +eyes flashing confident glances into hers, and she felt a +rebellious rustle of all her plumage. "No, sir," she said +to herself, "you don't do it. You shall never find me +among your slaves,"—"that you know of," added a doubtful +voice within her. "Never to your knowledge," she +said, as she turned away. "I wonder if he will come here +this evening," she said, as she began to work upon a pillow-case,—one +of a set which Mrs. Kittridge had confided +to her nimble fingers. The seam was long, straight, and +monotonous, and Sally was restless and fidgety; her thread +would catch in knots, and when she tried to loosen it, +would break, and the needle had to be threaded over. +Somehow the work was terribly irksome to her, and the +house looked so still and dim and lonesome, and the tick-tock +of the kitchen-clock was insufferable, and Sally let her +work fall in her lap and looked out of the open window,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span> +far to the open ocean, where a fresh breeze was blowing +toward her, and her eyes grew deep and dreamy following +the gliding ship sails. Sally was getting romantic. Had +she been reading novels? Novels! What can a pretty +woman find in a novel equal to the romance that is all the +while weaving and unweaving about her, and of which no +human foresight can tell her the catastrophe? It is <i>novels</i> +that give false views of life. Is there not an eternal novel, +with all these false, cheating views, written in the breast +of every beautiful and attractive girl whose witcheries make +every man that comes near her talk like a fool? Like a +sovereign princess, she never hears the truth, unless it be +from the one manly man in a thousand, who understands +both himself and her. From all the rest she hears only +flatteries more or less ingenious, according to the ability of +the framer. Compare, for instance, what Tom Brown says +to little Seraphina at the party to-night, with what Tom +Brown sober says to sober sister Maria <i>about</i> her to-morrow. +Tom remembers that he was a fool last night, and +knows what he thinks and always has thought to-day; but +pretty Seraphina thinks he adores her, so that no matter +what she does he will never see a flaw, she is sure of that,—poor +little puss! She does not know that philosophic +Tom looks at her as he does at a glass of champagne, or a +dose of exhilarating gas, and calculates how much it will +do for him to take of the stimulus without interfering with +his serious and settled plans of life, which, of course, he +doesn't mean to give up for her. The one-thousand-and-first +man in creation is he that can feel the fascination but +will not flatter, and that tries to tell to the little tyrant +the rare word of truth that may save her; he is, as we say, +the one-thousand-and-first. Well, as Sally sat with her +great dark eyes dreamily following the ship, she mentally +thought over all the compliments Moses had paid her, expressed +or understood, and those of all her other admirers,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span> +who had built up a sort of cloud-world around her, so that +her little feet never rested on the soil of reality. Sally +was shrewd and keen, and had a native mother-wit in the +discernment of spirits, that made her feel that somehow +this was all false coin; but still she counted it over, and it +looked so pretty and bright that she sighed to think it was +not real.</p> + +<p>"If it only had been," she thought; "if there were only +any truth to the creature; he is so handsome,—it's a pity. +But I do believe in his secret heart he is in love with Mara; +he is in love with some one, I know. I have seen looks +that must come from something real; but they were not for +me. I have a kind of power over him, though," she said, +resuming her old wicked look, "and I'll puzzle him a little, +and torment him. He shall find his match in me," +and Sally nodded to a cat-bird that sat perched on a pine-tree, +as if she had a secret understanding with him, and +the cat-bird went off into a perfect roulade of imitations of +all that was going on in the late bird-operas of the season.</p> + +<p>Sally was roused from her revery by a spray of goldenrod +that was thrown into her lap by an invisible hand, and +Moses soon appeared at the window.</p> + +<p>"There's a plume that would be becoming to your hair," +he said; "stay, let me arrange it."</p> + +<p>"No, no; you'll tumble my hair,—what can you know +of such things?"</p> + +<p>Moses held the spray aloft, and leaned toward her with +a sort of quiet, determined insistence.</p> + +<p>"By your leave, fair lady," he said, wreathing it in her +hair, and then drawing back a little, he looked at her with +so much admiration that Sally felt herself blush.</p> + +<p>"Come, now, I dare say you've made a fright of me," +she said, rising and instinctively turning to the looking-glass; +but she had too much coquetry not to see how +admirably the golden plume suited her black hair, and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span> +brilliant eyes and cheeks; she turned to Moses again, +and courtesied, saying "Thank you, sir," dropping her +eyelashes with a mock humility.</p> + +<p>"Come, now," said Moses; "I am sent after you to +come and spend the evening; let's walk along the seashore, +and get there by degrees."</p> + +<p>And so they set out; but the path was circuitous, for +Moses was always stopping, now at this point and now at +that, and enacting some of those thousand little by-plays +which a man can get up with a pretty woman. They +searched for smooth pebbles where the waves had left +them,—many-colored, pink and crimson and yellow and +brown, all smooth and rounded by the eternal tossings of +the old sea that had made playthings of them for centuries, +and with every pebble given and taken were things said +which should have meant more and more, had the play +been earnest. Had Moses any idea of offering himself to +Sally? No; but he was in one of those fluctuating, unresisting +moods of mind in which he was willing to lie like +a chip on the tide of present emotion, and let it rise and +fall and dash him when it liked; and Sally never had +seemed more beautiful and attractive to him than that afternoon, +because there was a shade of reality and depth about +her that he had never seen before.</p> + +<p>"Come on, and let me show you my hermitage," said +Moses, guiding her along the slippery projecting rocks, +all covered with yellow tresses of seaweed. Sally often +slipped on this treacherous footing, and Moses was obliged +to hold her up, and instinctively he threw a meaning into +his manner so much more than ever he had before, that +by the time they had gained the little cove both were +really agitated and excited. He felt that temporary delirium +which is often the mesmeric effect of a strong womanly +presence, and she felt that agitation which every woman +must when a determined hand is striking on the great vital<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span> +chord of her being. When they had stepped round the +last point of rock they found themselves driven by the +advancing tide up into the little lonely grotto,—and there +they were with no lookout but the wide blue sea, all spread +out in rose and gold under the twilight skies, with a silver +moon looking down upon them.</p> + +<p>"Sally," said Moses, in a low, earnest whisper, "you +love me,—do you not?" and he tried to pass his arm +around her.</p> + +<p>She turned and flashed at him a look of mingled terror +and defiance, and struck out her hands at him; then impetuously +turning away and retreating to the other end of +the grotto, she sat down on a rock and began to cry.</p> + +<p>Moses came toward her, and kneeling, tried to take her +hand. She raised her head angrily, and again repulsed +him.</p> + +<p>"Go!" she said. "What right had you to say that? +What right had you even to think it?"</p> + +<p>"Sally, you do love me. It cannot but be. You are +a woman; you could not have been with me as we have +and not feel more than friendship."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you men!—your conceit passes understanding," +said Sally. "You think we are born to be your bond +slaves,—but for once you are mistaken, sir. I <i>don't</i> love +you; and what's more, you don't love me,—you know +you don't; you know that you love somebody else. You +love Mara,—you know you do; there's no truth in you," +she said, rising indignantly.</p> + +<p>Moses felt himself color. There was an embarrassed +pause, and then he answered,—</p> + +<p>"Sally, why should I love Mara? Her heart is all given +to another,—you yourself know it."</p> + +<p>"I don't know it either," said Sally; "I know it isn't +so."</p> + +<p>"But you gave me to understand so."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Well, sir, you put prying questions about what you +ought to have asked her, and so what was I to do? Besides, +I did want to show you how much better Mara could +do than to take you; besides, I didn't know till lately. I +never thought she could care much for any man more than +I could."</p> + +<p>"And you think she loves me?" said Moses, eagerly, a +flash of joy illuminating his face; "do you, really?"</p> + +<p>"There you are," said Sally; "it's a shame I have let +you know! Yes, Moses Pennel, she loves you like an +angel, as none of you men deserve to be loved,—as you in +particular don't."</p> + +<p>Moses sat down on a point of rock, and looked on the +ground discountenanced. Sally stood up glowing and triumphant, +as if she had her foot on the neck of her oppressor +and meant to make the most of it.</p> + +<p>"Now what do you think of yourself for all this summer's +work?—for what you have just said, asking me if +I didn't love you? Supposing, now, I had done as other +girls would, played the fool and blushed, and said yes? +Why, to-morrow you would have been thinking how to be +rid of me! I shall save you all that trouble, sir."</p> + +<p>"Sally, I own I have been acting like a fool," said +Moses, humbly.</p> + +<p>"You have done more than that,—you have acted +wickedly," said Sally.</p> + +<p>"And am I the only one to blame?" said Moses, lifting +his head with a show of resistance.</p> + +<p>"Listen, sir!" said Sally, energetically; "I have played +the fool and acted wrong too, but there is just this difference +between you and me: you had nothing to lose, and I +a great deal; your heart, such as it was, was safely disposed +of. But supposing you had won mine, what would +you have done with it? That was the last thing you considered."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Go on, Sally, don't spare; I'm a vile dog, unworthy +of either of you," said Moses.</p> + +<p>Sally looked down on her handsome penitent with some +relenting, as he sat quite dejected, his strong arms drooping, +and his long eyelashes cast down.</p> + +<p>"I'll be friends with you," she said, "because, after all, +I'm not so very much better than you. We have both +done wrong, and made dear Mara very unhappy. But after +all, I was not so much to blame as you; because, if there +had been any reality in your love, I could have paid it +honestly. I had a heart to give,—I have it now, and +hope long to keep it," said Sally.</p> + +<p>"Sally, you are a right noble girl. I never knew what +you were till now," said Moses, looking at her with admiration.</p> + +<p>"It's the first time for all these six months that we +have either of us spoken a word of truth or sense to each +other. I never did anything but trifle with you, and you +the same. Now we've come to some plain dry land, we +may walk on and be friends. So now help me up these +rocks, and I will go home."</p> + +<p>"And you'll not come home with me?"</p> + +<p>"Of course not. I think you may now go home and +have one talk with Mara without witnesses."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXII" id="CHAPTER_XXXII"></a>CHAPTER XXXII</h2> + +<h3>THE BETROTHAL</h3> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span>Moses walked slowly home from his interview with +Sally, in a sort of maze of confused thought. In general, +men understand women only from the outside, and judge +them with about as much real comprehension as an eagle +might judge a canary-bird. The difficulty of real understanding +intensifies in proportion as the man is distinctively +manly, and the woman womanly. There are men with a +large infusion of the feminine element in their composition +who read the female nature with more understanding than +commonly falls to the lot of men; but in general, when a +man passes beyond the mere outside artifices and unrealities +which lie between the two sexes, and really touches his +finger to any vital chord in the heart of a fair neighbor, he +is astonished at the quality of the vibration.</p> + +<p>"I could not have dreamed there was so much in her," +thought Moses, as he turned away from Sally Kittridge. +He felt humbled as well as astonished by the moral lecture +which this frisky elf with whom he had all summer been +amusing himself, preached to him from the depths of a +real woman's heart. What she said of Mara's loving him +filled his eyes with remorseful tears,—and for the moment +he asked himself whether this restless, jealous, exacting +desire which he felt to appropriate her whole life and heart +to himself were as really worthy of the name of love as +the generous self-devotion with which she had, all her life, +made all his interests her own.</p> + +<p>Was he to go to her now and tell her that he loved her,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span> +and therefore he had teased and vexed her,—therefore he +had seemed to prefer another before her,—therefore he +had practiced and experimented upon her nature? A suspicion +rather stole upon him that love which expresses +itself principally in making exactions and giving pain is not +exactly worthy of the name. And yet he had been secretly +angry with her all summer for being the very reverse of +this; for her apparent cheerful willingness to see him happy +with another; for the absence of all signs of jealousy,—all +desire of exclusive appropriation. It showed, he said +to himself, that there was no love; and now when it +dawned on him that this might be the very heroism of self-devotion, +he asked himself which was best worthy to be +called love.</p> + +<p>"She did love him, then!" The thought blazed up +through the smouldering embers of thought in his heart +like a tongue of flame. She loved him! He felt a sort of +triumph in it, for he was sure Sally must know, they were +so intimate. Well, he would go to her, and tell her all, +confess all his sins, and be forgiven.</p> + +<p>When he came back to the house, all was still evening. +The moon, which was playing brightly on the distant sea, +left one side of the brown house in shadow. Moses saw a +light gleaming behind the curtain in the little room on the +lower floor, which had been his peculiar sanctum during +the summer past. He had made a sort of library of it, +keeping there his books and papers. Upon the white curtain +flitted, from time to time, a delicate, busy shadow; +now it rose and now it stooped, and then it rose again—grew +dim and vanished, and then came out again. His +heart beat quick.</p> + +<p>Mara was in his room, busy, as she always had been +before his departures, in cares for him. How many things +had she made for him, and done and arranged for him, all +his life long! things which he had taken as much as a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span> +matter of course as the shining of that moon. His thought +went back to the times of his first going to sea,—he a +rough, chaotic boy, sensitive and surly, and she the ever +thoughtful good angel of a little girl, whose loving-kindness +he had felt free to use and to abuse. He remembered +that he made her cry there when he should have spoken +lovingly and gratefully to her, and that the words of acknowledgment +that ought to have been spoken, never had +been said,—remained unsaid to that hour. He stooped +low, and came quite close to the muslin curtain. All was +bright in the room, and shadowy without; he could see +her movements as through a thin white haze. She was +packing his sea-chest; his things were lying about her, +folded or rolled nicely. Now he saw her on her knees +writing something with a pencil in a book, and then she +enveloped it very carefully in silk paper, and tied it trimly, +and hid it away at the bottom of the chest. Then she +remained a moment kneeling at the chest, her head resting +in her hands. A sort of strange, sacred feeling came over +him as he heard a low murmur, and knew that she felt a +Presence that he never felt or acknowledged. He felt +somehow that he was doing her a wrong thus to be prying +upon moments when she thought herself alone with God; +a sort of vague remorse filled him; he felt as if she were +too good for him. He turned away, and entering the front +door of the house, stepped noiselessly along and lifted the +latch of the door. He heard a rustle as of one rising hastily +as he opened it and stood before Mara. He had made +up his mind what to say; but when she stood there before +him, with her surprised, inquiring eyes, he felt confused.</p> + +<p>"What, home so soon?" she said.</p> + +<p>"You did not expect me, then?"</p> + +<p>"Of course not,—not for these two hours; so," she +said, looking about, "I found some mischief to do among +your things. If you had waited as long as I expected,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span> +they would all have been quite right again, and you would +never have known."</p> + +<p>Moses sat down and drew her toward him, as if he were +going to say something, and then stopped and began confusedly +playing with her work-box.</p> + +<p>"Now, please don't," said she, archly. "You know +what a little old maid I am about my things!"</p> + +<p>"Mara," said Moses, "people have asked you to marry +them, have they not?"</p> + +<p>"People asked me to marry them!" said Mara. "I +hope not. What an odd question!"</p> + +<p>"You know what I mean," said Moses; "you have had +offers of marriage—from Mr. Adams, for example."</p> + +<p>"And what if I have?"</p> + +<p>"You did not accept him, Mara?" said Moses.</p> + +<p>"No, I did not."</p> + +<p>"And yet he was a fine man, I am told, and well fitted +to make you happy."</p> + +<p>"I believe he was," said Mara, quietly.</p> + +<p>"And why were you so foolish?"</p> + +<p>Mara was fretted at this question. She supposed Moses +had come to tell her of his engagement to Sally, and that +this was a kind of preface, and she answered,—</p> + +<p>"I don't know why you call it foolish. I was a true +friend to Mr. Adams. I saw intellectually that he might +have the power of making any reasonable woman happy. +I think now that the woman will be fortunate who becomes +his wife; but I did not wish to marry him."</p> + +<p>"Is there anybody you prefer to him, Mara?" said Moses.</p> + +<p>She started up with glowing cheeks and sparkling eyes.</p> + +<p>"You have no right to ask me that, though you are my +brother."</p> + +<p>"I am not your brother, Mara," said Moses, rising and +going toward her, "and that is why I ask you. I feel I +have a right to ask you."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I do not understand you," she said, faintly.</p> + +<p>"I can speak plainer, then. I wish to put in my poor +venture. I love you, Mara—not as a brother. I wish +you to be my wife, if you will."</p> + +<p>While Moses was saying these words, Mara felt a sort of +whirling in her head, and it grew dark before her eyes; +but she had a strong, firm will, and she mastered herself +and answered, after a moment, in a quiet, sorrowful tone, +"How can I believe this, Moses? If it is true, why have +you done as you have this summer?"</p> + +<p>"Because I was a fool, Mara,—because I was jealous +of Mr. Adams,—because I somehow hoped, after all, that +you either loved me or that I might make you think more +of me through jealousy of another. They say that love +always is shown by jealousy."</p> + +<p>"Not true love, I should think," said Mara. "How +<i>could</i> you do so?—it was cruel to her,—cruel to me."</p> + +<p>"I admit it,—anything, everything you can say. I +have acted like a fool and a knave, if you will; but after +all, Mara, I do love you. I know I am not worthy of you—never +was—never can be; you are in all things a true, +noble woman, and I have been unmanly."</p> + +<p>It is not to be supposed that all this was spoken without +accompaniments of looks, movements, and expressions of +face such as we cannot give, but such as doubled their +power to the parties concerned; and the "I love you" had +its usual conclusive force as argument, apology, promise,—covering, +like charity, a multitude of sins.</p> + +<p>Half an hour after, you might have seen a youth and +a maiden coming together out of the door of the brown +house, and walking arm in arm toward the sea-beach.</p> + +<p>It was one of those wonderfully clear moonlight evenings, +when the ocean, like a great reflecting mirror, seems +to double the brightness of the sky,—and its vast expanse +lay all around them in its stillness, like an eternity of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span> +waveless peace. Mara remembered that time in her girlhood +when she had followed Moses into the woods on just +such a night,—how she had sat there under the shadows +of the trees, and looked over to Harpswell and noticed the +white houses and the meeting-house, all so bright and clear +in the moonlight, and then off again on the other side of +the island where silent ships were coming and going in the +mysterious stillness. They were talking together now with +that outflowing fullness which comes when the seal of some +great reserve has just been broken,—going back over their +lives from day to day, bringing up incidents of childhood, +and turning them gleefully like two children.</p> + +<p>And then Moses had all the story of his life to relate, +and to tell Mara all he had learned of his mother,—going +over with all the narrative contained in Mr. Sewell's letter.</p> + +<p>"You see, Mara, that it was intended that you should +be my fate," he ended; "so the winds and waves took me +up and carried me to the lonely island where the magic +princess dwelt."</p> + +<p>"You are Prince Ferdinand," said Mara.</p> + +<p>"And you are Miranda," said he.</p> + +<p>"Ah!" she said with fervor, "how plainly we can see +that our heavenly Father has been guiding our way! How +good He is,—and how we must try to live for Him,—both +of us."</p> + +<p>A sort of cloud passed over Moses's brow. He looked +embarrassed, and there was a pause between them, and then +he turned the conversation.</p> + +<p>Mara felt pained; it was like a sudden discord; such +thoughts and feelings were the very breath of her life; she +could not speak in perfect confidence and unreserve, as she +then spoke, without uttering them; and her finely organized +nature felt a sort of electric consciousness of repulsion +and dissent. She grew abstracted, and they walked on in +silence.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I see now, Mara, I have pained you," said Moses, +"but there are a class of feelings that you have that I have +not and cannot have. No, I cannot feign anything. I can +understand what religion is in you, I can admire its results. +I can be happy, if it gives you any comfort; but people are +differently constituted. I never can feel as you do."</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't say never," said Mara, with an intensity that +nearly startled him; "it has been the one prayer, the one +hope, of my life, that you might have these comforts,—this +peace."</p> + +<p>"I need no comfort or peace except what I shall find in +you," said Moses, drawing her to himself, and looking admiringly +at her; "but pray for me still. I always thought +that my wife must be one of the sort of women who pray."</p> + +<p>"And why?" said Mara, in surprise.</p> + +<p>"Because I need to be loved a great deal, and it is only +that kind who pray who know how to love really. If you +had not prayed for me all this time, you never would have +loved me in spite of all my faults, as you did, and do, and +will, as I know you will," he said, folding her in his arms, +and in his secret heart he said, "Some of this intensity, +this devotion, which went upward to heaven, will be mine +one day. She will worship me."</p> + +<p>"The fact is, Mara," he said, "I am a child of this +world. I have no sympathy with things not seen. You +are a half-spiritual creature,—a child of air; and but for +the great woman's heart in you, I should feel that you were +something uncanny and unnatural. I am selfish, I know; +I frankly admit, I never disguised it; but I love your religion +because it makes you love me. It is an incident to +that loving, trusting nature which makes you all and wholly +mine, as I want you to be. I want you all and wholly; +every thought, every feeling,—the whole strength of your +being. I don't care if I say it: I would not wish to be +second in your heart even to God himself!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh, Moses!" said Mara, almost starting away from +him, "such words are dreadful; they will surely bring evil +upon us."</p> + +<p>"I only breathed out my nature, as you did yours. Why +should you love an unseen and distant Being more than +you do one whom you can feel and see, who holds you in +his arms, whose heart beats like your own?"</p> + +<p>"Moses," said Mara, stopping and looking at him in the +clear moonlight, "God has always been to me not so much +like a father as like a dear and tender mother. Perhaps it +was because I was a poor orphan, and my father and mother +died at my birth, that He has been so loving to me. I +never remember the time when I did not feel His presence +in my joys and my sorrows. I never had a thought of joy +and sorrow that I could not say to Him. I never woke in +the night that I did not feel that He was loving and watching +me, and that I loved Him in return. Oh, how many, +many things I have said to Him about you! My heart +would have broken years ago, had it not been for Him; +because, though you did not know it, you often seemed unkind; +you hurt me very often when you did not mean to. +His love is so much a part of my life that I cannot conceive +of life without it. It is the very air I breathe."</p> + +<p>Moses stood still a moment, for Mara spoke with a fervor +that affected him; then he drew her to his heart, and +said,—</p> + +<p>"Oh, what could ever make you love me?"</p> + +<p>"He sent you and gave you to me," she answered, "to +be mine in time and eternity."</p> + +<p>The words were spoken in a kind of enthusiasm so different +from the usual reserve of Mara, that they seemed +like a prophecy. That night, for the first time in her life, +had she broken the reserve which was her very nature, and +spoken of that which was the intimate and hidden history +of her soul.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXXIII</h2> + +<h3>AT A QUILTING</h3> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span>"And so," said Mrs. Captain Badger to Miss Roxy +Toothacre, "it seems that Moses Pennel ain't going to have +Sally Kittridge after all,—he's engaged to Mara Lincoln."</p> + +<p>"More shame for him," said Miss Roxy, with a frown +that made her mohair curls look really tremendous.</p> + +<p>Miss Roxy and Mrs. Badger were the advance party at +a quilting, to be holden at the house of Mr. Sewell, and +had come at one o'clock to do the marking upon the quilt, +which was to be filled up by the busy fingers of all the +women in the parish. Said quilt was to have a bordering +of a pattern commonly denominated in those parts clam-shell, +and this Miss Roxy was diligently marking with +indigo.</p> + +<p>"What makes you say so, now?" said Mrs. Badger, a +fat, comfortable, motherly matron, who always patronized +the last matrimonial venture that put forth among the +young people.</p> + +<p>"What business had he to flirt and gallivant all summer +with Sally Kittridge, and make everybody think he was +going to have her, and then turn round to Mara Lincoln at +the last minute? I wish I'd been in Mara's place."</p> + +<p>In Miss Roxy's martial enthusiasm, she gave a sudden +poke to her frisette, giving to it a diagonal bristle which +extremely increased its usually severe expression; and any +one contemplating her at the moment would have thought +that for Moses Pennel, or any other young man, to come<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span> +with tender propositions in that direction would have been +indeed a venturesome enterprise.</p> + +<p>"I tell you what 'tis, Mis' Badger," she said, "I've +known Mara since she was born,—I may say I fetched +her up myself, for if I hadn't trotted and tended her them +first four weeks of her life, Mis' Pennel'd never have got +her through; and I've watched her every year since; and +havin' Moses Pennel is the only silly thing I ever knew +her to do; but you never can tell what a girl will do when +it comes to marryin',—never!"</p> + +<p>"But he's a real stirrin', likely young man, and captain +of a fine ship," said Mrs. Badger.</p> + +<p>"Don't care if he's captain of twenty ships," said Miss +Roxy, obdurately; "he ain't a professor of religion, and I +believe he's an infidel, and she's one of the Lord's people."</p> + +<p>"Well," said Mrs. Badger, "you know the unbelievin' +husband shall be sanctified by the believin' wife."</p> + +<p>"Much sanctifyin' he'll get," said Miss Roxy, contemptuously. +"I don't believe he loves her any more than +fancy; she's the last plaything, and when he's got her, +he'll be tired of her, as he always was with anything he +got ever since. I tell you, Moses Pennel is all for pride +and ambition and the world; and his wife, when he gets +used to her, 'll be only a circumstance,—that's all."</p> + +<p>"Come, now, Miss Roxy," said Miss Emily, who in her +best silk and smoothly-brushed hair had just come in, "we +must <i>not</i> let you talk so. Moses Pennel has had long +talks with brother, and he thinks him in a very hopeful +way, and we are all delighted; and as to Mara, she is as +fresh and happy as a little rose."</p> + +<p>"So I tell Roxy," said Miss Ruey, who had been absent +from the room to hold private consultations with Miss +Emily concerning the biscuits and sponge-cake for tea, and +who now sat down to the quilt and began to unroll a capa<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span>cious +and very limp calico thread-case; and placing her +spectacles awry on her little pug nose, she began a series +of ingenious dodges with her thread, designed to hit the +eye of her needle.</p> + +<p>"The old folks," she continued, "are e'en a'most tickled +to pieces,—'cause they think it'll jist be the salvation of +him to get Mara."</p> + +<p>"I ain't one of the sort that wants to be a-usin' up girls +for the salvation of fellers," said Miss Roxy, severely. +"Ever since he nearly like to have got her eat up by +sharks, by giggiting her off in the boat out to sea when +she wa'n't more'n three years old, I always have thought +he was a misfortin' in that family, and I think so now."</p> + +<p>Here broke in Mrs. Eaton, a thrifty energetic widow of +a deceased sea-captain, who had been left with a tidy little +fortune which commanded the respect of the neighborhood. +Mrs. Eaton had entered silently during the discussion, but +of course had come, as every other woman had that afternoon, +with views to be expressed upon the subject.</p> + +<p>"For my part," she said, as she stuck a decisive needle +into the first clam-shell pattern, "I ain't so sure that all +the advantage in this match is on Moses Pennel's part. +Mara Lincoln is a good little thing, but she ain't fitted to +help a man along,—she'll always be wantin' somebody to +help her. Why, I 'member goin' a voyage with Cap'n +Eaton, when I saved the ship, if anybody did,—it was +allowed on all hands. Cap'n Eaton wasn't hearty at that +time, he was jist gettin' up from a fever,—it was when +Marthy Ann was a baby, and I jist took her and went to +sea and took care of him. I used to work the longitude +for him and help him lay the ship's course when his head +was bad,—and when we came on the coast, we were kept +out of harbor beatin' about nearly three weeks, and all the +ship's tacklin' was stiff with ice, and I tell you the men +never would have stood it through and got the ship in, if<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span> +it hadn't been for me. I kept their mittens and stockings +all the while a-dryin' at my stove in the cabin, and hot +coffee all the while a-boilin' for 'em, or I believe they'd +a-frozen their hands and feet, and never been able to work +the ship in. That's the way <i>I</i> did. Now Sally Kittridge +is a great deal more like that than Mara."</p> + +<p>"There's no doubt that Sally is smart," said Mrs. Badger, +"but then it ain't every one can do like you, Mrs. +Eaton."</p> + +<p>"Oh no, oh no," was murmured from mouth to mouth; +"Mrs. Eaton mustn't think she's any rule for others,—everybody +knows she can do more than most people;" +whereat the pacified Mrs. Eaton said "she didn't know as it +was anything remarkable,—it showed what anybody might +do, if they'd only <i>try</i> and have resolution; but that Mara +never had been brought up to have resolution, and her +mother never had resolution before her, it wasn't in any of +Mary Pennel's family; she knew their grandmother and +all their aunts, and they were all a weakly set, and not +fitted to get along in life,—they were a kind of people +that somehow didn't seem to know how to take hold of +things."</p> + +<p>At this moment the consultation was hushed up by the +entrance of Sally Kittridge and Mara, evidently on the +closest terms of intimacy, and more than usually demonstrative +and affectionate; they would sit together and use +each other's needles, scissors, thread, and thimbles interchangeably, +as if anxious to express every minute the most +overflowing confidence. Sly winks and didactic nods were +covertly exchanged among the elderly people, and when +Mrs. Kittridge entered with more than usual airs of impressive +solemnity, several of these were covertly directed +toward her, as a matron whose views in life must have +been considerably darkened by the recent event.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Kittridge, however, found an opportunity to whis<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span>per +under her breath to Miss Ruey what a relief to her it +was that the affair had taken such a turn. She had felt +uneasy all summer for fear of what might come. Sally +was so thoughtless and worldly, she felt afraid that he +would lead her astray. She didn't see, for her part, how +a professor of religion like Mara could make up her mind +to such an unsettled kind of fellow, even if he did seem to +be rich and well-to-do. But then she had done looking +for consistency; and she sighed and vigorously applied herself +to quilting like one who has done with the world.</p> + +<p>In return, Miss Ruey sighed and took snuff, and related +for the hundredth time to Mrs. Kittridge the great escape +she once had from the addresses of Abraham Peters, who +had turned out a "poor drunken creetur." But then it was +only natural that Mara should be interested in Moses; and +the good soul went off into her favorite verse:—</p> + +<p style="margin-left:2em"> +"The fondness of a creature's love,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">How strong it strikes the sense!</span><br /> +Thither the warm affections move,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nor can we drive them thence."</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>In fact, Miss Ruey's sentimental vein was in quite a gushing +state, for she more than once extracted from the dark +corners of the limp calico thread-case we have spoken of +certain long-treasured <i>morceaux</i> of newspaper poetry, of +a tender and sentimental cast, which she had laid up with +true Yankee economy, in case any one should ever be in +a situation to need them. They related principally to the +union of kindred hearts, and the joys of reciprocated feeling +and the pains of absence. Good Miss Ruey occasionally +passed these to Mara, with glances full of meaning, which +caused the poor old thing to resemble a sentimental goblin, +keeping Sally Kittridge in a perfect hysterical tempest of +suppressed laughter, and making it difficult for Mara to +preserve the decencies of life toward her well-intending old +friend. The trouble with poor Miss Ruey was that, while<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span> +her body had grown old and crazy, her soul was just as +juvenile as ever,—and a simple, juvenile soul disporting +itself in a crazy, battered old body, is at great disadvantage. +It was lucky for her, however, that she lived in the +most sacred unconsciousness of the ludicrous effect of her +little indulgences, and the pleasure she took in them was +certainly of the most harmless kind. The world would be +a far better and more enjoyable place than it is, if all people +who are old and uncomely could find amusement as +innocent and Christian-like as Miss Ruey's inoffensive +thread-case collection of sentimental truisms.</p> + +<p>This quilting of which we speak was a solemn, festive +occasion of the parish, held a week after Moses had sailed +away; and so <i>piquant</i> a morsel as a recent engagement +could not, of course, fail to be served up for the company +in every variety of garnishing which individual tastes might +suggest.</p> + +<p>It became an ascertained fact, however, in the course +of the evening festivities, that the minister was serenely +approbative of the event; that Captain Kittridge was at +length brought to a sense of the errors of his way in supposing +that Sally had ever cared a pin for Moses more than +as a mutual friend and confidant; and the great affair was +settled without more ripples of discomposure than usually +attend similar announcements in more refined society.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXXIV</h2> + +<h3>FRIENDS</h3> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span>The quilting broke up at the primitive hour of nine +o'clock, at which, in early New England days, all social +gatherings always dispersed. Captain Kittridge rowed his +helpmeet, with Mara and Sally, across the Bay to the +island.</p> + +<p>"Come and stay with me to-night, Sally," said Mara.</p> + +<p>"I think Sally had best be at home," said Mrs. Kittridge. +"There's no sense in girls talking all night."</p> + +<p>"There ain't sense in nothin' else, mother," said the +Captain. "Next to sparkin', which is the Christianist +thing I knows on, comes gals' talks 'bout their sparks; +they's as natural as crowsfoot and red columbines in the +spring, and spring don't come but once a year neither,—and +so let 'em take the comfort on't. I warrant now, +Polly, you've laid awake nights and talked about me."</p> + +<p>"We've all been foolish once," said Mrs. Kittridge.</p> + +<p>"Well, mother, we want to be foolish too," said Sally.</p> + +<p>"Well, you and your father are too much for me," said +Mrs. Kittridge, plaintively; "you always get your own +way."</p> + +<p>"How lucky that my way is always a good one!" said +Sally.</p> + +<p>"Well, you know, Sally, you are going to make the +beer to-morrow," still objected her mother.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes; that's another reason," said Sally. "Mara +and I shall come home through the woods in the morning, +and we can get whole apronfuls of young wintergreen, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span> +besides, I know where there's a lot of sassafras root. +We'll dig it, won't we, Mara?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; and I'll come down and help you brew," said +Mara. "Don't you remember the beer I made when Moses +came home?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes, I remember," said the Captain, "you sent us +a couple of bottles."</p> + +<p>"We can make better yet now," said Mara. "The +wintergreen is young, and the green tips on the spruce +boughs are so full of strength. Everything is lively and +sunny now."</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes," said the Captain, "and I 'spect I know why +things do look pretty lively to some folks, don't they?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know what sort of work you'll make of the +beer among you," said Mrs. Kittridge; "but you must +have it your own way."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Kittridge, who never did anything else among her +tea-drinking acquaintances but laud and magnify Sally's +good traits and domestic acquirements, felt constantly bound +to keep up a faint show of controversy and authority in +her dealings with her,—the fading remains of the strict +government of her childhood; but it was, nevertheless, +very perfectly understood, in a general way, that Sally was +to do as she pleased; and so, when the boat came to shore, +she took the arm of Mara and started up toward the brown +house.</p> + +<p>The air was soft and balmy, and though the moon by +which the troth of Mara and Moses had been plighted had +waned into the latest hours of the night, still a thousand +stars were lying in twinkling brightness, reflected from the +undulating waves all around them, and the tide, as it rose +and fell, made a sound as gentle and soft as the respiration +of a peaceful sleeper.</p> + +<p>"Well, Mara," said Sally, after an interval of silence, +"all has come out right. You see that it was you whom<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span> +he loved. What a lucky thing for me that I am made so +heartless, or I might not be as glad as I am."</p> + +<p>"You are not heartless, Sally," said Mara; "it's the +enchanted princess asleep; the right one hasn't come to +waken her."</p> + +<p>"Maybe so," said Sally, with her old light laugh. "If +I only were sure he would make you happy now,—half as +happy as you deserve,—I'd forgive him his share of this +summer's mischief. The fault was just half mine, you +see, for I witched with him. I confess it. I have my +own little spider-webs for these great lordly flies, and I like +to hear them buzz."</p> + +<p>"Take care, Sally; never do it again, or the spider-web +may get round you," said Mara.</p> + +<p>"Never fear me," said Sally. "But, Mara, I wish I +felt sure that Moses could make you happy. Do you +really, now, when you think seriously, feel as if he +would?"</p> + +<p>"I never thought seriously about it," said Mara; "but +I know he needs me; that I can do for him what no one +else can. I have always felt all my life that he was to be +mine; that he was sent to me, ordained for me to care for +and to love."</p> + +<p>"You are well mated," said Sally. "He wants to be +loved very much, and you want to love. There's the active +and passive voice, as they used to say at Miss Plucher's. +But yet in your natures you are opposite as any two could +well be."</p> + +<p>Mara felt that there was in these chance words of Sally +more than she perceived. No one could feel as intensely +as she could that the mind and heart so dear to her were +yet, as to all that was most vital and real in her inner life, +unsympathizing. To her the spiritual world was a reality; +God an ever-present consciousness; and the line of this +present life seemed so to melt and lose itself in the antici<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span>pation +of a future and brighter one, that it was impossible +for her to speak intimately and not unconsciously to betray +the fact. To him there was only the life of this world: +there was no present God; and from all thought of a future +life he shrank with a shuddering aversion, as from something +ghastly and unnatural. She had realized this difference +more in the few days that followed her betrothal than +all her life before, for now first the barrier of mutual constraint +and misunderstanding having melted away, each +spoke with an <i>abandon</i> and unreserve which made the +acquaintance more vitally intimate than ever it had been +before. It was then that Mara felt that while her sympathies +could follow him through all his plans and interests, +there was a whole world of thought and feeling in her +heart where his could not follow her; and she asked herself, +Would it be so always? Must she walk at his side +forever repressing the utterance of that which was most +sacred and intimate, living in a nominal and external communion +only? How could it be that what was so lovely +and clear in its reality to her, that which was to her as +life-blood, that which was the vital air in which she lived +and moved and had her being, could be absolutely nothing +to him? Was it really possible, as he said, that God had +no existence for him except in a nominal cold belief; that +the spiritual world was to him only a land of pale shades +and doubtful glooms, from which he shrank with dread, +and the least allusion to which was distasteful? and would +this always be so? and if so, could she be happy?</p> + +<p>But Mara said the truth in saying that the question of +personal happiness never entered her thoughts. She loved +Moses in a way that made it necessary to her happiness to +devote herself to him, to watch over and care for him; and +though she knew not how, she felt a sort of presentiment +that it was through her that he must be brought into sympathy +with a spiritual and immortal life.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span></p> + +<p>All this passed through Mara's mind in the reverie into +which Sally's last words threw her, as she sat on the door-sill +and looked off into the starry distance and heard the +weird murmur of the sea.</p> + +<p>"How lonesome the sea at night always is," said Sally. +"I declare, Mara, I don't wonder you miss that creature, +for, to tell the truth, I do a little bit. It was something, +you know, to have somebody to come in, and to joke with, +and to say how he liked one's hair and one's ribbons, and +all that. I quite got up a friendship for Moses, so that I +can feel how dull you must be;" and Sally gave a half +sigh, and then whistled a tune as adroitly as a blackbird.</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Mara, "we two girls down on this lonely +island need some one to connect us with the great world; +and he was so full of life, and so certain and confident, he +seemed to open a way before one out into life."</p> + +<p>"Well, of course, while he is gone there will be plenty +to do getting ready to be married," said Sally. "By the +by, when I was over to Portland the other day, Maria Potter +showed me a new pattern for a bed-quilt, the sweetest +thing you can imagine,—it is called the morning star. +There is a great star in the centre, and little stars all +around,—white on a blue ground. I mean to begin one +for you."</p> + +<p>"I am going to begin spinning some very fine flax next +week," said Mara; "and have I shown you the new pattern +I drew for a counterpane? it is to be morning-glories, +leaves and flowers, you know,—a pretty idea, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>And so, the conversation falling from the region of the +sentimental to the practical, the two girls went in and spent +an hour in discussions so purely feminine that we will not +enlighten the reader further therewith. Sally seemed to +be investing all her energies in the preparation of the +wedding outfit of her friend, about which she talked with +a constant and restless activity, and for which she formed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span> +a thousand plans, and projected shopping tours to Portland, +Brunswick, and even to Boston,—this last being about as +far off a venture at that time as Paris now seems to a Boston +belle.</p> + +<p>"When you are married," said Sally, "you'll have to +take me to live with you; that creature sha'n't have you +<i>all</i> to himself. I hate men, they are so exorbitant,—they +spoil all our playmates; and what shall I do when <i>you</i> are +gone?"</p> + +<p>"You will go with Mr.—what's his name?" said +Mara.</p> + +<p>"Pshaw, I don't know him. I shall be an old maid," +said Sally; "and really there isn't much harm in that, if +one could have company,—if somebody or other wouldn't +marry all one's friends,—that's lonesome," she said, +winking a tear out of her black eyes and laughing. "If +I were only a young fellow now, Mara, I'd have you +myself, and that would be just the thing; and I'd shoot +Moses, if he said a word; and I'd have money, and I'd +have honors, and I'd carry you off to Europe, and take +you to Paris and Rome, and nobody knows where; and +we'd live in peace, as the story-books say."</p> + +<p>"Come, Sally, how wild you are talking," said Mara, +"and the clock has just struck one; let's try to go to +sleep."</p> + +<p>Sally put her face to Mara's and kissed her, and Mara +felt a moist spot on her cheek,—could it be a tear?</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXV" id="CHAPTER_XXXV"></a>CHAPTER XXXV</h2> + +<h3>THE TOOTHACRE COTTAGE</h3> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span>Aunt Roxy and Aunt Ruey Toothacre lived in a little +one-story gambrel-roofed cottage, on the side of Harpswell +Bay, just at the head of the long cove which we have already +described. The windows on two sides commanded +the beautiful bay and the opposite shores, and on the other +they looked out into the dense forest, through whose deep +shadows of white birch and pine the silver rise and fall of +the sea daily revealed itself.</p> + +<p>The house itself was a miracle of neatness within, for +the two thrifty sisters were worshipers of soap and sand, +and these two tutelary deities had kept every board of the +house-floor white and smooth, and also every table and +bench and tub of household use. There was a sacred care +over each article, however small and insignificant, which +composed their slender household stock. The loss or breakage +of one of them would have made a visible crack in the +hearts of the worthy sisters,—for every plate, knife, fork, +spoon, cup, or glass was as intimate with them, as instinct +with home feeling, as if it had a soul; each defect or spot +had its history, and a cracked dish or article of furniture +received as tender and considerate medical treatment +as if it were capable of understanding and feeling the attention.</p> + +<p>It was now a warm, spicy day in June,—one of those +which bring out the pineapple fragrance from the fir-shoots, +and cause the spruce and hemlocks to exude a warm, +resinous perfume. The two sisters, for a wonder, were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span> +having a day to themselves, free from the numerous calls of +the vicinity for twelve miles round. The room in which +they were sitting was bestrewn with fragments of dresses +and bonnets, which were being torn to pieces in a most +wholesale way, with a view to a general rejuvenescence. +A person of unsympathetic temperament, and disposed to +take sarcastic views of life, might perhaps wonder what +possible object these two battered and weather-beaten old +bodies proposed to themselves in this process,—whether +Miss Roxy's gaunt black-straw helmet, which she had worn +defiantly all winter, was likely to receive much lustre from +being pressed over and trimmed with an old green ribbon +which that energetic female had colored black by a domestic +recipe; and whether Miss Roxy's rusty bombazette +would really seem to the world any fresher for being ripped, +and washed, and turned, for the second or third time, and +made over with every breadth in a different situation. +Probably after a week of efficient labor, busily expended in +bleaching, dyeing, pressing, sewing, and ripping, an unenlightened +spectator, seeing them come into the meeting-house, +would simply think, "There are those two old +frights with the same old things on they have worn these +fifty years." Happily the weird sisters were contentedly +ignorant of any such remarks, for no duchesses could have +enjoyed a more quiet belief in their own social position, +and their semi-annual spring and fall rehabilitation was +therefore entered into with the most simple-hearted satisfaction.</p> + +<p>"I'm a-thinkin', Roxy," said Aunt Ruey, considerately +turning and turning on her hand an old straw bonnet, on +which were streaked all the marks of the former trimming in +lighter lines, which revealed too clearly the effects of wind +and weather,—"I'm a-thinkin' whether or no this 'ere +mightn't as well be dyed and done with it as try to bleach +it out. I've had it ten years last May, and it's kind<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span> +o' losin' its freshness, you know. I don't believe these 'ere +streaks will bleach out."</p> + +<p>"Never mind, Ruey," said Miss Roxy, authoritatively, +"I'm goin' to do Mis' Badger's leg'orn, and it won't cost +nothin'; so hang your'n in the barrel along with it,—the +same smoke'll do 'em both. Mis' Badger she finds the +brimstone, and next fall you can put it in the dye when +we do the yarn."</p> + +<p>"That ar straw is a beautiful straw!" said Miss Ruey, +in a plaintive tone, tenderly examining the battered old +head-piece,—"I braided every stroke on it myself, and I +don't know as I could do it ag'in. My fingers ain't quite +so limber as they was! I don't think I shall put green +ribbon on it ag'in; 'cause green is such a color to ruin, if +a body gets caught out in a shower! There's these green +streaks come that day I left my amberil at Captain Broad's, +and went to meetin'. Mis' Broad she says to me, 'Aunt +Ruey, it won't rain.' And says I to her, 'Well, Mis' +Broad, I'll try it; though I never did leave my amberil +at home but what it rained.' And so I went, and sure +enough it rained cats and dogs, and streaked my bonnet all +up; and them ar streaks won't bleach out, I'm feared."</p> + +<p>"How long is it Mis' Badger has had that ar leg'orn?"</p> + +<p>"Why, you know, the Cap'n he brought it home when +he came from his voyage from Marseilles. That ar was +when Phebe Ann was born, and she's fifteen year old. It +was a most elegant thing when he brought it; but I think +it kind o' led Mis' Badger on to extravagant ways,—for +gettin' new trimmin' spring and fall so uses up money as +fast as new bonnets; but Mis' Badger's got the money, +and she's got a right to use it if she pleases; but if I'd +a-had new trimmin's spring and fall, I shouldn't a-put +away what I have in the bank."</p> + +<p>"Have you seen the straw Sally Kittridge is braidin' +for Mara Lincoln's weddin' bonnet?" said Miss Ruey.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span> +"It's jist the finest thing ever you did see,—and the +whitest. I was a-tellin' Sally that I could do as well once +myself, but my mantle was a-fallin' on her. Sally don't +seem to act a bit like a disap'inted gal. She is as chipper +as she can be about Mara's weddin', and seems like she +couldn't do too much. But laws, everybody seems to +want to be a-doin' for her. Miss Emily was a-showin' me +a fine double damask tablecloth that she was goin' to give +her; and Mis' Pennel, she's been a-spinnin' and layin' up +sheets and towels and tablecloths all her life,—and then +she has all Naomi's things. Mis' Pennel was talkin' to +me the other day about bleachin' 'em out 'cause they'd +got yellow a-lyin'. I kind o' felt as if 'twas unlucky to +be a-fittin' out a bride with her dead mother's things, but +I didn't like to say nothin'."</p> + +<p>"Ruey," said Miss Roxy impressively, "I hain't never +had but jist one mind about Mara Lincoln's weddin',—it's +to be,—but it won't be the way people think. I +hain't nussed and watched and sot up nights sixty years +for nothin'. I can see beyond what most folks can,—her +weddin' garments is bought and paid for, and she'll wear +'em, but she won't be Moses Pennel's wife,—now you +see."</p> + +<p>"Why, whose wife will she be then?" said Miss Ruey; +"'cause that ar Mr. Adams is married. I saw it in the +paper last week when I was up to Mis' Badger's."</p> + +<p>Miss Roxy shut her lips with oracular sternness and +went on with her sewing.</p> + +<p>"Who's that comin' in the back door?" said Miss +Ruey, as the sound of a footstep fell upon her ear. "Bless +me," she added, as she started up to look, "if folks ain't +always nearest when you're talkin' about 'em. Why, +Mara; you come down here and catched us in all our dirt! +Well now, we're glad to see you, if we be," said Miss +Ruey.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXXVI</h2> + +<h3>THE SHADOW OF DEATH</h3> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span>It was in truth Mara herself who came and stood in the +doorway. She appeared overwearied with her walk, for +her cheeks had a vivid brightness unlike their usual tender +pink. Her eyes had, too, a brilliancy almost painful to +look upon. They seemed like ardent fires, in which the +life was slowly burning away.</p> + +<p>"Sit down, sit down, little Mara," said Aunt Ruey. +"Why, how like a picture you look this mornin',—one +needn't ask you how you do,—it's plain enough that you +are pretty well."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I am, Aunt Ruey," she answered, sinking into +a chair; "only it is warm to-day, and the sun is so hot, +that's all, I believe; but I am very tired."</p> + +<p>"So you are now, poor thing," said Miss Ruey. "Roxy, +where's my turkey-feather fan? Oh, here 'tis; there, +take it, and fan you, child; and maybe you'll have a glass +of our spruce beer?"</p> + +<p>"Thank you, Aunt Roxy. I brought you some young +wintergreen," said Mara, unrolling from her handkerchief +a small knot of those fragrant leaves, which were wilted by +the heat.</p> + +<p>"Thank you, I'm sure," said Miss Ruey, in delight; +"you always fetch something, Mara,—always would, ever +since you could toddle. Roxy and I was jist talkin' about +your weddin'. I s'pose you're gettin' things well along +down to your house. Well, here's the beer. I don't +hardly know whether you'll think it worked enough,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span> +though. I set it Saturday afternoon, for all Mis' Twitchell +said it was wicked for beer to work Sundays," said Miss +Ruey, with a feeble cackle at her own joke.</p> + +<p>"Thank you, Aunt Ruey; it is excellent, as your things +always are. I was very thirsty."</p> + +<p>"I s'pose you hear from Moses pretty often now," said +Aunt Ruey. "How kind o' providential it happened +about his getting that property; he'll be a rich man now; +and Mara, you'll come to grandeur, won't you? Well, I +don't know anybody deserves it more,—I r'ally don't. +Mis' Badger was a-sayin' so a-Sunday, and Cap'n Kittridge +and all on 'em. I s'pose though we've got to lose +you,—you'll be goin' off to Boston, or New York, or +somewhere."</p> + +<p>"We can't tell what may happen, Aunt Ruey," said +Mara, and there was a slight tremor in her voice as she +spoke.</p> + +<p>Miss Roxy, who beyond the first salutations had taken +no part in this conversation, had from time to time regarded +Mara over the tops of her spectacles with looks of +grave apprehension; and Mara, looking up, now encountered +one of these glances.</p> + +<p>"Have you taken the dock and dandelion tea I told you +about?" said the wise woman, rather abruptly.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Aunt Roxy, I have taken them faithfully for two +weeks past."</p> + +<p>"And do they seem to set you up any?" said Miss +Roxy.</p> + +<p>"No, I don't think they do. Grandma thinks I'm +better, and grandpa, and I let them think so; but Miss +Roxy, <i>can't</i> you think of something else?"</p> + +<p>Miss Roxy laid aside the straw bonnet which she was +ripping, and motioned Mara into the outer room,—the +sink-room, as the sisters called it. It was the scullery of +their little establishment,—the place where all dish-wash<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span>ing +and clothes-washing was generally performed,—but +the boards of the floor were white as snow, and the place +had the odor of neatness. The open door looked out pleasantly +into the deep forest, where the waters of the cove, +now at high tide, could be seen glittering through the trees. +Soft moving spots of sunlight fell, checkering the feathery +ferns and small piney tribes of evergreen which ran in +ruffling wreaths of green through the dry, brown matting +of fallen pine needles. Birds were singing and calling to +each other merrily from the green shadows of the forest,—everything +had a sylvan fullness and freshness of life. +There are moods of mind when the sight of the bloom and +freshness of nature affects us painfully, like the want of +sympathy in a dear friend. Mara had been all her days a +child of the woods; her delicate life had grown up in them +like one of their own cool shaded flowers; and there was +not a moss, not a fern, not an upspringing thing that +waved a leaf or threw forth a flower-bell, that was not a +well-known friend to her; she had watched for years its +haunts, known the time of its coming and its going, studied +its shy and veiled habits, and interwoven with its life each +year a portion of her own; and now she looked out into +the old mossy woods, with their wavering spots of sun and +shadow, with a yearning pain, as if she wanted help or +sympathy to come from their silent recesses.</p> + +<p>She sat down on the clean, scoured door-sill, and took +off her straw hat. Her golden-brown hair was moist with +the damps of fatigue, which made it curl and wave in +darker little rings about her forehead; her eyes,—those +longing, wistful eyes,—had a deeper pathos of sadness +than ever they had worn before; and her delicate lips trembled +with some strong suppressed emotion.</p> + +<p>"Aunt Roxy," she said suddenly, "I <i>must</i> speak to +somebody. I can't go on and keep up without telling +some one, and it had better be you, because you have skill<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span> +and experience, and can help me if anybody can. I've +been going on for six months now, taking this and taking +that, and trying to get better, but it's of no use. Aunt +Roxy, I feel my life going,—going just as steadily and as +quietly every day as the sand goes out of your hour-glass. +I want to live,—oh, I never wanted to live so much, and +I can't,—oh, I know I can't. Can I now,—do you +think I can?"</p> + +<p>Mara looked imploringly at Miss Roxy. The hard-visaged +woman sat down on the wash-bench, and, covering +her worn, stony visage with her checked apron, sobbed +aloud.</p> + +<p>Mara was confounded. This implacably withered, sensible, +dry woman, beneficently impassive in sickness and +sorrow, weeping!—it was awful, as if one of the Fates had +laid down her fatal distaff to weep.</p> + +<p>Mara sprung up impulsively and threw her arms round +her neck.</p> + +<p>"Now don't, Aunt Roxy, don't. I didn't think you +would feel bad, or I wouldn't have told you; but oh, you +don't know how hard it is to keep such a secret all to one's +self. I have to make believe all the time that I am feeling +well and getting better. I really say what isn't true +every day, because, poor grandmamma, how could I bear +to see her distress? and grandpapa,—oh, I wish people +didn't love me so! Why cannot they let me go? And +oh, Aunt Roxy, I had a letter only yesterday, and he is so +sure we shall be married this fall,—and I know it cannot +be." Mara's voice gave way in sobs, and the two wept +together,—the old grim, gray woman holding the soft +golden head against her breast with a convulsive grasp. +"Oh, Aunt Roxy, do you love me, too?" said Mara. "I +didn't know you did."</p> + +<p>"Love ye, child?" said Miss Roxy; "yes, I love ye like +my life. I ain't one that makes talk about things, but I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span> +do; you come into my arms fust of anybody's in this +world,—and except poor little Hitty, I never loved nobody +as I have you."</p> + +<p>"Ah! that was your sister, whose grave I have seen," +said Mara, speaking in a soothing, caressing tone, and putting +her little thin hand against the grim, wasted cheek, +which was now moist with tears.</p> + +<p>"Jes' so, child, she died when she was a year younger +than you be; she was not lost, for God took her. Poor +Hitty! her life jest dried up like a brook in August,—jest +so. Well, she was hopefully pious, and it was better +for her."</p> + +<p>"Did she go like me, Aunt Roxy?" said Mara.</p> + +<p>"Well, yes, dear; she did begin jest so, and I gave her +everything I could think of; and we had doctors for her +far and near; but <i>'twasn't to be</i>,—that's all we could +say; she was called, and her time was come."</p> + +<p>"Well, now, Aunt Roxy," said Mara, "at any rate, it's +a relief to speak out to some one. It's more than two +months that I have felt every day more and more that +there was no hope,—life has hung on me like a weight. +I have had to <i>make</i> myself keep up, and make myself do +everything, and no one knows how it has tried me. I am +so tired all the time, I could cry; and yet when I go to +bed nights I can't sleep, I lie in such a hot, restless way; +and then before morning I am drenched with cold sweat, +and feel so weak and wretched. I force myself to eat, and +I force myself to talk and laugh, and it's all pretense; and +it wears me out,—it would be better if I stopped trying,—it +would be better to give up and act as weak as I feel; +but how can I let them know?"</p> + +<p>"My dear child," said Aunt Roxy, "the truth is the +kindest thing we can give folks in the end. When folks +know jest where they are, why they can walk; you'll all +be supported; you must trust in the Lord. I have been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span> +more'n forty years with sick rooms and dyin' beds, and +I never knew it fail that those that trusted in the Lord was +brought through."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Aunt Roxy, it is so hard for me to give up,—to +give up hoping to live. There were a good many years +when I thought I should love to depart,—not that I was +really unhappy, but I longed to go to heaven, though I +knew it was selfish, when I knew how lonesome I should +leave my friends. But now, oh, life has looked so bright; +I have clung to it so; I do now. I lie awake nights and +pray, and try to give it up and be resigned, and I can't. +Is it wicked?"</p> + +<p>"Well, it's natur' to want to live," said Miss Roxy. +"Life is sweet, and in a gen'l way we was made to live. +Don't worry; the Lord'll bring you right when His time +comes. Folks isn't always supported jest when they +want to be, nor <i>as</i> they want to be; but yet they're supported +fust and last. Ef I was to tell you how as I has +hope in your case, I shouldn't be a-tellin' you the truth. +I hasn't much of any; only all things is possible with +God. If you could kind o' give it all up and rest easy in +His hands, and keep a-doin' what you can,—why, while +there's life there's hope, you know; and if you are to be +made well, you will be all the sooner."</p> + +<p>"Aunt Roxy, it's all right; I know it's all right. God +knows best; He will do what is best; I know that; but +my heart bleeds, and is sore. And when I get his letters,—I +got one yesterday,—it brings it all back again. +Everything is going on so well; he says he has done more +than all he ever hoped; his letters are full of jokes, full of +spirit. Ah, he little knows,—and how can I tell him?"</p> + +<p>"Child, you needn't yet. You can jest kind o' prepare +his mind a little."</p> + +<p>"Aunt Roxy, have you spoken of my case to any one,—have +you told what you know of me?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</a></span></p> + +<p>"No, child, I hain't said nothin' more than that you +was a little weakly now and then."</p> + +<p>"I have such a color every afternoon," said Mara. +"Grandpapa talks about my roses, and Captain Kittridge +jokes me about growing so handsome; nobody seems to +realize how I feel. I have kept up with all the strength +I had. I have tried to shake it off, and to feel that nothing +was the matter,—really there is nothing much, only +this weakness. This morning I thought it would do me +good to walk down here. I remember times when I could +ramble whole days in the woods, but I was so tired before +I got half way here that I had to stop a long while and +rest. Aunt Roxy, if you would only tell grandpapa and +grandmamma just how things are, and what the danger is, +and let them stop talking to me about wedding things,—for +really and truly I am too unwell to keep up any longer."</p> + +<p>"Well, child, I will," said Miss Roxy. "Your grandfather +will be supported, and hold you up, for he's one of +the sort as has the secret of the Lord,—I remember him +of old. Why, the day your father and mother was buried +he stood up and sung old China, and his face was wonderful +to see. He seemed to be standin' with the world under +his feet and heaven opening. He's a master Christian, +your grandfather is; and now you jest go and lie down in +the little bedroom, and rest you a bit, and by and by, in +the cool of the afternoon, I'll walk along home with you."</p> + +<p>Miss Roxy opened the door of a little room, whose white +fringy window-curtains were blown inward by breezes from +the blue sea, and laid the child down to rest on a clean +sweet-smelling bed with as deft and tender care as if she +were not a bony, hard-visaged, angular female, in a black +mohair frisette.</p> + +<p>She stopped a moment wistfully before a little profile +head, of a kind which resembles a black shadow on a white +ground. "That was Hitty!" she said.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</a></span></p> + +<p>Mara had often seen in the graveyard a mound inscribed +to this young person, and heard traditionally of a young +and pretty sister of Miss Roxy who had died very many +years before. But the grave was overgrown with blackberry-vines, +and gray moss had grown into the crevices of +the slab which served for a tombstone, and never before +that day had she heard Miss Roxy speak of her. Miss +Roxy took down the little black object and handed it to +Mara. "You can't tell much by that, but she was a most +beautiful creatur'. Well, it's all best as it is." Mara +saw nothing but a little black shadow cast on white paper, +yet she was affected by the perception how bright, how +beautiful, was the image in the memory of that seemingly +stern, commonplace woman, and how of all that in her +mind's eye she saw and remembered, she could find no +outward witness but this black block. "So some day my +friends will speak of me as a distant shadow," she said, +as with a sigh she turned her head on the pillow.</p> + +<p>Miss Roxy shut the door gently as she went out, and +betrayed the unwonted rush of softer feelings which had +come over her only by being more dictatorial and commanding +than usual in her treatment of her sister, who was +sitting in fidgety curiosity to know what could have been +the subject of the private conference.</p> + +<p>"I s'pose Mara wanted to get some advice about makin' +up her weddin' things," said Miss Ruey, with a sort of +humble quiver, as Miss Roxy began ripping and tearing +fiercely at her old straw bonnet, as if she really purposed +its utter and immediate demolition.</p> + +<p>"No she didn't, neither," said Miss Roxy, fiercely. "I +declare, Ruey, you are silly; your head is always full of +weddin's, weddin's, weddin's—nothin' else—from mornin' +till night, and night till mornin'. I tell you there's +other things have got to be thought of in this world besides +weddin' clothes, and it would be well, if people would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span> +think more o' gettin' their weddin' garments ready for the +kingdom of heaven. That's what Mara's got to think of; +for, mark my words, Ruey, there is no marryin' and givin' +in marriage for her in this world."</p> + +<p>"Why, bless me, Roxy, now you don't say so!" said +Miss Ruey; "why I knew she was kind o' weakly and +ailin', but"—</p> + +<p>"Kind o' weakly and ailin'!" said Miss Roxy, taking +up Miss Ruey's words in a tone of high disgust, "I should +rather think she was; and more'n that, too: she's marked +for death, and that before long, too. It may be that +Moses Pennel'll never see her again—he never half knew +what she was worth—maybe he'll know when he's lost +her, that's one comfort!"</p> + +<p>"But," said Miss Ruey, "everybody has been a-sayin' +what a beautiful color she was a-gettin' in her cheeks."</p> + +<p>"Color in her cheeks!" snorted Miss Roxy; "so does a +rock-maple get color in September and turn all scarlet, and +what for? why, the frost has been at it, and its time is +out. That's what your bright colors stand for. Hain't +you noticed that little gravestone cough, jest the faintest +in the world, and it don't come from a cold, and it hangs +on. I tell you you can't cheat me, she's goin' jest as +Mehitabel went, jest as Sally Ann Smith went, jest as +Louisa Pearson went. I could count now on my fingers +twenty girls that have gone that way. Nobody saw 'em +goin' till they was gone."</p> + +<p>"Well, now, I don't think the old folks have the least +idea on't," said Miss Ruey. "Only last Saturday Mis' +Pennel was a-talkin' to me about the sheets and tablecloths +she's got out a-bleachin'; and she said that the +weddin' dress was to be made over to Mis' Mosely's in +Portland, 'cause Moses he's so particular about havin' +things genteel."</p> + +<p>"Well, Master Moses'll jest have to give up his partic<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</a></span>ular +notions," said Miss Roxy, "and come down in the +dust, like all the rest on us, when the Lord sends an east +wind and withers our gourds. Moses Pennel's one of the +sort that expects to drive all before him with the strong +arm, and sech has to learn that things ain't to go as they +please in the Lord's world. Sech always has to come to +spots that they can't get over nor under nor round, to have +their own way, but jest has to give right up square."</p> + +<p>"Well, Roxy," said Miss Ruey, "how does the poor +little thing take it? Has she got reconciled?"</p> + +<p>"Reconciled! Ruey, how you do ask questions!" said +Miss Roxy, fiercely pulling a bandanna silk handkerchief +out of her pocket, with which she wiped her eyes in a +defiant manner. "Reconciled! It's easy enough to talk, +Ruey, but how would you like it, when everything was +goin' smooth and playin' into your hands, and all the +world smooth and shiny, to be took short up? I guess you +wouldn't be reconciled. That's what I guess."</p> + +<p>"Dear me, Roxy, who said I should?" said Miss Ruey. +"I wa'n't blamin' the poor child, not a grain."</p> + +<p>"Well, who said you was, Ruey?" answered Miss +Roxy, in the same high key.</p> + +<p>"You needn't take my head off," said Aunt Ruey, +roused as much as her adipose, comfortable nature could be. +"You've been a-talkin' at me ever since you came in from +the sink-room, as if I was to blame; and snappin' at me as +if I hadn't a right to ask civil questions; and I won't +stan' it," said Miss Ruey. "And while I'm about it, I'll +say that you always have snubbed me and contradicted and +ordered me round. I won't bear it no longer."</p> + +<p>"Come, Ruey, don't make a fool of yourself at your +time of life," said Miss Roxy. "Things is bad enough in +this world without two lone sisters and church-members +turnin' agin each other. You must take me as I am, +Ruey; my bark's worse than my bite, as you know."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</a></span></p> + +<p>Miss Ruey sank back pacified into her usual state of +pillowy dependence; it was so much easier to be good-natured +than to contend. As for Miss Roxy, if you have +ever carefully examined a chestnut-burr, you will remember +that, hard as it is to handle, no plush of downiest texture +can exceed the satin smoothness of the fibres which line +its heart. There are a class of people in New England +who betray the uprising of the softer feelings of our nature +only by an increase of outward asperity—a sort of bashfulness +and shyness leaves them no power of expression for +these unwonted guests of the heart—they hurry them into +inner chambers and slam the doors upon them, as if they +were vexed at their appearance.</p> + +<p>Now if poor Miss Roxy had been like you, my dear +young lady—if her soul had been encased in a round, +rosy, and comely body, and looked out of tender blue eyes +shaded by golden hair, probably the grief and love she felt +would have shown themselves only in bursts of feeling +most graceful to see, and engaging the sympathy of all; +but this same soul, imprisoned in a dry, angular body, stiff +and old, and looking out under beetling eyebrows, over +withered high cheek-bones, could only utter itself by a +passionate tempest—unlovely utterance of a lovely impulse—dear +only to Him who sees with a Father's heart the +real beauty of spirits. It is our firm faith that bright +solemn angels in celestial watchings were frequent guests in +the homely room of the two sisters, and that passing by all +accidents of age and poverty, withered skins, bony features, +and grotesque movements and shabby clothing, they saw +more real beauty there than in many a scented boudoir +where seeming angels smile in lace and satin.</p> + +<p>"Ruey," said Miss Roxy, in a more composed voice, +while her hard, bony hands still trembled with excitement, +"this 'ere's been on my mind a good while. I hain't said +nothin' to nobody, but I've seen it a-comin'. I always<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</a></span> +thought that child wa'n't for a long life. Lives is run in +different lengths, and nobody can say what's the matter +with some folks, only that their thread's run out; there's +more on one spool and less on another. I thought, when +we laid Hitty in the grave, that I shouldn't never set my +heart on nothin' else—but we can't jest say we will or we +won't. Ef we are to be sorely afflicted at any time, the +Lord lets us set our hearts before we know it. This 'ere's +a great affliction to me, Ruey, but I must jest shoulder my +cross and go through with it. I'm goin' down to-night to +tell the old folks, and to make arrangements so that the +poor little lamb may have the care she needs. She's been +a-keepin' up so long, 'cause she dreaded to let 'em know, +but this 'ere has got to be looked right in the face, and I +hope there'll be grace given to do it."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXXVII</h2> + +<h3>THE VICTORY</h3> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</a></span>Meanwhile Mara had been lying in the passive calm +of fatigue and exhaustion, her eyes fixed on the window, +where, as the white curtain drew inward, she could catch +glimpses of the bay. Gradually her eyelids fell, and she +dropped into that kind of half-waking doze, when the outer +senses are at rest, and the mind is all the more calm and +clear for their repose. In such hours a spiritual clairvoyance +often seems to lift for a while the whole stifling cloud +that lies like a confusing mist over the problem of life, and +the soul has sudden glimpses of things unutterable which +lie beyond. Then the narrow straits, that look so full of +rocks and quicksands, widen into a broad, clear passage, +and one after another, rosy with a celestial dawn, and ringing +silver bells of gladness, the isles of the blessed lift +themselves up on the horizon, and the soul is flooded with +an atmosphere of light and joy. As the burden of Christian +fell off at the cross and was lost in the sepulchre, so +in these hours of celestial vision the whole weight of life's +anguish is lifted, and passes away like a dream; and the +soul, seeing the boundless ocean of Divine love, wherein +all human hopes and joys and sorrows lie so tenderly upholden, +comes and casts the one little drop of its personal +will and personal existence with gladness into that Fatherly +depth. Henceforth, with it, God and Saviour is no more +word of mine and thine, for in that hour the child of earth +feels himself heir of all things: "All things are yours, +and ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's."</p> + + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</a></span>"The child is asleep," said Miss Roxy, as she stole on +tiptoe into the room when their noon meal was prepared. +A plate and knife had been laid for her, and they had +placed for her a tumbler of quaint old engraved glass, +reputed to have been brought over from foreign parts, and +which had been given to Miss Roxy as her share in the +effects of the mysterious Mr. Swadkins. Tea also was +served in some egg-like India china cups, which saw the +light only on the most high and festive occasions.</p> + +<p>"Hadn't you better wake her?" said Miss Ruey; "a +cup of hot tea would do her so much good."</p> + +<p>Miss Ruey could conceive of few sorrows or ailments +which would not be materially better for a cup of hot tea. +If not the very elixir of life, it was indeed the next thing +to it.</p> + +<p>"Well," said Miss Roxy, after laying her hand for a +moment with great gentleness on that of the sleeping girl, +"she don't wake easy, and she's tired; and she seems to +be enjoying it so. The Bible says, 'He giveth his beloved +sleep,' and I won't interfere. I've seen more good come +of sleep than most things in my nursin' experience," said +Miss Roxy, and she shut the door gently, and the two sisters +sat down to their noontide meal.</p> + +<p>"How long the child does sleep!" said Miss Ruey as +the old clock struck four.</p> + +<p>"It was too much for her, this walk down here," said +Aunt Roxy. "She's been doin' too much for a long time. +I'm a-goin' to put an end to that. Well, nobody needn't +say Mara hain't got resolution. I never see a little thing +have more. She always did have, when she was the leastest +little thing. She was always quiet and white and still, +but she did whatever she sot out to."</p> + +<p>At this moment, to their surprise, the door opened, and +Mara came in, and both sisters were struck with a change +that had passed over her. It was more than the result of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</a></span> +mere physical repose. Not only had every sign of weariness +and bodily languor vanished, but there was about her +an air of solemn serenity and high repose that made her +seem, as Miss Ruey afterwards said, "like an angel jest +walked out of the big Bible."</p> + +<p>"Why, dear child, how you have slept, and how bright +and rested you look," said Miss Ruey.</p> + +<p>"I am rested," said Mara; "oh how much! And +happy," she added, laying her little hand on Miss Roxy's +shoulder. "I thank you, dear friend, for all your kindness +to me. I am sorry I made you feel so sadly; but now you +mustn't feel so any more, for all is well—yes, all is well. +I see now that it is so. I have passed beyond sorrow—yes, +forever."</p> + +<p>Soft-hearted Miss Ruey here broke into audible sobbing, +hiding her face in her hands, and looking like a tumbled +heap of old faded calico in a state of convulsion.</p> + +<p>"Dear Aunt Ruey, you mustn't," said Mara, with a +voice of gentle authority. "We mustn't any of us feel so +any more. There is no harm done, no real evil is coming, +only a good which we do not understand. I am perfectly +satisfied—perfectly at rest now. I was foolish and weak +to feel as I did this morning, but I shall not feel so any +more. I shall comfort you all. Is it anything so dreadful +for me to go to heaven? How little while it will be +before you all come to me! Oh, how little—little while!"</p> + +<p>"I told you, Mara, that you'd be supported in the +Lord's time," said Miss Roxy, who watched her with an +air of grave and solemn attention. "First and last, folks +allers is supported; but sometimes there is a long wrestlin'. +The Lord's give you the victory early."</p> + +<p>"Victory!" said the girl, speaking as in a deep muse, +and with a mysterious brightness in her eyes; "yes, that +is the word—it <i>is</i> a victory—no other word expresses it. +Come, Aunt Roxy, we will go home. I am not afraid now<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</a></span> +to tell grandpapa and grandmamma. God will care for +them; He will wipe away all tears."</p> + +<p>"Well, though, you mus'n't think of goin' till you've +had a cup of tea," said Aunt Ruey, wiping her eyes. +"I've kep' the tea-pot hot by the fire, and you must eat a +little somethin', for it's long past dinner-time."</p> + +<p>"Is it?" said Mara. "I had no idea I had slept so +long—how thoughtful and kind you are!"</p> + +<p>"I do wish I could only do more for you," said Miss +Ruey. "I don't seem to get reconciled no ways; it seems +dreffle hard—dreffle; but I'm glad you <i>can</i> feel so;" and +the good old soul proceeded to press upon the child not +only the tea, which she drank with feverish relish, but +every hoarded dainty which their limited housekeeping +commanded.</p> + +<p>It was toward sunset before Miss Roxy and Mara +started on their walk homeward. Their way lay over the +high stony ridge which forms the central part of the island. +On one side, through the pines, they looked out into the +boundless blue of the ocean, and on the other caught +glimpses of Harpswell Bay as it lay glorified in the evening +light. The fresh cool breeze blowing landward brought +with it an invigorating influence, which Mara felt through +all her feverish frame. She walked with an energy to +which she had long been a stranger. She said little, but +there was a sweetness, a repose, in her manner contrasting +singularly with the passionate melancholy which she had +that morning expressed.</p> + +<p>Miss Roxy did not interrupt her meditations. The nature +of her profession had rendered her familiar with all +the changing mental and physical phenomena that attend +the development of disease and the gradual loosening of +the silver cords of a present life. Certain well-understood +phrases everywhere current among the mass of the people +in New England, strikingly tell of the deep foundations of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</a></span> +religious earnestness on which its daily life is built. "A +triumphant death" was a matter often casually spoken of +among the records of the neighborhood; and Miss Roxy +felt that there was a vague and solemn charm about its +approach. Yet the soul of the gray, dry woman was hot +within her, for the conversation of the morning had probed +depths in her own nature of whose existence she had never +before been so conscious. The roughest and most matter-of-fact +minds have a craving for the ideal somewhere; and +often this craving, forbidden by uncomeliness and ungenial +surroundings from having any personal history of its own, +attaches itself to the fortune of some other one in a kind +of strange disinterestedness. Some one young and beautiful +is to live the life denied to them—to be the poem and +the romance; it is the young mistress of the poor black +slave—the pretty sister of the homely old spinster—or the +clever son of the consciously ill-educated father. Something +of this unconscious personal investment had there +been on the part of Miss Roxy in the nursling whose singular +loveliness she had watched for so many years, and on +whose fair virgin orb she had marked the growing shadow +of a fatal eclipse, and as she saw her glowing and serene, +with that peculiar brightness that she felt came from no +earthly presence or influence, she could scarcely keep the +tears from her honest gray eyes.</p> + +<p>When they arrived at the door of the house, Zephaniah +Pennel was sitting in it, looking toward the sunset.</p> + +<p>"Why, reely," he said, "Miss Roxy, we thought you +must a-run away with Mara; she's been gone a'most all +day."</p> + +<p>"I expect she's had enough to talk with Aunt Roxy +about," said Mrs. Pennel. "Girls goin' to get married +have a deal to talk about, what with patterns and contrivin' +and makin' up. But come in, Miss Roxy; we're glad to +see you."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</a></span></p> + +<p>Mara turned to Miss Roxy, and gave her a look of peculiar +meaning. "Aunt Roxy," she said, "you must tell +them what we have been talking about to-day;" and then +she went up to her room and shut the door.</p> + +<p>Miss Roxy accomplished her task with a matter-of-fact +distinctness to which her business-like habits of dealing +with sickness and death had accustomed her, yet with a +sympathetic tremor in her voice which softened the hard +directness of her words. "You can take her over to Portland, +if you say so, and get Dr. Wilson's opinion," she +said, in conclusion. "It's best to have all done that can +be, though in my mind the case is decided."</p> + +<p>The silence that fell between the three was broken at +last by the sound of a light footstep descending the stairs, +and Mara entered among them.</p> + +<p>She came forward and threw her arms round Mrs. Pennel's +neck, and kissed her; and then turning, she nestled +down in the arms of her old grandfather, as she had often +done in the old days of childhood, and laid her hand upon +his shoulder. There was no sound for a few moments but +one of suppressed weeping; but <i>she</i> did not weep—she +lay with bright calm eyes, as if looking upon some celestial +vision.</p> + +<p>"It is not so very sad," she said at last, in a gentle +voice, "that I should go there; you are going, too, and +grandmamma; we are all going; and we shall be forever +with the Lord. Think of it! think of it!"</p> + +<p>Many were the words spoken in that strange communing; +and before Miss Roxy went away, a calmness of solemn +rest had settled down on all. The old family Bible +was brought forth, and Zephaniah Pennel read from it +those strange words of strong consolation, which take the +sting from death and the victory from the grave:—</p> + +<p>"And I heard a great voice out of heaven. Behold the +tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</a></span> +them, and they shall be his people; and God himself shall +be with them and be their God. And God shall wipe away +all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, +neither sorrow nor crying, for the former things are passed +away."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXXVIII</h2> + +<h3>OPEN VISION</h3> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</a></span>As Miss Roxy was leaving the dwelling of the Pennels, +she met Sally Kittridge coming toward the house, laughing +and singing, as was her wont. She raised her long, lean +forefinger with a gesture of warning.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter now, Aunt Roxy? You look as +solemn as a hearse."</p> + +<p>"None o' your jokin' now, Miss Sally; there <i>is</i> such a +thing as serious things in this 'ere world of our'n, for all +you girls never seems to know it."</p> + +<p>"What is the matter, Aunt Roxy?—has anything happened?—is +anything the matter with Mara?"</p> + +<p>"Matter enough. I've known it a long time," said +Miss Roxy. "She's been goin' down for three months +now; and she's got that on her that will carry her off before +the year's out."</p> + +<p>"Pshaw, Aunt Roxy! how lugubriously you old nurses +always talk! I hope now you haven't been filling Mara's +head with any such notions—people can be frightened +into anything."</p> + +<p>"Sally Kittridge, don't be a-talkin' of what you don't +know nothin' about! It stands to reason that a body that +was bearin' the heat and burden of the day long before +you was born or thought on in this world <i>should</i> know a +thing or two more'n you. Why, I've laid you on your +stomach and trotted you to trot up the wind many a day, +and I was pretty experienced then, and it ain't likely that +I'm a-goin' to take sa'ce from you. Mara Pennel is a gal<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</a></span> +as has every bit and grain as much resolution and ambition +as you have, for all you flap your wings and crow +so much louder, and she's one of the close-mouthed sort, +that don't make no talk, and she's been a-bearin' up and +bearin' up, and comin' to me on the sly for strengthenin' +things. She's took camomile and orange-peel, and snake-root +and boneset, and dash-root and dandelion—and there +hain't nothin' done her no good. She told me to-day she +couldn't keep up no longer, and I've been a-tellin' Mis' +Pennel and her grand'ther. I tell you it has been a solemn +time; and if you're goin' in, don't go in with none o' your +light triflin' ways, 'cause 'as vinegar upon nitre is he that +singeth songs on a heavy heart,' the Scriptur' says."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Miss Roxy, do tell me truly," said Sally, much +moved. "What do you think is the matter with Mara? +I've noticed myself that she got tired easy, and that she +was short-breathed—but she seemed so cheerful. Can +anything really be the matter?"</p> + +<p>"It's consumption, Sally Kittridge," said Miss Roxy, +"neither more nor less; that ar is the long and the short. +They're going to take her over to Portland to see Dr. +Wilson—it won't do no harm, and it won't do no good."</p> + +<p>"You seem to be determined she shall die," said Sally +in a tone of pique.</p> + +<p>"Determined, am I? Is it I that determines that the +maple leaves shall fall next October? Yet I know they +will—folks can't help knowin' what they know, and shuttin' +one's eyes won't alter one's road. I s'pose you think +'cause you're young and middlin' good-lookin' that you +have feelin's and I hasn't; well, you're mistaken, that's +all. I don't believe there's one person in the world that +would go farther or do more to save Mara Pennel than I +would,—and yet I've been in the world long enough +to see that livin' ain't no great shakes neither. Ef one +is hopefully prepared in the days of their youth, why<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</a></span> +they escape a good deal, ef they get took cross-lots into +heaven."</p> + +<p>Sally turned away thoughtfully into the house; there +was no one in the kitchen, and the tick of the old clock +sounded lonely and sepulchral. She went upstairs to +Mara's room; the door was ajar. Mara was sitting at the +open window that looked forth toward the ocean, busily engaged +in writing. The glow of evening shone on the golden +waves of her hair, and tinged the pearly outline of her +cheek. Sally noticed the translucent clearness of her complexion, +and the deep burning color and the transparency +of the little hands, which seemed as if they might transmit +the light like Sèvres porcelain. She was writing with an +expression of tender calm, and sometimes stopping to consult +an open letter that Sally knew came from Moses.</p> + +<p>So fair and sweet and serene she looked that a painter +might have chosen her for an embodiment of twilight, and +one might not be surprised to see a clear star shining out +over her forehead. Yet in the tender serenity of the face +there dwelt a pathos of expression that spoke of struggles +and sufferings past, like the traces of tears on the face of +a restful infant that has grieved itself to sleep.</p> + +<p>Sally came softly in on tiptoe, threw her arms around +her, and kissed her, with a half laugh, then bursting into +tears, sobbed upon her shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Dear Sally, what is the matter?" said Mara, looking up.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mara, I just met Miss Roxy, and she told me"—</p> + +<p>Sally only sobbed passionately.</p> + +<p>"It is very sad to make all one's friends so unhappy," +said Mara, in a soothing voice, stroking Sally's hair. +"You don't know how much I have suffered dreading it. +Sally, it is a long time since I began to expect and dread +and fear. My time of anguish was then—then when I +first felt that it could be possible that I should not live +after all. There was a long time I dared not even think<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</a></span> +of it; I could not even tell such a fear to myself; and I +did far more than I felt able to do to convince myself that +I was not weak and failing. I have been often to Miss +Roxy, and once, when nobody knew it, I went to a doctor +in Brunswick, but then I was afraid to tell him half, lest +he should say something about me, and it should get out; +and so I went on getting worse and worse, and feeling +every day as if I could not keep up, and yet afraid to lie +down for fear grandmamma would suspect me. But this +morning it was pleasant and bright, and something came +over me that said I <i>must</i> tell somebody, and so, as it was +cool and pleasant, I walked up to Aunt Roxy's and told +her. I thought, you know, that she knew the most, and +would feel it the least; but oh, Sally, she has such a feeling +heart, and loves me so; it is strange she should."</p> + +<p>"Is it?" said Sally, tightening her clasp around Mara's +neck; and then with a hysterical shadow of gayety she +said, "I suppose you think that you are such a hobgoblin +that nobody could be expected to do that. After all, +though, I should have as soon expected roses to bloom in a +juniper clump as love from Aunt Roxy."</p> + +<p>"Well, she does love me," said Mara. "No mother +could be kinder. Poor thing, she really sobbed and cried +when I told her. I was very tired, and she told me she +would take care of me, and tell grandpapa and grandmamma,—<i>that</i> +had been lying on my heart as such a +dreadful thing to do,—and she laid me down to rest on +her bed, and spoke so lovingly to me! I wish you could +have seen her. And while I lay there, I fell into a strange, +sweet sort of rest. I can't describe it; but since then +everything has been changed. I wish I could tell any one +how I saw things then."</p> + +<p>"Do try to tell me, Mara," said Sally, "for I need +comfort too, if there is any to be had."</p> + +<p>"Well, then, I lay on the bed, and the wind drew in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[Pg 362]</a></span> +from the sea and just lifted the window-curtain, and I +could see the sea shining and hear the waves making a +pleasant little dash, and then my head seemed to swim. I +thought I was walking out by the pleasant shore, and +everything seemed so strangely beautiful, and grandpapa +and grandmamma were there, and Moses had come home, +and you were there, and we were all so happy. And then +I felt a sort of strange sense that something was coming—some +great trial or affliction—and I groaned and clung +to Moses, and asked him to put his arm around me and +hold me.</p> + +<p>"Then it seemed to be not by our seashore that this +was happening, but by the Sea of Galilee, just as it tells +about it in the Bible, and there were fishermen mending +their nets, and men sitting counting their money, and I +saw Jesus come walking along, and heard him say to this +one and that one, 'Leave all and follow me,' and it seemed +that the moment he spoke they did it, and then he came +to me, and I felt his eyes in my very soul, and he said, +'Wilt <i>thou</i> leave <i>all</i> and follow me?' I cannot tell now +what a pain I felt—what an anguish. I wanted to leave +all, but my heart felt as if it were tied and woven with a +thousand threads, and while I waited he seemed to fade +away, and I found myself then alone and unhappy, wishing +that I could, and mourning that I had not; and then something +shone out warm like the sun, and I looked up, and +he stood there looking pitifully, and he said again just as +he did before, 'Wilt thou leave all and follow me?' +Every word was so gentle and full of pity, and I looked +into his eyes and could not look away; they drew me, they +warmed me, and I felt a strange, wonderful sense of his +greatness and sweetness. It seemed as if I felt within me +cord after cord breaking, I felt so free, so happy; and I +said, 'I will, I will, with all my heart;' and I woke then, +so happy, so sure of God's love.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I saw so clearly how his love is in everything, and +these words came into my mind as if an angel had spoken +them, 'God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.' +Since then I cannot be unhappy. I was so myself only this +morning, and now I wonder that any one can have a grief +when God is so loving and good, and cares so sweetly for +us all. Why, Sally, if I could see Christ and hear him +speak, I could not be more certain that he will make this +sorrow such a blessing to us all that we shall never be able +to thank him enough for it."</p> + +<p>"Oh Mara," said Sally, sighing deeply, while her cheek +was wet with tears, "it is beautiful to hear you talk; but +there is one that I am sure will not and cannot feel so."</p> + +<p>"God will care for him," said Mara; "oh, I am sure of +it; He is love itself, and He values his love in us, and He +never, never would have brought such a trial, if it had not +been the true and only way to our best good. We shall +not shed one needless tear. Yes, if God loved us so that +he spared not his own Son, he will surely give us all the +good here that we possibly can have without risking our +eternal happiness."</p> + +<p>"You are writing to Moses, now?" said Sally.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I am answering his letter; it is so full of spirit +and life and hope—but all hope in this world—all, all +earthly, as much as if there was no God and no world to +come. Sally, perhaps our Father saw that I could not +have strength to live with him and keep my faith. I +should be drawn by him earthward instead of drawing him +heavenward; and so this is in mercy to us both."</p> + +<p>"And are you telling him the whole truth, Mara?"</p> + +<p>"Not all, no," said Mara; "he could not bear it at once. +I only tell him that my health is failing, and that my +friends are seriously alarmed, and then I speak as if it were +doubtful, in my mind, what the result might be."</p> + +<p>"I don't think you can make him feel as you do.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</a></span> +Moses Pennel has a tremendous will, and he never yielded +to any one. You bend, Mara, like the little blue harebells, +and so the storm goes over you; but he will stand +up against it, and it will wrench and shatter him. I am +afraid, instead of making him better, it will only make him +bitter and rebellious."</p> + +<p>"He has a Father in heaven who knows how to care for +him," said Mara. "I am persuaded—I feel certain that +he will be blessed in the end; not perhaps in the time and +way I should have chosen, but in the end. I have always +felt that he was mine, ever since he came a little shipwrecked +boy to me—a little girl. And now I have given +him up to his Saviour and my Saviour—to his God and +my God—and I am perfectly at peace. All will be well."</p> + +<p>Mara spoke with a look of such solemn, bright assurance +as made her, in the dusky, golden twilight, seem like some +serene angel sent down to comfort, rather than a hapless +mortal just wrenched from life and hope.</p> + +<p>Sally rose up and kissed her silently. "Mara," she +said, "I shall come to-morrow to see what I can do for +you. I will not interrupt you now. Good-by, dear."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>There are no doubt many, who have followed this history +so long as it danced like a gay little boat over sunny +waters, and who would have followed it gayly to the end, +had it closed with ringing of marriage-bells, who turn from +it indignantly, when they see that its course runs through +the dark valley. This, they say, is an imposition, a +trick upon our feelings. We want to read only stories +which end in joy and prosperity.</p> + +<p>But have we then settled it in our own mind that there +is no such thing as a fortunate issue in a history which +does not terminate in the way of earthly success and good +fortune? Are we Christians or heathen? It is now eighteen +centuries since, as we hold, the "highly favored among<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</a></span> +women" was pronounced to be one whose earthly hopes +were all cut off in the blossom,—whose noblest and dearest +in the morning of his days went down into the shadows +of death.</p> + +<p>Was Mary the highly-favored among women, and was +Jesus indeed the blessed,—or was the angel mistaken? +If they were these, if we are Christians, it ought to be a +settled and established habit of our souls to regard something +else as prosperity than worldly success and happy +marriages. That life is a success which, like the life of +Jesus, in its beginning, middle, and close, has borne a +perfect witness to the truth and the highest form of truth. +It is true that God has given to us, and inwoven in our +nature a desire for a perfection and completeness made +manifest to our senses in this mortal life. To see the +daughter bloom into youth and womanhood, the son into +manhood, to see them marry and become themselves parents, +and gradually ripen and develop in the maturities of middle +life, gradually wear into a sunny autumn, and so be gathered +in fullness of time to their fathers,—such, one says, +is the programme which God has made us to desire; such +the ideal of happiness which he has interwoven with our +nerves, and for which our heart and our flesh crieth out; +to which every stroke of a knell is a violence, and every +thought of an early death is an abhorrence.</p> + +<p>But the life of Christ and his mother sets the foot on +this lower ideal of happiness, and teaches us that there is +something higher. His ministry began with declaring, +"Blessed are they that mourn." It has been well said +that prosperity was the blessing of the Old Testament, and +adversity of the New. Christ came to show us a nobler +style of living and bearing; and so far as he had a personal +and earthly life, he buried it as a corner-stone on which to +erect a new immortal style of architecture.</p> + +<p>Of his own, he had nothing, neither houses, nor lands,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[Pg 366]</a></span> +nor family ties, nor human hopes, nor earthly sphere of +success; and as a human life, it was all a sacrifice and a +defeat. He was rejected by his countrymen, whom the +passionate anguish of his love and the unwearied devotion +of his life could not save from an awful doom. He was +betrayed by weak friends, prevailed against by slanderers, +overwhelmed with an ignominious death in the morning of +youth, and his mother stood by his cross, and she was the +only woman whom God ever called highly favored in this +world.</p> + +<p>This, then, is the great and perfect ideal of what God +honors. Christ speaks of himself as bread to be eaten,—bread, +simple, humble, unpretending, vitally necessary to +human life, made by the bruising and grinding of the grain, +unostentatiously having no life or worth of its own except +as it is absorbed into the life of others and lives in them. +We wished in this history to speak of a class of lives +formed on the model of Christ, and like his, obscure and +unpretending, like his, seeming to end in darkness and +defeat, but which yet have this preciousness and value that +the dear saints who live them come nearest in their mission +to the mission of Jesus. They are made, not for a career +and history of their own, but to be bread of life to others. +In every household or house have been some of these, and +if we look on their lives and deaths with the unbaptized +eyes of nature, we shall see only most mournful and unaccountable +failure, when, if we could look with the eye +of faith, we should see that their living and dying has been +bread of life to those they left behind. Fairest of these, +and least developed, are the holy innocents who come into +our households to smile with the smile of angels, who sleep +in our bosoms, and win us with the softness of tender little +hands, and pass away like the lamb that was slain before +they have ever learned the speech of mortals. Not vain +are even these silent lives of Christ's lambs, whom many<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[Pg 367]</a></span> +an earth-bound heart has been roused to follow when the +Shepherd bore them to the higher pastures. And so the +daughter who died so early, whose wedding-bells were +never rung except in heaven,—the son who had no career +of ambition or a manly duty except among the angels,—the +patient sufferers, whose only lot on earth seemed to be +to endure, whose life bled away drop by drop in the shadows +of the sick-room—all these are among those whose +life was like Christ's in that they were made, not for themselves, +but to become bread to us.</p> + +<p>It is expedient for us that they go away. Like their +Lord, they come to suffer, and to die; they take part in +his sacrifice; their life is incomplete without their death, +and not till they are gone away does the Comforter fully +come to us.</p> + +<p>It is a beautiful legend which one sees often represented +in the churches of Europe, that when the grave of the +mother of Jesus was opened, it was found full of blossoming +lilies,—fit emblem of the thousand flowers of holy +thought and purpose which spring up in our hearts from +the memory of our sainted dead.</p> + +<p>Cannot many, who read these lines, bethink them of +such rooms that have been the most cheerful places in the +family,—when the heart of the smitten one seemed the +band that bound all the rest together,—and have there not +been dying hours which shed such a joy and radiance on +all around, that it was long before the mourners remembered +to mourn? Is it not a misuse of words to call such +a heavenly translation <i>death</i>? and to call most things that +are lived out on this earth <i>life</i>?</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXXIX</h2> + +<h3>THE LAND OF BEULAH</h3> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[Pg 368]</a></span>It is now about a month after the conversation which +we have recorded, and during that time the process which +was to loose from this present life had been going on in +Mara with a soft, insensible, but steady power. When +she ceased to make efforts beyond her strength, and allowed +herself that languor and repose which nature claimed, all +around her soon became aware how her strength was failing; +and yet a cheerful repose seemed to hallow the atmosphere +around her. The sight of her every day in family +worship, sitting by in such tender tranquillity, with such +a smile on her face, seemed like a present inspiration. And +though the aged pair knew that she was no more for this +world, yet she was comforting and inspiring to their view +as the angel who of old rolled back the stone from the sepulchre +and sat upon it. They saw in her eyes, not death, +but the solemn victory which Christ gives over death.</p> + +<p>Bunyan has no more lovely poem than the image he +gives of that land of pleasant waiting which borders the +river of death, where the chosen of the Lord repose, while +shining messengers, constantly passing and repassing, bear +tidings from the celestial shore, opening a way between +earth and heaven. It was so, that through the very +thought of Mara an influence of tenderness and tranquillity +passed through the whole neighborhood, keeping hearts +fresh with sympathy, and causing thought and conversation +to rest on those bright mysteries of eternal joy which were +reflected on her face.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[Pg 369]</a></span></p> + +<p>Sally Kittridge was almost a constant inmate of the +brown house, ever ready in watching and waiting; and one +only needed to mark the expression of her face to feel that +a holy charm was silently working upon her higher and +spiritual nature. Those great, dark, sparkling eyes that +once seemed to express only the brightness of animal vivacity, +and glittered like a brook in unsympathetic gayety, +had in them now mysterious depths, and tender, fleeting +shadows, and the very tone of her voice had a subdued +tremor. The capricious elf, the tricksy sprite, was melting +away in the immortal soul, and the deep pathetic power +of a noble heart was being born. Some influence sprung +of sorrow is necessary always to perfect beauty in womanly +nature. We feel its absence in many whose sparkling wit +and high spirits give grace and vivacity to life, but in +whom we vainly seek for some spot of quiet tenderness +and sympathetic repose. Sally was, ignorantly to herself, +changing in the expression of her face and the tone of her +character, as she ministered in the daily wants which sickness +brings in a simple household.</p> + +<p>For the rest of the neighborhood, the shelves and larder +of Mrs. Pennel were constantly crowded with the tributes +which one or another sent in for the invalid. There was +jelly of Iceland moss sent across by Miss Emily, and +brought by Mr. Sewell, whose calls were almost daily. +There were custards and preserves, and every form of cake +and other confections in which the housekeeping talent of +the neighbors delighted, and which were sent in under the +old superstition that sick people must be kept eating at all +hazards.</p> + +<p>At church, Sunday after Sunday, the simple note requested +the prayers of the church and congregation for +Mara Lincoln, who was, as the note phrased it, drawing +near her end, that she and all concerned might be prepared +for the great and last change. One familiar with New<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[Pg 370]</a></span> +England customs must have remembered with what a plaintive +power the reading of such a note, from Sunday to +Sunday, has drawn the thoughts and sympathies of a congregation +to some chamber of sickness; and in a village +church, where every individual is known from childhood +to every other, the power of this simple custom is still +greater.</p> + +<p>Then the prayers of the minister would dwell on the +case, and thanks would be rendered to God for the great +light and peace with which he had deigned to visit his +young handmaid; and then would follow a prayer that +when these sad tidings should reach a distant friend who +had gone down to do business on the great waters, they +might be sanctified to his spiritual and everlasting good. +Then on Sunday noons, as the people ate their dinners together +in a room adjoining the church, all that she said and +did was talked over and over,—how quickly she had +gained the victory of submission, the peace of a will united +with God's, mixed with harmless gossip of the sick chamber,—as +to what she ate and how she slept, and who +had sent her gruel with raisins in it, and who jelly with +wine, and how she had praised this and eaten that twice +with a relish, but how the other had seemed to disagree +with her. Thereafter would come scraps of nursing information, +recipes against coughing, specifics against short +breath, speculations about watchers, how soon she would +need them, and long legends of other death-beds where +the fear of death had been slain by the power of an endless +life.</p> + +<p>Yet through all the gossip, and through much that +might have been called at other times commonplace cant of +religion, there was spread a tender earnestness, and the +whole air seemed to be enchanted with the fragrance of +that fading rose. Each one spoke more gently, more lovingly +to each, for the thought of her.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[Pg 371]</a></span></p> + +<p>It was now a bright September morning, and the early +frosts had changed the maples in the pine-woods to scarlet, +and touched the white birches with gold, when one morning +Miss Roxy presented herself at an early hour at Captain +Kittridge's.</p> + +<p>They were at breakfast, and Sally was dispensing the +tea at the head of the table, Mrs. Kittridge having been +prevailed on to abdicate in her favor.</p> + +<p>"It is such a fine morning," she said, looking out at the +window, which showed a waveless expanse of ocean. "I +do hope Mara has had a good night."</p> + +<p>"I'm a-goin' to make her some jelly this very forenoon," +said Mrs. Kittridge. "Aunt Roxy was a-tellin' +me yesterday that she was a-goin' down to stay at the +house regular, for she needed so much done now."</p> + +<p>"It's 'most an amazin' thing we don't hear from Moses +Pennel," said Captain Kittridge. "If he don't make haste, +he may never see her."</p> + +<p>"There's Aunt Roxy at this minute," said Sally.</p> + +<p>In truth, the door opened at this moment, and Aunt +Roxy entered with a little blue bandbox and a bundle tied +up in a checked handkerchief.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Aunt Roxy," said Mrs. Kittridge, "you are on +your way, are you? Do sit down, right here, and get a +cup of strong tea."</p> + +<p>"Thank you," said Aunt Roxy, "but Ruey gave me a +humming cup before I came away."</p> + +<p>"Aunt Roxy, have they heard anything from Moses?" +said the Captain.</p> + +<p>"No, father, I know they haven't," said Sally. "Mara +has written to him, and so has Mr. Sewell, but it is very +uncertain whether he ever got the letters."</p> + +<p>"It's most time to be a-lookin' for him home," said the +Captain. "I shouldn't be surprised to see him any day."</p> + +<p>At this moment Sally, who sat where she could see from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[Pg 372]</a></span> +the window, gave a sudden start and a half scream, and +rising from the table, darted first to the window and then +to the door, whence she rushed out eagerly.</p> + +<p>"Well, what now?" said the Captain.</p> + +<p>"I am sure I don't know what's come over her," said +Mrs. Kittridge, rising to look out.</p> + +<p>"Why, Aunt Roxy, do look; I believe to my soul that +ar's Moses Pennel!"</p> + +<p>And so it was. He met Sally, as she ran out, with a +gloomy brow and scarcely a look even of recognition; but +he seized her hand and wrung it in the stress of his emotion +so that she almost screamed with the pain.</p> + +<p>"Tell me, Sally," he said, "tell me the truth. I dared +not go home without I knew. Those gossiping, lying +reports are always exaggerated. They are dreadful exaggerations,—they +frighten a sick person into the grave; +but you have good sense and a hopeful, cheerful temper,—you +must see and know how things are. Mara is not +so very—very"—He held Sally's hand and looked at +her with a burning eagerness. "Say, what do you think +of her?"</p> + +<p>"We all think that we cannot long keep her with us," +said Sally. "And oh, Moses, I am so glad you have +come."</p> + +<p>"It's false,—it must be false," he said, violently; +"nothing is more deceptive than these ideas that doctors +and nurses pile on when a sensitive person is going down +a little. I know Mara; everything depends on the mind +with her. I shall wake her up out of this dream. She is +not to die. She shall not die,—I come to save her."</p> + +<p>"Oh, if you could!" said Sally, mournfully.</p> + +<p>"It cannot be; it is not to be," he said again, as if to +convince himself. "No such thing is to be thought of. +Tell me, Sally, have you tried to keep up the cheerful side +of things to her,—have you?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[Pg 373]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh, you cannot tell, Moses, how it is, unless you see +her. She is cheerful, happy; the only really joyous one +among us."</p> + +<p>"Cheerful! joyous! happy! She does not believe, then, +these frightful things? I thought she would keep up; she +is a brave little thing."</p> + +<p>"No, Moses, she does believe. She has given up all +hope of life,—all wish to live; and oh, she is so lovely,—so +sweet,—so dear."</p> + +<p>Sally covered her face with her hands and sobbed. +Moses stood still, looking at her a moment in a confused +way, and then he answered,—</p> + +<p>"Come, get your bonnet, Sally, and go with me. You +must go in and tell them; tell her that I am come, you +know."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I will," said Sally, as she ran quickly back to the +house.</p> + +<p>Moses stood listlessly looking after her. A moment +after she came out of the door again, and Miss Roxy behind. +Sally hurried up to Moses.</p> + +<p>"Where's that black old raven going?" said Moses, in +a low voice, looking back on Miss Roxy, who stood on the +steps.</p> + +<p>"What, Aunt Roxy?" said Sally; "why, she's going +up to nurse Mara, and take care of her. Mrs. Pennel is +so old and infirm she needs somebody to depend on."</p> + +<p>"I can't bear her," said Moses. "I always think of +sick-rooms and coffins and a stifling smell of camphor when +I see her. I never could endure her. She's an old harpy +going to carry off my dove."</p> + +<p>"Now, Moses, you must <i>not</i> talk so. She loves Mara +dearly, the poor old soul, and Mara loves her, and there is +no earthly thing she would not do for her. And she knows +what to do for sickness better than you or I. I have +found out one thing, that it isn't mere love and good-will<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[Pg 374]</a></span> +that is needed in a sick-room; it needs knowledge and +experience."</p> + +<p>Moses assented in gloomy silence, and they walked on +together the way that they had so often taken laughing and +chatting. When they came within sight of the house, +Moses said,—</p> + +<p>"Here she came running to meet us; do you remember?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Sally.</p> + +<p>"I was never half worthy of her. I never said half +what I ought to," he added. "She <i>must</i> live! I must +have one more chance."</p> + +<p>When they came up to the house, Zephaniah Pennel was +sitting in the door, with his gray head bent over the leaves +of the great family Bible.</p> + +<p>He rose up at their coming, and with that suppression +of all external signs of feeling for which the New Englander +is remarkable, simply shook the hand of Moses, +saying,—</p> + +<p>"Well, my boy, we are glad you have come."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Pennel, who was busied in some domestic work in +the back part of the kitchen, turned away and hid her face +in her apron when she saw him. There fell a great silence +among them, in the midst of which the old clock ticked +loudly and importunately, like the inevitable approach of +fate.</p> + +<p>"I will go up and see her, and get her ready," said +Sally, in a whisper to Moses. "I'll come and call you."</p> + +<p>Moses sat down and looked around on the old familiar +scene; there was the great fireplace where, in their childish +days, they had sat together winter nights,—her fair, spiritual +face enlivened by the blaze, while she knit and looked +thoughtfully into the coals; there she had played checkers, +or fox and geese, with him; or studied with him the Latin +lessons; or sat by, grave and thoughtful, hemming his toy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[Pg 375]</a></span>ship +sails, while he cut the moulds for his anchors, or tried +experiments on pulleys; and in all these years he could +not remember one selfish action,—one unlovely word,—and +he thought to himself, "I hoped to possess this angel +as a mortal wife! God forgive my presumption."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XL" id="CHAPTER_XL"></a>CHAPTER XL</h2> + +<h3>THE MEETING</h3> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[Pg 376]</a></span>Sally found Mara sitting in an easy-chair that had been +sent to her by the provident love of Miss Emily. It was +wheeled in front of her room window, from whence she +could look out upon the wide expanse of the ocean. It +was a gloriously bright, calm morning, and the water lay +clear and still, with scarce a ripple, to the far distant pearly +horizon. She seemed to be looking at it in a kind of calm +ecstasy, and murmuring the words of a hymn:—</p> + +<p style="margin-left:2em"> +"Nor wreck nor ruin there is seen,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">There not a wave of trouble rolls,</span><br /> +But the bright rainbow round the throne<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Peals endless peace to all their souls."</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Sally came softly behind her on tiptoe to kiss her. +"Good-morning, dear, how do you find yourself?"</p> + +<p>"Quite well," was the answer.</p> + +<p>"Mara, is not there anything you want?"</p> + +<p>"There might be many things; but His will is mine."</p> + +<p>"You want to see Moses?"</p> + +<p>"Very much; but I shall see him as soon as it is best +for us both."</p> + +<p>"Mara,—he is come."</p> + +<p>The quick blood flushed over the pale, transparent face +as a virgin glacier flushes at sunrise, and she looked up +eagerly. "Come!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, he is below-stairs wanting to see you."</p> + +<p>She seemed about to speak eagerly, and then checked +herself and mused a moment. "Poor, poor boy!" she +said. "Yes, Sally, let him come at once."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[Pg 377]</a></span></p> + +<p>There were a few dazzling, dreamy minutes when Moses +first held that frail form in his arms, which but for its +tender, mortal warmth, might have seemed to him a spirit. +It was no spirit, but a woman whose heart he could feel +thrilling against his own; who seemed to him like some +frail, fluttering bird; but somehow, as he looked into her +clear, transparent face, and pressed her thin little hands in +his, the conviction stole over him overpoweringly that she +was indeed fading away and going from him,—drawn from +him by that mysterious, irresistible power against which +human strength, even in the strongest, has no chance.</p> + +<p>It is dreadful to a strong man who has felt the influence +of his strength,—who has always been ready with a resource +for every emergency, and a weapon for every battle,—when +first he meets that mighty invisible power by +which a beloved life—a life he would give his own blood +to save—melts and dissolves like smoke before his eyes.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mara, Mara," he groaned, "this is too dreadful, +too cruel; it is cruel."</p> + +<p>"You will think so at first, but not always," she said, +soothingly. "You will live to see a joy come out of this +sorrow."</p> + +<p>"Never, Mara, never. I cannot believe that kind of +talk. I see no love, no mercy in it. Of course, if there +is any life after death you will be happy; if there is a +heaven you will be there; but can this dim, unsubstantial, +cloudy prospect make you happy in leaving me and +giving up one's lover? Oh, Mara, you cannot love as I +do, or you could not"—</p> + +<p>"Moses, I have suffered,—oh, very, very much. It +was many months ago when I first thought that I must +give everything up,—when I thought that we must part; +but Christ helped me; he showed me his wonderful love,—the +love that surrounds us all our life, that follows us +in all our wanderings, and sustains us in all our weak<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[Pg 378]</a></span>nesses,—and +then I felt that whatever He wills for us is +in love; oh, believe it,—believe it for my sake, for your +own."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I cannot, I cannot," said Moses; but as he looked +at the bright, pale face, and felt how the tempest of his +feelings shook the frail form, he checked himself. "I do +wrong to agitate you so, Mara. I will try to be calm."</p> + +<p>"And to pray?" she said, beseechingly.</p> + +<p>He shut his lips in gloomy silence.</p> + +<p>"Promise me," she said.</p> + +<p>"I have prayed ever since I got your first letter, and I +see it does no good," he answered. "Our prayers cannot +alter fate."</p> + +<p>"Fate! there is no fate," she answered; "there is a +strong and loving Father who guides the way, though we +know it not. We cannot resist His will; but it is all love,—pure, +pure love."</p> + +<p>At this moment Sally came softly into the room. A +gentle air of womanly authority seemed to express itself in +that once gay and giddy face, at which Moses, in the midst +of his misery, marveled.</p> + +<p>"You must not stay any longer now," she said; "it +would be too much for her strength; this is enough for +this morning."</p> + +<p>Moses turned away, and silently left the room, and Sally +said to Mara,—</p> + +<p>"You must lie down now, and rest."</p> + +<p>"Sally," said Mara, "promise me one thing."</p> + +<p>"Well, Mara; of course I will."</p> + +<p>"Promise to love him and care for him when I am gone; +he will be so lonely."</p> + +<p>"I will do all I can, Mara," said Sally, soothingly; "so +now you must take a little wine and lie down. You know +what you have so often said, that all will yet be well with +him."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[Pg 379]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh, I know it, I am sure," said Mara, "but oh, his +sorrow shook my very heart."</p> + +<p>"You must not talk another word about it," said Sally, +peremptorily, "Do you know Aunt Roxy is coming to +see you? I see her out of the window this very moment."</p> + +<p>And Sally assisted to lay her friend on the bed, and +then, administering a stimulant, she drew down the curtains, +and, sitting beside her, began repeating, in a soft +monotonous tone, the words of a favorite hymn:—</p> + +<p> +"The Lord my shepherd is,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I shall be well supplied;</span><br /> +Since He is mine, and I am His,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">What can I want beside?"</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Before she had finished, Mara was asleep.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLI" id="CHAPTER_XLI"></a>CHAPTER XLI</h2> + +<h3>CONSOLATION</h3> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[Pg 380]</a></span>Moses came down from the chamber of Mara in a tempest +of contending emotions. He had all that constitutional +horror of death and the spiritual world which is an +attribute of some particularly strong and well-endowed physical +natures, and he had all that instinctive resistance of +the will which such natures offer to anything which strikes +athwart their cherished hopes and plans. To be wrenched +suddenly from the sphere of an earthly life and made to +confront the unclosed doors of a spiritual world on the +behalf of the one dearest to him, was to him a dreary horror +uncheered by one filial belief in God. He felt, furthermore, +that blind animal irritation which assails one under +a sudden blow, whether of the body or of the soul,—an +anguish of resistance, a vague blind anger.</p> + +<p>Mr. Sewell was sitting in the kitchen,—he had called +to see Mara, and waited for the close of the interview +above. He rose and offered his hand to Moses, who took +it in gloomy silence, without a smile or word.</p> + +<p>"'My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord,'" +said Mr. Sewell.</p> + +<p>"I cannot bear that sort of thing," said Moses abruptly, +and almost fiercely. "I beg your pardon, sir, but it irritates +me."</p> + +<p>"Do you not believe that afflictions are sent for our +improvement?" said Mr. Sewell.</p> + +<p>"No! how can I? What improvement will there be to +me in taking from me the angel who guided me to all good,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">[Pg 381]</a></span> +and kept me from all evil; the one pure motive and holy +influence of my life? If you call this the chastening of a +loving father, I must say it looks more to me like the +caprice of an evil spirit."</p> + +<p>"Had you ever thanked the God of your life for this +gift, or felt your dependence on him to keep it? Have +you not blindly idolized the creature and forgotten Him +who gave it?" said Mr. Sewell.</p> + +<p>Moses was silent a moment.</p> + +<p>"I cannot believe there is a God," he said. "Since this +fear came on me I have prayed,—yes, and humbled myself; +for I know I have not always been what I ought. I +promised if he would grant me this one thing, I would seek +him in future; but it did no good,—it's of no use to +pray. I would have been good in this way, if she might +be spared, and I cannot in any other."</p> + +<p>"My son, our Lord and Master will have no such conditions +from us," said Mr. Sewell. "We must submit +unconditionally. <i>She</i> has done it, and her peace is as firm +as the everlasting hills. God's will is a great current that +flows in spite of us; if we go with it, it carries us to +endless rest,—if we resist, we only wear our lives out in +useless struggles."</p> + +<p>Moses stood a moment in silence, and then, turning away +without a word, hurried from the house. He strode along +the high rocky bluff, through tangled junipers and pine +thickets, till he came above the rocky cove which had been +his favorite retreat on so many occasions. He swung himself +down over the cliffs into the grotto, where, shut in by +the high tide, he felt himself alone. There he had read +Mr. Sewell's letter, and dreamed vain dreams of wealth +and worldly success, now all to him so void. He felt to-day, +as he sat there and watched the ships go by, how +utterly nothing all the wealth in the world was, in the +loss of that one heart. Unconsciously, even to himself,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">[Pg 382]</a></span> +sorrow was doing her ennobling ministry within him, melting +off in her fierce fires trivial ambitions and low desires, +and making him feel the sole worth and value of love. +That which in other days had seemed only as one good +thing among many now seemed the <i>only</i> thing in life. +And he who has learned the paramount value of love has +taken one step from an earthly to a spiritual existence.</p> + +<p>But as he lay there on the pebbly shore, hour after hour +glided by, his whole past life lived itself over to his eye; +he saw a thousand actions, he heard a thousand words, +whose beauty and significance never came to him till now. +And alas! he saw so many when, on his part, the responsive +word that should have been spoken, and the deed that +should have been done, was forever wanting. He had all +his life carried within him a vague consciousness that he +had not been to Mara what he should have been, but he +had hoped to make amends for all in that future which lay +before him,—that future now, alas! dissolving and fading +away like the white cloud-islands which the wind was +drifting from the sky. A voice seemed saying in his ears, +"Ye know that when he would have inherited a blessing +he was rejected; for he found no place for repentance, +though he sought it carefully with tears." Something that +he had never felt before struck him as appalling in the +awful fixedness of all past deeds and words,—the unkind +words once said, which no tears could unsay,—the kind +ones suppressed, to which no agony of wishfulness could +give a past reality. There were particular times in their +past history that he remembered so vividly, when he saw +her so clearly,—doing some little thing for him, and shyly +watching for the word of acknowledgment, which he did +not give. Some willful wayward demon withheld him at +the moment, and the light on the little wishful face slowly +faded. True, all had been a thousand times forgiven and +forgotten between them, but it is the ministry of these<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">[Pg 383]</a></span> +great vital hours of sorrow to teach us that nothing in the +soul's history ever dies or is forgotten, and when the beloved +one lies stricken and ready to pass away, comes the +judgment-day of love, and all the dead moments of the +past arise and live again.</p> + +<p>He lay there musing and dreaming till the sun grew low +in the afternoon sky, and the tide that isolated the little +grotto had gone far out into the ocean, leaving long, low +reefs of sunken rocks, all matted and tangled with the yellow +hair of the seaweed, with little crystal pools of salt +water between. He heard the sound of approaching footsteps, +and Captain Kittridge came slowly picking his way +round among the shingle and pebbles.</p> + +<p>"Wal', now, I thought I'd find ye here!" he said: "I +kind o' thought I wanted to see ye,—ye see."</p> + +<p>Moses looked up half moody, half astonished, while the +Captain seated himself upon a fragment of rock and began +brushing the knees of his trousers industriously, until soon +the tears rained down from his eyes upon his dry withered +hands.</p> + +<p>"Wal', now ye see, I can't help it, darned if I can; +knowed her ever since she's that high. She's done me +good, she has. Mis' Kittridge has been pretty faithful. +I've had folks here and there talk to me consid'able, but +Lord bless you, I never had nothin' go to my heart like +this 'ere—Why to look on her there couldn't nobody +doubt but what there was somethin' in religion. You +never knew half what she did for you, Moses Pennel, you +didn't know that the night you was off down to the long +cove with Skipper Atkinson, that 'ere blessed child was +a-follerin' you, but she was, and she come to me next day +to get me to do somethin' for you. That was how your +grand'ther and I got ye off to sea so quick, and she such +a little thing then; that ar child was the savin' of ye, +Moses Pennel."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">[Pg 384]</a></span></p> + +<p>Moses hid his head in his hands with a sort of groan.</p> + +<p>"Wal', wal'," said the Captain, "I don't wonder now +ye feel so,—I don't see how ye can stan' it no ways—only +by thinkin' o' where she's goin' to—Them ar +bells in the Celestial City must all be a-ringin' for her,—there'll +be joy that side o' the river I reckon, when she +gets acrost. If she'd jest leave me a hem o' her garment +to get in by, I'd be glad; but she was one o' the sort that +was jest <i>made</i> to go to heaven. She only stopped a few +days in our world, like the robins when they's goin' south; +but there'll be a good many fust and last that'll get into +the kingdom for love of her. She never said much to me, +but she kind o' drew me. Ef ever I should get in there, +it'll be <i>she</i> led me. But come, now, Moses, ye oughtn't +fur to be a-settin' here catchin' cold—jest come round to +our house and let Sally gin you a warm cup o' tea—do +come, now."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, Captain," said Moses, "but I will go +home; I must see her again to-night."</p> + +<p>"Wal', don't let her see you grieve too much, ye know; +we must be a little sort o' manly, ye know, 'cause her +body's weak, if her heart is strong."</p> + +<p>Now Moses was in a mood of dry, proud, fierce, self-consuming +sorrow, least likely to open his heart or seek +sympathy from any one; and no friend or acquaintance +would probably have dared to intrude on his grief. But +there are moods of the mind which cannot be touched or +handled by one on an equal level with us that yield at +once to the sympathy of something below. A dog who +comes with his great honest, sorrowful face and lays his +mute paw of inquiry on your knee, will sometimes open +floodgates of sober feeling, that have remained closed to +every human touch;—the dumb simplicity and ignorance +of his sympathy makes it irresistible. In like manner the +downright grief of the good-natured old Captain, and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">[Pg 385]</a></span> +child-like ignorance with which he ventured upon a ministry +of consolation from which a more cultivated person +would have shrunk away, were irresistibly touching. +Moses grasped the dry, withered hand and said, "Thank +you, thank you, Captain Kittridge; you're a true friend."</p> + +<p>"Wal', I be, that's a fact, Moses. Lord bless me, I +ain't no great—I ain't nobody—I'm jest an old last-year's +mullein-stalk in the Lord's vineyard; but that 'ere +blessed little thing allers had a good word for me. She +gave me a hymn-book and marked some hymns in it, and +read 'em to me herself, and her voice was jest as sweet as +the sea of a warm evening. Them hymns come to me kind +o' powerful when I'm at my work planin' and sawin'. +Mis' Kittridge, she allers talks to me as ef I was a terrible +sinner; and I suppose I be, but this 'ere blessed child, +she's so kind o' good and innocent, she thinks I'm good; +kind o' takes it for granted I'm one o' the Lord's people, +ye know. It kind o' makes me want to be, ye know."</p> + +<p>The Captain here produced from his coat-pocket a much +worn hymn-book, and showed Moses where leaves were +folded down. "Now here's this 'ere," he said; "you get +her to say it to you," he added, pointing to the well-known +sacred idyl which has refreshed so many hearts:—</p> + +<p style="margin-left:2em"> +"There is a land of pure delight<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Where saints immortal reign;</span><br /> +Eternal day excludes the night,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And pleasures banish pain.</span><br /> +<br /> +"There everlasting spring abides,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And never-fading flowers;</span><br /> +Death like a narrow sea divides<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">This happy land from ours."</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>"Now that ar beats everything," said the Captain, "and +we must kind o' think of it for her, 'cause she's goin' to +see all that, and ef it's our loss it's her gain, ye know."</p> + +<p>"I know," said Moses; "our grief is selfish."</p> + +<p>"Jest so. Wal', we're selfish critters, we be," said<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">[Pg 386]</a></span> +the Captain; "but arter all, 't ain't as ef we was heathen +and didn't know where they was a-goin' to. We jest +ought to be a-lookin' about and tryin' to foller 'em, ye +know."</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes, I do know," said Moses; "it's easy to say, +but hard to do."</p> + +<p>"But law, man, she prays for you; she did years and +years ago, when you was a boy and she a girl. You know +it tells in the Revelations how the angels has golden vials +full of odors which are the prayers of saints. I tell ye +Moses, you ought to get into heaven, if no one else does. +I expect you are pretty well known among the angels by +this time. I tell ye what 'tis, Moses, fellers think it a +mighty pretty thing to be a-steppin' high, and a-sayin' +they don't believe the Bible, and all that ar, so long as the +world goes well. This 'ere old Bible—why it's jest like +yer mother,—ye rove and ramble, and cut up round the +world without her a spell, and mebbe think the old woman +ain't so fashionable as some; but when sickness and sorrow +comes, why, there ain't nothin' else to go back to. Is +there, now?"</p> + +<p>Moses did not answer, but he shook the hand of the +Captain and turned away.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLII" id="CHAPTER_XLII"></a>CHAPTER XLII</h2> + +<h3>LAST WORDS</h3> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">[Pg 387]</a></span>The setting sun gleamed in at the window of Mara's +chamber, tinted with rose and violet hues from a great +cloud-castle that lay upon the smooth ocean over against +the window. Mara was lying upon the bed, but she raised +herself upon her elbow to look out.</p> + +<p>"Dear Aunt Roxy," she said, "raise me up and put the +pillows behind me, so that I can see out—it is splendid."</p> + +<p>Aunt Roxy came and arranged the pillows, and lifted +the girl with her long, strong arms, then stooping over her +a moment she finished her arrangements by softly smoothing +the hair from her forehead with a caressing movement +most unlike her usual precise business-like proceedings.</p> + +<p>"I love you, Aunt Roxy," said Mara, looking up with +a smile.</p> + +<p>Aunt Roxy made a strange wry face, which caused her +to look harder than usual. She was choked with tenderness, +and had only this uncomely way of showing it.</p> + +<p>"Law now, Mara, I don't see how ye can; I ain't nothin' +but an old burdock-bush; love ain't for me."</p> + +<p>"Yes it is too," said Mara, drawing her down and kissing +her withered cheek, "and you sha'n't call yourself an +old burdock. God sees that you are beautiful, and in the +resurrection everybody will see it."</p> + +<p>"I was always homely as an owl," said Miss Roxy, unconsciously +speaking out what had lain like a stone at the +bottom of even her sensible heart. "I always had sense to +know it, and knew my sphere. Homely folks would like<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">[Pg 388]</a></span> +to say pretty things, and to have pretty things said to them, +but they never do. I made up my mind pretty early that +my part in the vineyard was to have hard work and no +posies."</p> + +<p>"Well, you will have all the more in heaven; I love you +dearly, and I like your looks, too. You look kind and +true and good, and that's beauty in the country where we +are going."</p> + +<p>Miss Roxy sprang up quickly from the bed, and turning +her back began to arrange the bottles on the table with +great zeal.</p> + +<p>"Has Moses come in yet?" said Mara.</p> + +<p>"No, there ain't nobody seen a thing of him since he +went out this morning."</p> + +<p>"Poor boy!" said Mara, "it is too hard upon him. +Aunt Roxy, please pick some roses off the bush from under +the window and put in the vases; let's have the room as +sweet and cheerful as we can. I hope God will let me +live long enough to comfort him. It is not so very terrible, +if one would only think so, to cross that river. All +looks so bright to me now that I have forgotten how sorrow +seemed. Poor Moses! he will have a hard struggle, +but he will get the victory, too. I am very weak to-night, +but to-morrow I shall feel better, and I shall sit up, and +perhaps I can paint a little on that flower I was doing for +him. We will not have things look sickly or deathly. +There, Aunt Roxy, he has come in; I hear his step."</p> + +<p>"I didn't hear it," said Miss Roxy, surprised at the +acute senses which sickness had etherealized to an almost +spirit-like intensity. "Shall I call him?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, do," said Mara. "He can sit with me a little +while to-night."</p> + +<p>The light in the room was a strange dusky mingling of +gold and gloom, when Moses stole softly in. The great +cloud-castle that a little while since had glowed like living<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">[Pg 389]</a></span> +gold from turret and battlement, now dim, changed for the +most part to a sombre gray, enlivened with a dull glow of +crimson; but there was still a golden light where the sun +had sunk into the sea. Moses saw the little thin hand +stretched out to him.</p> + +<p>"Sit down," she said; "it has been such a beautiful +sunset. Did you notice it?"</p> + +<p>He sat down by the bed, leaning his forehead on his +hand, but saying nothing.</p> + +<p>She drew her fingers through his dark hair. "I am so +glad to see you," she said. "It is such a comfort to me +that you have come; and I hope it will be to you. You +know I shall be better to-morrow than I am to-night, and +I hope we shall have some pleasant days together yet. We +mustn't reject what little we may have, because it cannot +be more."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mara," said Moses, "I would give my life, if I +could take back the past. I have never been worthy of +you; never knew your worth; never made you happy. +You always lived for me, and I lived for myself. I deserve +to lose you, but it is none the less bitter."</p> + +<p>"Don't say lose. Why must you? I cannot think of +losing you. I know I shall not. God has given you to +me. You will come to me and be mine at last. I feel +sure of it."</p> + +<p>"You don't know me," said Moses.</p> + +<p>"Christ does, though," she said; "and He has promised +to care for you. Yes, you will live to see many flowers +grow out of my grave. You cannot think so now; but it +will be so—believe me."</p> + +<p>"Mara," said Moses, "I never lived through such a day +as this. It seems as if every moment of my life had been +passing before me, and every moment of yours. I have +seen how true and loving in thought and word and deed +you have been, and I have been doing nothing but <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">[Pg 390]</a></span>take. +You have given love as the skies give rain, and I +have drunk it up like the hot dusty earth."</p> + +<p>Mara knew in her own heart that this was all true, and +she was too real to use any of the terms of affected humiliation +which many think a kind of spiritual court language. +She looked at him and answered, "Moses, I always knew +I loved most. It was my nature; God gave it to me, and +it was a gift for which I give him thanks—not a merit. +I knew you had a larger, wider nature than mine,—a +wider sphere to live in, and that you could not live in your +heart as I did. Mine was all thought and feeling, and the +narrow little duties of this little home. Yours went all +round the world."</p> + +<p>"But, oh Mara—oh, my angel! to think I should lose +you when I am just beginning to know your worth. I +always had a sort of superstitious feeling,—a sacred presentiment +about you,—that my spiritual life, if ever I +had any, would come through you. It seemed if there +ever was such a thing as God's providence, which some +folks believe in, it was in leading me to you, and giving +you to me. And now, to have all lashed—all destroyed—It +makes me feel as if all was blind chance; no guiding +God; for if he wanted me to be good, he would spare you."</p> + +<p>Mara lay with her large eyes fixed on the now faded +sky. The dusky shadows had dropped like a black crape +veil around her pale face. In a few moments she repeated +to herself, as if she were musing upon them, those mysterious +words of Him who liveth and was dead, "Except a +corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; +if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit."</p> + +<p>"Moses," she said, "for all I know you have loved me +dearly, yet I have felt that in all that was deepest and +dearest to me, I was alone. You did not come near to me, +nor touch me where I feel most deeply. If I had lived to +be your wife, I cannot say but this distance in our spiritual<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">[Pg 391]</a></span> +nature might have widened. You know, what we live +with we get used to; it grows an old story. Your love to +me might have grown old and worn out. If we lived together +in the commonplace toils of life, you would see only +a poor threadbare wife. I might have lost what little +charm I ever had for you; but I feel that if I die, this +will not be. There is something sacred and beautiful in +death; and I may have more power over you, when I seem +to be gone, than I should have had living."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mara, Mara, don't say that."</p> + +<p>"Dear Moses, it is so. Think how many lovers marry, +and how few lovers are left in middle life; and how few +love and reverence living friends as they do the dead. +There are only a very few to whom it is given to do that."</p> + +<p>Something in the heart of Moses told him that this was +true. In this one day—the sacred revealing light of approaching +death—he had seen more of the real spiritual +beauty and significance of Mara's life than in years before, +and felt upspringing in his heart, from the deep pathetic +influence of the approaching spiritual world a new and +stronger power of loving. It may be that it is not merely +a perception of love that we were not aware of before, that +wakes up when we approach the solemn shadows with a +friend. It may be that the soul has compressed and unconscious +powers which are stirred and wrought upon as it +looks over the borders into its future home,—its loves and +its longings so swell and beat, that they astonish itself. +We are greater than we know, and dimly feel it with every +approach to the great hereafter. "It doth not yet appear +what we shall be."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>"Now, I'll tell you what 'tis," said Aunt Roxy, opening +the door, "all the strength this 'ere girl spends +a-talkin' to-night, will be so much taken out o' the whole +cloth to-morrow."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">[Pg 392]</a></span>Moses started up. "I ought to have thought of that, +Mara."</p> + +<p>"Ye see," said Miss Roxy, "she's been through a good +deal to-day, and she must be got to sleep at some rate or +other to-night. 'Lord, if he sleep he shall do well,' the +Bible says, and it's one of my best nussin' maxims."</p> + +<p>"And a good one, too, Aunt Roxy," said Mara. "Good-night, +dear boy; you see we must all mind Aunt Roxy."</p> + +<p>Moses bent down and kissed her, and felt her arms +around his neck.</p> + +<p>"Let not your heart be troubled," she whispered. In +spite of himself Moses felt the storm that had risen in his +bosom that morning soothed by the gentle influences which +Mara breathed upon it. There is a sympathetic power in +all states of mind, and they who have reached the deep +secret of eternal rest have a strange power of imparting +calm to others.</p> + +<p>It was in the very crisis of the battle that Christ said to +his disciples, "<i>My peace I give unto you</i>," and they that +are made one with him acquire like precious power of shedding +round them repose, as evening flowers shed odors. +Moses went to his pillow sorrowful and heart-stricken, but +bitter or despairing he could not be with the consciousness +of that present angel in the house.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLIII" id="CHAPTER_XLIII"></a>CHAPTER XLIII</h2> + +<h3>THE PEARL</h3> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">[Pg 393]</a></span>The next morning rose calm and bright with that wonderful +and mystical stillness and serenity which glorify autumn +days. It was impossible that such skies could smile +and such gentle airs blow the sea into one great waving +floor of sparkling sapphires without bringing cheerfulness +to human hearts. You must be very despairing indeed, +when Nature is doing her best, to look her in the face sullen +and defiant. So long as there is a drop of good in your +cup, a penny in your exchequer of happiness, a bright day +reminds you to look at it, and feel that all is not gone yet.</p> + +<p>So felt Moses when he stood in the door of the brown +house, while Mrs. Pennel was clinking plates and spoons +as she set the breakfast-table, and Zephaniah Pennel in his +shirt-sleeves was washing in the back-room, while Miss +Roxy came downstairs in a business-like fashion, bringing +sundry bowls, plates, dishes, and mysterious pitchers from +the sick-room.</p> + +<p>"Well, Aunt Roxy, you ain't one that lets the grass +grow under your feet," said Mrs. Pennel. "How is the +dear child, this morning?"</p> + +<p>"Well, she had a better night than one could have expected," +said Miss Roxy, "and by the time she's had her +breakfast, she expects to sit up a little and see her friends." +Miss Roxy said this in a cheerful tone, looking encouragingly +at Moses, whom she began to pity and patronize, +now she saw how real was his affliction.</p> + +<p>After breakfast Moses went to see her; she was sitting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">[Pg 394]</a></span> +up in her white dressing-gown, looking so thin and poorly, +and everything in the room was fragrant with the spicy +smell of the monthly roses, whose late buds and blossoms +Miss Roxy had gathered for the vases. She seemed so +natural, so calm and cheerful, so interested in all that went +on around her, that one almost forgot that the time of her +stay must be so short. She called Moses to come and look +at her drawings, and paintings of flowers and birds,—full +of reminders they were of old times,—and then she would +have her pencils and colors, and work a little on a bunch +of red rock-columbine, that she had begun to do for him; +and she chatted of all the old familiar places where flowers +grew, and of the old talks they had had there, till Moses +quite forgot himself; forgot that he was in a sick room, till +Aunt Roxy, warned by the deepening color on Mara's +cheeks, interposed her "nussing" authority, that she must +do no more that day.</p> + +<p>Then Moses laid her down, and arranged her pillows so +that she could look out on the sea, and sat and read to her +till it was time for her afternoon nap; and when the evening +shadows drew on, he marveled with himself how the +day had gone.</p> + +<p>Many such there were, all that pleasant month of September, +and he was with her all the time, watching her +wants and doing her bidding,—reading over and over with +a softened modulation her favorite hymns and chapters, +arranging her flowers, and bringing her home wild bouquets +from all her favorite wood-haunts, which made her sick-room +seem like some sylvan bower. Sally Kittridge was +there too, almost every day, with always some friendly +offering or some helpful deed of kindness, and sometimes +they two together would keep guard over the invalid while +Miss Roxy went home to attend to some of her own more +peculiar concerns. Mara seemed to rule all around her +with calm sweetness and wisdom, speaking unconsciously<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">[Pg 395]</a></span> +only the speech of heaven, talking of spiritual things, not +in an excited rapture or wild ecstasy, but with the sober +certainty of waking bliss. She seemed like one of the +sweet friendly angels one reads of in the Old Testament, +so lovingly companionable, walking and talking, eating +and drinking, with mortals, yet ready at any unknown +moment to ascend with the flame of some sacrifice and be +gone. There are those (a few at least) whose blessing it +has been to have kept for many days, in bonds of earthly +fellowship, a perfected spirit in whom the work of purifying +love was wholly done, who lived in calm victory over +sin and sorrow and death, ready at any moment to be called +to the final mystery of joy.</p> + +<p>Yet it must come at last, the moment when heaven +claims its own, and it came at last in the cottage on Orr's +Island. There came a day when the room so sacredly +cheerful was hushed to a breathless stillness; the bed was +then all snowy white, and that soft still sealed face, the +parted waves of golden hair, the little hands folded over +the white robe, all had a sacred and wonderful calm, a rapture +of repose that seemed to say "it is done."</p> + +<p>They who looked on her wondered; it was a look that +sunk deep into every heart; it hushed down the common +cant of those who, according to country custom, went to +stare blindly at the great mystery of death,—for all that +came out of that chamber smote upon their breasts and +went away in silence, revolving strangely whence might +come that unearthly beauty, that celestial joy.</p> + +<p>Once more, in that very room where James and Naomi +Lincoln had lain side by side in their coffins, sleeping restfully, +there was laid another form, shrouded and coffined, +but with such a fairness and tender purity, such a mysterious +fullness of joy in its expression, that it seemed more +natural to speak of that rest as some higher form of life +than of death.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">[Pg 396]</a></span></p> + +<p>Once more were gathered the neighborhood; all the +faces known in this history shone out in one solemn picture, +of which that sweet restful form was the centre. +Zephaniah Pennel and Mary his wife, Moses and Sally, +the dry form of Captain Kittridge and the solemn face of +his wife, Aunt Roxy and Aunt Ruey, Miss Emily and Mr. +Sewell; but their faces all wore a tender brightness, such +as we see falling like a thin celestial veil over all the faces +in an old Florentine painting. The room was full of sweet +memories, of words of cheer, words of assurance, words of +triumph, and the mysterious brightness of that young face +forbade them to weep. Solemnly Mr. Sewell read,—</p> + +<p>"He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord +God will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke +of his people shall he take away from off all the +earth; for the Lord hath spoken it. And it shall be said +in that day, Lo this is our God; we have waited for him, +and he will save us; this is the Lord; we have waited for +him, we will be glad and rejoice in his salvation."</p> + +<p>Then the prayer trembled up to heaven with thanksgiving, +for the early entrance of that fair young saint into +glory, and then the same old funeral hymn, with its mournful +triumph:—</p> + +<p style="margin-left:2em"> +"Why should we mourn departed friends,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Or shake at death's alarms,</span><br /> +'Tis but the voice that Jesus sends<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To call them to his arms."</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Then in a few words Mr. Sewell reminded them how +that hymn had been sung in this room so many years ago, +when that frail, fluttering orphan soul had been baptized +into the love and care of Jesus, and how her whole life, +passing before them in its simplicity and beauty, had come +to so holy and beautiful a close; and when, pointing to +the calm sleeping face he asked, "Would we call her +back?" there was not a heart at that moment that dared<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">[Pg 397]</a></span> +answer, Yes. Even he that should have been her bridegroom +could not at that moment have unsealed the holy +charm, and so they bore her away, and laid the calm smiling +face beneath the soil, by the side of poor Dolores.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>"I had a beautiful dream last night," said Zephaniah +Pennel, the next morning after the funeral, as he opened +his Bible to conduct family worship.</p> + +<p>"What was it?" said Miss Roxy.</p> + +<p>"Well, ye see, I thought I was out a-walkin' up and +down, and lookin' and lookin' for something that I'd lost. +What it was I couldn't quite make out, but my heart felt +heavy as if it would break, and I was lookin' all up and +down the sands by the seashore, and somebody said I was +like the merchantman, seeking goodly pearls. I said I had +lost my pearl—my pearl of great price—and then I +looked up, and far off on the beach, shining softly on the +wet sands, lay my pearl. I thought it was Mara, but it +seemed a great pearl with a soft moonlight on it; and I +was running for it when some one said 'hush,' and I +looked and I saw <i>Him</i> a-coming—Jesus of Nazareth, jist +as he walked by the sea of Galilee. It was all dark night +around Him, but I could see Him by the light that came +from his face, and the long hair was hanging down on his +shoulders. He came and took up my pearl and put it on +his forehead, and it shone out like a star, and shone into +my heart, and I felt happy; and he looked at me steadily, +and rose and rose in the air, and melted in the clouds, and +I awoke so happy, and so calm!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLIV" id="CHAPTER_XLIV"></a>CHAPTER XLIV</h2> + +<h3>FOUR YEARS AFTER</h3> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_398" id="Page_398">[Pg 398]</a></span>It was a splendid evening in July, and the sky was +filled high with gorgeous tabernacles of purple and gold, +the remains of a grand thunder-shower which had freshened +the air and set a separate jewel on every needle leaf +of the old pines.</p> + +<p>Four years had passed since the fair Pearl of Orr's Island +had been laid beneath the gentle soil, which every year +sent monthly tributes of flowers to adorn her rest, great +blue violets, and starry flocks of ethereal eye-brights in +spring, and fringy asters, and goldenrod in autumn. In +those days, the tender sentiment which now makes the +burial-place a cultivated garden was excluded by the rigid +spiritualism of the Puritan life, which, ever jealous of that +which concerned the body, lest it should claim what belonged +to the immortal alone, had frowned on all watching +of graves, as an earthward tendency, and enjoined the +flight of faith with the spirit, rather than the yearning for +its cast-off garments.</p> + +<p>But Sally Kittridge, being lonely, found something in her +heart which could only be comforted by visits to that +grave. So she had planted there roses and trailing myrtle, +and tended and watered them; a proceeding which was +much commented on Sunday noons, when people were eating +their dinners and discussing their neighbors.</p> + +<p>It is possible good Mrs. Kittridge might have been +much scandalized by it, had she been in a condition to +think on the matter at all; but a very short time after the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">[Pg 399]</a></span> +funeral she was seized with a paralytic shock, which left +her for a while as helpless as an infant; and then she sank +away into the grave, leaving Sally the sole care of the old +Captain.</p> + +<p>A cheerful home she made, too, for his old age, adorning +the house with many little tasteful fancies unknown in +her mother's days; reading the Bible to him and singing +Mara's favorite hymns, with a voice as sweet as the spring +blue-bird. The spirit of the departed friend seemed to +hallow the dwelling where these two worshiped her memory, +in simple-hearted love. Her paintings, framed in +quaint woodland frames of moss and pine-cones by Sally's +own ingenuity, adorned the walls. Her books were on +the table, and among them many that she had given to +Moses.</p> + +<p>"I am going to be a wanderer for many years," he said +in parting, "keep these for me until I come back."</p> + +<p>And so from time to time passed long letters between +the two friends,—each telling to the other the same story,—that +they were lonely, and that their hearts yearned for +the communion of one who could no longer be manifest to +the senses. And each spoke to the other of a world of +hopes and memories buried with her, "Which," each so +constantly said, "no one could understand but you." Each, +too, was firm in the faith that buried love must have no +earthly resurrection. Every letter strenuously insisted that +they should call each other brother and sister, and under +cover of those names the letters grew longer and more frequent, +and with every chance opportunity came presents +from the absent brother, which made the little old cottage +quaintly suggestive with smell of spice and sandal-wood.</p> + +<p>But, as we said, this is a glorious July evening,—and +you may discern two figures picking their way over those +low sunken rocks, yellowed with seaweed, of which we +have often spoken. They are Moses and Sally going on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_400" id="Page_400">[Pg 400]</a></span> +an evening walk to that favorite grotto retreat, which has +so often been spoken of in the course of this history.</p> + +<p>Moses has come home from long wanderings. It is four +years since they parted, and now they meet and have +looked into each other's eyes, not as of old, when they met +in the first giddy flush of youth, but as fully developed +man and woman. Moses and Sally had just risen from +the tea-table, where she had presided with a thoughtful +housewifery gravity, just pleasantly dashed with quaint +streaks of her old merry willfulness, while the old Captain, +warmed up like a rheumatic grasshopper in a fine autumn +day, chirruped feebly, and told some of his old stories, +which now he told every day, forgetting that they had +ever been heard before. Somehow all three had been very +happy; the more so, from a shadowy sense of some sympathizing +presence which was rejoicing to see them together +again, and which, stealing soft-footed and noiseless everywhere, +touched and lighted up every old familiar object +with sweet memories.</p> + +<p>And so they had gone out together to walk; to walk +towards the grotto where Sally had caused a seat to be +made, and where she declared she had passed hours and +hours, knitting, sewing, or reading.</p> + +<p>"Sally," said Moses, "do you know I am tired of wandering? +I am coming home now. I begin to want a home +of my own." This he said as they sat together on the +rustic seat and looked off on the blue sea.</p> + +<p>"Yes, you must," said Sally. "How lovely that ship +looks, just coming in there."</p> + +<p>"Yes, they are beautiful," said Moses abstractedly; and +Sally rattled on about the difference between sloops and +brigs; seeming determined that there should be no silence, +such as often comes in ominous gaps between two friends +who have long been separated, and have each many things +to say with which the other is not familiar.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_401" id="Page_401">[Pg 401]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Sally!" said Moses, breaking in with a deep voice on +one of these monologues. "Do you remember some presumptuous +things I once said to you, in this place?"</p> + +<p>Sally did not answer, and there was a dead silence in +which they could hear the tide gently dashing on the weedy +rocks.</p> + +<p>"You and I are neither of us what we were then, Sally," +said Moses. "We are as different as if we were each +another person. We have been trained in another life,—educated +by a great sorrow,—is it not so?"</p> + +<p>"I know it," said Sally.</p> + +<p>"And why should we two, who have a world of thoughts +and memories which no one can understand but the other,—why +should we, each of us, go on alone? If we must, +why then, Sally, I must leave you, and I must write and +receive no more letters, for I have found that you are becoming +so wholly necessary to me, that if any other should +claim you, I could not feel as I ought. Must I go?"</p> + +<p>Sally's answer is not on record; but one infers what it +was from the fact that they sat there very late, and before +they knew it, the tide rose up and shut them in, and the +moon rose up in full glory out of the water, and still they +sat and talked, leaning on each other, till a cracked, feeble +voice called down through the pine-trees above, like a +hoarse old cricket,—</p> + +<p>"Children, be you there?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, father," said Sally, blushing and conscious.</p> + +<p>"Yes, all right," said the deep bass of Moses. "I'll +bring her back when I've done with her, Captain."</p> + +<p>"Wal',—wal'; I was gettin' consarned; but I see I +don't need to. I hope you won't get no colds nor nothin'."</p> + +<p>They did not; but in the course of a month there was +a wedding at the brown house of the old Captain, which +everybody in the parish was glad of, and was voted without +dissent to be just the thing.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_402" id="Page_402">[Pg 402]</a></span></p> + +<p>Miss Roxy, grimly approbative, presided over the preparations, +and all the characters of our story appeared, and +more, having on their wedding-garments. Nor was the +wedding less joyful, that all felt the presence of a heavenly +guest, silent and loving, seeing and blessing all, whose +voice seemed to say in every heart,—</p> + +<p>"He turneth the shadow of death into morning."</p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Pearl of Orr's Island, by Harriet Beecher Stowe + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND *** + +***** This file should be named 31522-h.htm or 31522-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/1/5/2/31522/ + +Produced by David Edwards, Jane Hyland and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This +book was produced from scanned images of public domain +material from the Google Print project.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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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: The Pearl of Orr's Island + A Story of the Coast of Maine + +Author: Harriet Beecher Stowe + +Release Date: March 6, 2010 [EBook #31522] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND *** + + + + +Produced by David Edwards, Jane Hyland and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This +book was produced from scanned images of public domain +material from the Google Print project.) + + + + + + + +THE + +PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND + + +A Story of the Coast of Maine + + +BY + +HARRIET BEECHER STOWE + + +BOSTON AND NEW YORK + +HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY + +The Riverside Press, Cambridge + +1896 + + +Copyright, 1862 and 1890, + +BY HARRIET BEECHER STOWE. + + +Copyright, 1896, + +BY HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. + + +_All rights reserved._ + + +_The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U.S.A._ + +Electrotyped and Printed by H.O. Houghton & Co. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + INTRODUCTORY NOTE vii + + CHAP. PAGE + + I. NAOMI 1 + + II. MARA 5 + + III. THE BAPTISM AND THE BURIAL 9 + + IV. AUNT ROXY AND AUNT RUEY 15 + + V. THE KITTRIDGES 25 + + VI. GRANDPARENTS 36 + + VII. FROM THE SEA 47 + + VIII. THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN 58 + + IX. MOSES 74 + + X. THE MINISTER 85 + + XI. LITTLE ADVENTURERS 99 + + XII. SEA TALES 110 + + XIII. BOY AND GIRL 120 + + XIV. THE ENCHANTED ISLAND 132 + + XV. THE HOME COMING 143 + + XVI. THE NATURAL AND THE SPIRITUAL 154 + + XVII. LESSONS 165 + + XVIII. SALLY 175 + + XIX. EIGHTEEN 179 + + XX. REBELLION 186 + + XXI. THE TEMPTER 198 + + XXII. A FRIEND IN NEED 208 + + XXIII. THE BEGINNING OF THE STORY 218 + + XXIV. DESIRES AND DREAMS 229 + + XXV. MISS EMILY 235 + + XXVI. DOLORES 245 + + XXVII. HIDDEN THINGS 258 + + XXVIII. A COQUETTE 270 + + XXIX. NIGHT TALKS 279 + + XXX. THE LAUNCH OF THE ARIEL 290 + + XXXI. GREEK MEETS GREEK 303 + + XXXII. THE BETROTHAL 315 + + XXXIII. AT A QUILTING 323 + + XXXIV. FRIENDS 329 + + XXXV. THE TOOTHACRE COTTAGE 335 + + XXXVI. THE SHADOW OF DEATH 339 + + XXXVII. THE VICTORY 351 + + XXXVIII. OPEN VISION 358 + + XXXIX. THE LAND OF BEULAH 368 + + XL. THE MEETING 376 + + XLI. CONSOLATION 380 + + XLII. LAST WORDS 387 + + XLIII. THE PEARL 393 + + XLIV. FOUR YEARS AFTER 398 + +The frontispiece (Mara, page 376) was drawn by W.L. Taylor. The vignette +was etched by Charles H. Woodbury. + + + + +INTRODUCTORY NOTE. + + +The publication of _Uncle Tom's Cabin_, though much more than an +incident in an author's career, seems to have determined Mrs. Stowe more +surely in her purpose to devote herself to literature. During the summer +following its appearance, she was in Andover, making over the house +which she and her husband were to occupy upon leaving Brunswick; and +yet, busy as she was, she was writing articles for _The Independent_ and +_The National Era_. The following extract from a letter written at that +time, July 29, 1852, intimates that she already was sketching the +outline of the story which later grew into _The Pearl of Orr's +Island_:-- + +"I seem to have so much to fill my time, and yet there is my Maine story +waiting. However, I am composing it every day, only I greatly need +living studies for the filling in of my sketches. There is old Jonas, my +"fish father," a sturdy, independent fisherman farmer, who in his youth +sailed all over the world and made up his mind about everything. In his +old age he attends prayer-meetings and reads the _Missionary Herald_. He +also has plenty of money in an old brown sea-chest. He is a great heart +with an inflexible will and iron muscles. I must go to Orr's Island and +see him again." The story seems to have remained in her mind, for we are +told by her son that she worked upon it by turns with _The Minister's +Wooing_. + +It was not, however, until eight years later, after _The Minister's +Wooing_ had been published and _Agnes of Sorrento_ was well begun, that +she took up her old story in earnest and set about making it into a +short serial. It would seem that her first intention was to confine +herself to a sketch of the childhood of her chief characters, with a +view to delineating the influences at work upon them; but, as she +herself expressed it, "Out of the simple history of the little Pearl of +Orr's Island as it had shaped itself in her mind, rose up a Captain +Kittridge with his garrulous yarns, and Misses Roxy and Ruey, given to +talk, and a whole pigeon roost of yet undreamed of fancies and dreams +which would insist on being written." So it came about that the story as +originally planned came to a stopping place at the end of Chapter XVII., +as the reader may see when he reaches that place. The childish life of +her characters ended there, and a lapse of ten years was assumed before +their story was taken up again in the next chapter. The book when +published had no chapter headings. These have been supplied in the +present edition. + + + + +THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND + + + + +CHAPTER I + +NAOMI + + +On the road to the Kennebec, below the town of Bath, in the State of +Maine, might have been seen, on a certain autumnal afternoon, a +one-horse wagon, in which two persons were sitting. One was an old man, +with the peculiarly hard but expressive physiognomy which characterizes +the seafaring population of the New England shores. A clear blue eye, +evidently practiced in habits of keen observation, white hair, bronzed, +weather-beaten cheeks, and a face deeply lined with the furrows of +shrewd thought and anxious care, were points of the portrait that made +themselves felt at a glance. + +By his side sat a young woman of two-and-twenty, of a marked and +peculiar personal appearance. Her hair was black, and smoothly parted on +a broad forehead, to which a pair of penciled dark eyebrows gave a +striking and definite outline. Beneath, lay a pair of large black eyes, +remarkable for tremulous expression of melancholy and timidity. The +cheek was white and bloodless as a snowberry, though with the clear and +perfect oval of good health; the mouth was delicately formed, with a +certain sad quiet in its lines, which indicated a habitually repressed +and sensitive nature. + +The dress of this young person, as often happens in New England, was, in +refinement and even elegance, a marked contrast to that of her male +companion and to the humble vehicle in which she rode. There was not +only the most fastidious neatness, but a delicacy in the choice of +colors, an indication of elegant tastes in the whole arrangement, and +the quietest suggestion in the world of an acquaintance with the usages +of fashion, which struck one oddly in those wild and dreary +surroundings. On the whole, she impressed one like those fragile +wild-flowers which in April cast their fluttering shadows from the mossy +crevices of the old New England granite,--an existence in which +colorless delicacy is united to a sort of elastic hardihood of life, fit +for the rocky soil and harsh winds it is born to encounter. + +The scenery of the road along which the two were riding was wild and +bare. Only savins and mulleins, with their dark pyramids or white spires +of velvet leaves, diversified the sandy wayside; but out at sea was a +wide sweep of blue, reaching far to the open ocean, which lay rolling, +tossing, and breaking into white caps of foam in the bright sunshine. +For two or three days a northeast storm had been raging, and the sea was +in all the commotion which such a general upturning creates. + +The two travelers reached a point of elevated land, where they paused a +moment, and the man drew up the jogging, stiff-jointed old farm-horse, +and raised himself upon his feet to look out at the prospect. + +There might be seen in the distance the blue Kennebec sweeping out +toward the ocean through its picturesque rocky shores, docked with +cedars and other dusky evergreens, which were illuminated by the orange +and flame-colored trees of Indian summer. Here and there scarlet +creepers swung long trailing garlands over the faces of the dark rock, +and fringes of goldenrod above swayed with the brisk blowing wind that +was driving the blue waters seaward, in face of the up-coming ocean +tide,--a conflict which caused them to rise in great foam-crested +waves. There are two channels into this river from the open sea, +navigable for ships which are coming in to the city of Bath; one is +broad and shallow, the other narrow and deep, and these are divided by a +steep ledge of rocks. + +Where the spectators of this scene were sitting, they could see in the +distance a ship borne with tremendous force by the rising tide into the +mouth of the river, and encountering a northwest wind which had +succeeded the gale, as northwest winds often do on this coast. The ship, +from what might be observed in the distance, seemed struggling to make +the wider channel, but was constantly driven off by the baffling force +of the wind. + +"There she is, Naomi," said the old fisherman, eagerly, to his +companion, "coming right in." The young woman was one of the sort that +never start, and never exclaim, but with all deeper emotions grow still. +The color slowly mounted into her cheek, her lips parted, and her eyes +dilated with a wide, bright expression; her breathing came in thick +gasps, but she said nothing. + +The old fisherman stood up in the wagon, his coarse, butternut-colored +coat-flaps fluttering and snapping in the breeze, while his interest +seemed to be so intense in the efforts of the ship that he made +involuntary and eager movements as if to direct her course. A moment +passed, and his keen, practiced eye discovered a change in her +movements, for he cried out involuntarily,-- + +"_Don't_ take the narrow channel to-day!" and a moment after, "O Lord! O +Lord! have mercy,--there they go! Look! look! look!" + +And, in fact, the ship rose on a great wave clear out of the water, and +the next second seemed to leap with a desperate plunge into the narrow +passage; for a moment there was a shivering of the masts and the +rigging, and she went down and was gone. + +"They're split to pieces!" cried the fisherman. "Oh, my poor girl--my +poor girl--they're gone! O Lord, have mercy!" + +The woman lifted up no voice, but, as one who has been shot through the +heart falls with no cry, she fell back,--a mist rose up over her great +mournful eyes,--she had fainted. + +The story of this wreck of a home-bound ship just entering the harbor is +yet told in many a family on this coast. A few hours after, the +unfortunate crew were washed ashore in all the joyous holiday rig in +which they had attired themselves that morning to go to their sisters, +wives, and mothers. + +This is the first scene in our story. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +MARA + + +Down near the end of Orr's Island, facing the open ocean, stands a brown +house of the kind that the natives call "lean-to," or "linter,"--one of +those large, comfortable structures, barren in the ideal, but rich in +the practical, which the workingman of New England can always command. +The waters of the ocean came up within a rod of this house, and the +sound of its moaning waves was even now filling the clear autumn +starlight. Evidently something was going on within, for candles +fluttered and winked from window to window, like fireflies in a dark +meadow, and sounds as of quick footsteps, and the flutter of brushing +garments, might be heard. + +Something unusual is certainly going on within the dwelling of Zephaniah +Pennel to-night. + +Let us enter the dark front-door. We feel our way to the right, where a +solitary ray of light comes from the chink of a half-opened door. Here +is the front room of the house, set apart as its place of especial +social hilarity and sanctity,--the "best room," with its low studded +walls, white dimity window-curtains, rag carpet, and polished wood +chairs. It is now lit by the dim gleam of a solitary tallow candle, +which seems in the gloom to make only a feeble circle of light around +itself, leaving all the rest of the apartment in shadow. + +In the centre of the room, stretched upon a table, and covered partially +by a sea-cloak, lies the body of a man of twenty-five,--lies, too, +evidently as one of whom it is written, "He shall return to his house +no more, neither shall his place know him any more." A splendid manhood +has suddenly been called to forsake that lifeless form, leaving it, like +a deserted palace, beautiful in its desolation. The hair, dripping with +the salt wave, curled in glossy abundance on the finely-formed head; the +flat, broad brow; the closed eye, with its long black lashes; the firm, +manly mouth; the strongly-moulded chin,--all, all were sealed with that +seal which is never to be broken till the great resurrection day. + +He was lying in a full suit of broadcloth, with a white vest and smart +blue neck-tie, fastened with a pin, in which was some braided hair under +a crystal. All his clothing, as well as his hair, was saturated with +sea-water, which trickled from time to time, and struck with a leaden +and dropping sound into a sullen pool which lay under the table. + +This was the body of James Lincoln, ship-master of the brig Flying Scud, +who that morning had dressed himself gayly in his state-room to go on +shore and meet his wife,--singing and jesting as he did so. + +This is all that you have to learn in the room below; but as we stand +there, we hear a trampling of feet in the apartment above,--the quick +yet careful opening and shutting of doors,--and voices come and go about +the house, and whisper consultations on the stairs. Now comes the roll +of wheels, and the Doctor's gig drives up to the door; and, as he goes +creaking up with his heavy boots, we will follow and gain admission to +the dimly-lighted chamber. + +Two gossips are sitting in earnest, whispering conversation over a small +bundle done up in an old flannel petticoat. To them the doctor is about +to address himself cheerily, but is repelled by sundry signs and sounds +which warn him not to speak. Moderating his heavy boots as well as he +is able to a pace of quiet, he advances for a moment, and the petticoat +is unfolded for him to glance at its contents; while a low, eager, +whispered conversation, attended with much head-shaking, warns him that +his first duty is with somebody behind the checked curtains of a bed in +the farther corner of the room. He steps on tiptoe, and draws the +curtain; and there, with closed eye, and cheek as white as wintry snow, +lies the same face over which passed the shadow of death when that +ill-fated ship went down. + +This woman was wife to him who lies below, and within the hour has been +made mother to a frail little human existence, which the storm of a +great anguish has driven untimely on the shores of life,--a precious +pearl cast up from the past eternity upon the wet, wave-ribbed sand of +the present. Now, weary with her moanings, and beaten out with the +wrench of a double anguish, she lies with closed eyes in that passive +apathy which precedes deeper shadows and longer rest. + +Over against her, on the other side of the bed, sits an aged woman in an +attitude of deep dejection, and the old man we saw with her in the +morning is standing with an anxious, awestruck face at the foot of the +bed. + +The doctor feels the pulse of the woman, or rather lays an inquiring +finger where the slightest thread of vital current is scarcely +throbbing, and shakes his head mournfully. The touch of his hand rouses +her,--her large wild, melancholy eyes fix themselves on him with an +inquiring glance, then she shivers and moans,-- + +"Oh, Doctor, Doctor!--Jamie, Jamie!" + +"Come, come!" said the doctor, "cheer up, my girl, you've got a fine +little daughter,--the Lord mingles mercies with his afflictions." + +Her eyes closed, her head moved with a mournful but decided dissent. + +A moment after she spoke in the sad old words of the Hebrew Scripture,-- + +"Call her not Naomi; call her Mara, for the Almighty hath dealt very +bitterly with me." + +And as she spoke, there passed over her face the sharp frost of the last +winter; but even as it passed there broke out a smile, as if a flower +had been thrown down from Paradise, and she said,-- + +"Not my will, but thy will," and so was gone. + +Aunt Roxy and Aunt Ruey were soon left alone in the chamber of death. + +"She'll make a beautiful corpse," said Aunt Roxy, surveying the still, +white form contemplatively, with her head in an artistic attitude. + +"She was a pretty girl," said Aunt Ruey; "dear me, what a Providence! I +'member the wedd'n down in that lower room, and what a handsome couple +they were." + +"They were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their deaths they +were not divided," said Aunt Roxy, sententiously. + +"What was it she said, did ye hear?" said Aunt Ruey. + +"She called the baby 'Mary.'" + +"Ah! sure enough, her mother's name afore her. What a still, +softly-spoken thing she always was!" + +"A pity the poor baby didn't go with her," said Aunt Roxy; +"seven-months' children are so hard to raise." + +"'Tis a pity," said the other. + +But babies will live, and all the more when everybody says that it is a +pity they should. Life goes on as inexorably in this world as death. It +was ordered by THE WILL above that out of these two graves should spring +one frail, trembling autumn flower,--the "Mara" whose poor little roots +first struck deep in the salt, bitter waters of our mortal life. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE BAPTISM AND THE BURIAL + + +Now, I cannot think of anything more unlikely and uninteresting to make +a story of than that old brown "linter" house of Captain Zephaniah +Pennel, down on the south end of Orr's Island. + +Zephaniah and Mary Pennel, like Zacharias and Elizabeth, are a pair of +worthy, God-fearing people, walking in all the commandments and +ordinances of the Lord blameless; but that is no great recommendation to +a world gaping for sensation and calling for something stimulating. This +worthy couple never read anything but the Bible, the "Missionary +Herald," and the "Christian Mirror,"--never went anywhere except in the +round of daily business. He owned a fishing-smack, in which he labored +after the apostolic fashion; and she washed, and ironed, and scrubbed, +and brewed, and baked, in her contented round, week in and out. The only +recreation they ever enjoyed was the going once a week, in good weather, +to a prayer-meeting in a little old brown school-house, about a mile +from their dwelling; and making a weekly excursion every Sunday, in +their fishing craft, to the church opposite, on Harpswell Neck. + +To be sure, Zephaniah had read many wide leaves of God's great book of +Nature, for, like most Maine sea-captains, he had been wherever ship can +go,--to all usual and unusual ports. His hard, shrewd, weather-beaten +visage had been seen looking over the railings of his brig in the port +of Genoa, swept round by its splendid crescent of palaces and its +snow-crested Apennines. It had looked out in the Lagoons of Venice at +that wavy floor which in evening seems a sea of glass mingled with fire, +and out of which rise temples, and palaces, and churches, and distant +silvery Alps, like so many fabrics of dreamland. He had been through the +Skagerrack and Cattegat,--into the Baltic, and away round to Archangel, +and there chewed a bit of chip, and considered and calculated what +bargains it was best to make. He had walked the streets of Calcutta in +his shirt-sleeves, with his best Sunday vest, backed with black glazed +cambric, which six months before came from the hands of Miss Roxy, and +was pronounced by her to be as good as any tailor could make; and in all +these places he was just Zephaniah Pennel,--a chip of old +Maine,--thrifty, careful, shrewd, honest, God-fearing, and carrying an +instinctive knowledge of men and things under a face of rustic +simplicity. + +It was once, returning from one of his voyages, that he found his wife +with a black-eyed, curly-headed little creature, who called him papa, +and climbed on his knee, nestled under his coat, rifled his pockets, and +woke him every morning by pulling open his eyes with little fingers, and +jabbering unintelligible dialects in his ears. + +"We will call this child Naomi, wife," he said, after consulting his old +Bible; "for that means pleasant, and I'm sure I never see anything beat +her for pleasantness. I never knew as children was so engagin'!" + +It was to be remarked that Zephaniah after this made shorter and shorter +voyages, being somehow conscious of a string around his heart which +pulled him harder and harder, till one Sunday, when the little Naomi was +five years old, he said to his wife,-- + +"I hope I ain't a-pervertin' Scriptur' nor nuthin', but I can't help +thinkin' of one passage, 'The kingdom of heaven is like a merchantman +seeking goodly pearls, and when he hath found one pearl of great price, +for joy thereof he goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that +pearl.' Well, Mary, I've been and sold my brig last week," he said, +folding his daughter's little quiet head under his coat, "'cause it +seems to me the Lord's given us this pearl of great price, and it's +enough for us. I don't want to be rambling round the world after riches. +We'll have a little farm down on Orr's Island, and I'll have a little +fishing-smack, and we'll live and be happy together." + +And so Mary, who in those days was a pretty young married woman, felt +herself rich and happy,--no duchess richer or happier. The two +contentedly delved and toiled, and the little Naomi was their princess. +The wise men of the East at the feet of an infant, offering gifts, gold, +frankincense, and myrrh, is just a parable of what goes on in every +house where there is a young child. All the hard and the harsh, and the +common and the disagreeable, is for the parents,--all the bright and +beautiful for their child. + +When the fishing-smack went to Portland to sell mackerel, there came +home in Zephaniah's fishy coat pocket strings of coral beads, tiny +gaiter boots, brilliant silks and ribbons for the little fairy +princess,--his Pearl of the Island; and sometimes, when a stray party +from the neighboring town of Brunswick came down to explore the romantic +scenery of the solitary island, they would be startled by the apparition +of this still, graceful, dark-eyed child exquisitely dressed in the best +and brightest that the shops of a neighboring city could +afford,--sitting like some tropical bird on a lonely rock, where the sea +came dashing up into the edges of arbor vitae, or tripping along the wet +sands for shells and seaweed. + +Many children would have been spoiled by such unlimited indulgence; but +there are natures sent down into this harsh world so timorous, and +sensitive, and helpless in themselves, that the utmost stretch of +indulgence and kindness is needed for their development,--like plants +which the warmest shelf of the green-house and the most careful watch of +the gardener alone can bring into flower. The pale child, with her +large, lustrous, dark eyes, and sensitive organization, was nursed and +brooded into a beautiful womanhood, and then found a protector in a +high-spirited, manly young ship-master, and she became his wife. + +And now we see in the best room--the walls lined with serious +faces--men, women, and children, that have come to pay the last tribute +of sympathy to the living and the dead. The house looked so utterly +alone and solitary in that wild, sea-girt island, that one would have as +soon expected the sea-waves to rise and walk in, as so many neighbors; +but they had come from neighboring points, crossing the glassy sea in +their little crafts, whose white sails looked like millers' wings, or +walking miles from distant parts of the island. + +Some writer calls a funeral one of the amusements of a New England +population. Must we call it an amusement to go and see the acted despair +of Medea? or the dying agonies of poor Adrienne Lecouvreur? It is +something of the same awful interest in life's tragedy, which makes an +untaught and primitive people gather to a funeral,--a tragedy where +there is no acting,--and one which each one feels must come at some time +to his own dwelling. + +Be that as it may, here was a roomful. Not only Aunt Roxy and Aunt Ruey, +who by a prescriptive right presided over all the births, deaths, and +marriages of the neighborhood, but there was Captain Kittridge, a long, +dry, weather-beaten old sea-captain, who sat as if tied in a double +bow-knot, with his little fussy old wife, with a great Leghorn bonnet, +and eyes like black glass beads shining through in the bows of her horn +spectacles, and her hymn-book in her hand ready to lead the psalm. There +were aunts, uncles, cousins, and brethren of the deceased; and in the +midst stood two coffins, where the two united in death lay sleeping +tenderly, as those to whom rest is good. All was still as death, except +a chance whisper from some busy neighbor, or a creak of an old lady's +great black fan, or the fizz of a fly down the window-pane, and then a +stifled sound of deep-drawn breath and weeping from under a cloud of +heavy black crape veils, that were together in the group which +country-people call the mourners. + +A gleam of autumn sunlight streamed through the white curtains, and fell +on a silver baptismal vase that stood on the mother's coffin, as the +minister rose and said, "The ordinance of baptism will now be +administered." A few moments more, and on a baby brow had fallen a few +drops of water, and the little pilgrim of a new life had been called +Mara in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,--the minister +slowly repeating thereafter those beautiful words of Holy Writ, "A +father of the fatherless is God in his holy habitation,"--as if the +baptism of that bereaved one had been a solemn adoption into the +infinite heart of the Lord. + +With something of the quaint pathos which distinguishes the primitive +and Biblical people of that lonely shore, the minister read the passage +in Ruth from which the name of the little stranger was drawn, and which +describes the return of the bereaved Naomi to her native land. His voice +trembled, and there were tears in many eyes as he read, "And it came to +pass as she came to Bethlehem, all the city was moved about them; and +they said, Is this Naomi? And she said unto them, Call me not Naomi; +call me Mara; for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me. I went +out full, and the Lord hath brought me home again empty: why then call +ye me Naomi, seeing the Lord hath testified against me, and the Almighty +hath afflicted me?" + +Deep, heavy sobs from the mourners were for a few moments the only +answer to these sad words, till the minister raised the old funeral +psalm of New England,-- + + "Why do we mourn departing friends, + Or shake at Death's alarms? + 'Tis but the voice that Jesus sends + To call them to his arms. + + "Are we not tending upward too, + As fast as time can move? + And should we wish the hours more slow + That bear us to our love?" + +The words rose in old "China,"--that strange, wild warble, whose +quaintly blended harmonies might have been learned of moaning seas or +wailing winds, so strange and grand they rose, full of that intense +pathos which rises over every defect of execution; and as they sung, +Zephaniah Pennel straightened his tall form, before bowed on his hands, +and looked heavenward, his cheeks wet with tears, but something sublime +and immortal shining upward through his blue eyes; and at the last verse +he came forward involuntarily, and stood by his dead, and his voice rose +over all the others as he sung,-- + + "Then let the last loud trumpet sound, + And bid the dead arise! + Awake, ye nations under ground! + Ye saints, ascend the skies!" + +The sunbeam through the window-curtain fell on his silver hair, and they +that looked beheld his face as it were the face of an angel; he had +gotten a sight of the city whose foundation is jasper, and whose every +gate is a separate pearl. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +AUNT ROXY AND AUNT RUEY + + +The sea lay like an unbroken mirror all around the pine-girt, lonely +shores of Orr's Island. Tall, kingly spruces wore their regal crowns of +cones high in air, sparkling with diamonds of clear exuded gum; vast old +hemlocks of primeval growth stood darkling in their forest shadows, +their branches hung with long hoary moss; while feathery larches, turned +to brilliant gold by autumn frosts, lighted up the darker shadows of the +evergreens. It was one of those hazy, calm, dissolving days of Indian +summer, when everything is so quiet that the faintest kiss of the wave +on the beach can be heard, and white clouds seem to faint into the blue +of the sky, and soft swathing bands of violet vapor make all earth look +dreamy, and give to the sharp, clear-cut outlines of the northern +landscape all those mysteries of light and shade which impart such +tenderness to Italian scenery. + +The funeral was over; the tread of many feet, bearing the heavy burden +of two broken lives, had been to the lonely graveyard, and had come back +again,--each footstep lighter and more unconstrained as each one went +his way from the great old tragedy of Death to the common cheerful walks +of Life. + +The solemn black clock stood swaying with its eternal "tick-tock, +tick-tock," in the kitchen of the brown house on Orr's Island. There was +there that sense of a stillness that can be felt,--such as settles down +on a dwelling when any of its inmates have passed through its doors for +the last time, to go whence they shall not return. The best room was +shut up and darkened, with only so much light as could fall through a +little heart-shaped hole in the window-shutter,--for except on solemn +visits, or prayer meetings, or weddings, or funerals, that room formed +no part of the daily family scenery. + +The kitchen was clean and ample, with a great open fireplace and wide +stone hearth, and oven on one side, and rows of old-fashioned +splint-bottomed chairs against the wall. A table scoured to snowy +whiteness, and a little work-stand whereon lay the Bible, the +"Missionary Herald" and the "Weekly Christian Mirror," before named, +formed the principal furniture. One feature, however, must not be +forgotten,--a great sea-chest, which had been the companion of Zephaniah +through all the countries of the earth. Old, and battered, and unsightly +it looked, yet report said that there was good store within of that +which men for the most part respect more than anything else; and, +indeed, it proved often when a deed of grace was to be done,--when a +woman was suddenly made a widow in a coast gale, or a fishing-smack was +run down in the fogs off the banks, leaving in some neighboring cottage +a family of orphans,--in all such cases, the opening of this sea-chest +was an event of good omen to the bereaved; for Zephaniah had a large +heart and a large hand, and was apt to take it out full of silver +dollars when once it went in. So the ark of the covenant could not have +been looked on with more reverence than the neighbors usually showed to +Captain Pennel's sea-chest. + +The afternoon sun is shining in a square of light through the open +kitchen-door, whence one dreamily disposed might look far out to sea, +and behold ships coming and going in every variety of shape and size. + +But Aunt Roxy and Aunt Ruey, who for the present were sole occupants of +the premises, were not people of the dreamy kind, and consequently were +not gazing off to sea, but attending to very terrestrial matters that in +all cases somebody must attend to. The afternoon was warm and balmy, but +a few smouldering sticks were kept in the great chimney, and thrust deep +into the embers was a mongrel species of snub-nosed tea-pot, which fumed +strongly of catnip-tea, a little of which gracious beverage Miss Roxy +was preparing in an old-fashioned cracked India china tea-cup, tasting +it as she did so with the air of a connoisseur. + +Apparently this was for the benefit of a small something in long white +clothes, that lay face downward under a little blanket of very blue new +flannel, and which something Aunt Roxy, when not otherwise engaged, +constantly patted with a gentle tattoo, in tune to the steady trot of +her knee. All babies knew Miss Roxy's tattoo on their backs, and never +thought of taking it in ill part. On the contrary, it had a vital and +mesmeric effect of sovereign force against colic, and all other +disturbers of the nursery; and never was infant known so pressed with +those internal troubles which infants cry about, as not speedily to give +over and sink to slumber at this soothing appliance. + +At a little distance sat Aunt Ruey, with a quantity of black crape +strewed on two chairs about her, very busily employed in getting up a +mourning-bonnet, at which she snipped, and clipped, and worked, +zealously singing, in a high cracked voice, from time to time, certain +verses of a funeral psalm. + +Miss Roxy and Miss Ruey Toothacre were two brisk old bodies of the +feminine gender and singular number, well known in all the region of +Harpswell Neck and Middle Bay, and such was their fame that it had even +reached the town of Brunswick, eighteen miles away. + +They were of that class of females who might be denominated, in the Old +Testament language, "cunning women,"--that is, gifted with an infinite +diversity of practical "faculty," which made them an essential +requisite in every family for miles and miles around. It was impossible +to say what they could not do: they could make dresses, and make shirts +and vests and pantaloons, and cut out boys' jackets, and braid straw, +and bleach and trim bonnets, and cook and wash, and iron and mend, could +upholster and quilt, could nurse all kinds of sicknesses, and in default +of a doctor, who was often miles away, were supposed to be infallible +medical oracles. Many a human being had been ushered into life under +their auspices,--trotted, chirruped in babyhood on their knees, clothed +by their handiwork in garments gradually enlarging from year to year, +watched by them in the last sickness, and finally arrayed for the long +repose by their hands. + +These universally useful persons receive among us the title of "aunt" by +a sort of general consent, showing the strong ties of relationship which +bind them to the whole human family. They are nobody's aunts in +particular, but aunts to human nature generally. The idea of restricting +their usefulness to any one family, would strike dismay through a whole +community. Nobody would be so unprincipled as to think of such a thing +as having their services more than a week or two at most. Your country +factotum knows better than anybody else how absurd it would be + + "To give to a part what was meant for mankind." + +Nobody knew very well the ages of these useful sisters. In that cold, +clear, severe climate of the North, the roots of human existence are +hard to strike; but, if once people do take to living, they come in time +to a place where they seem never to grow any older, but can always be +found, like last year's mullein stalks, upright, dry, and seedy, +warranted to last for any length of time. + +Miss Roxy Toothacre, who sits trotting the baby, is a tall, thin, +angular woman, with sharp black eyes, and hair once black, but now well +streaked with gray. These ravages of time, however, were concealed by an +ample mohair frisette of glossy blackness woven on each side into a heap +of stiff little curls, which pushed up her cap border in rather a +bristling and decisive way. In all her movements and personal habits, +even to her tone of voice and manner of speaking, Miss Roxy was +vigorous, spicy, and decided. Her mind on all subjects was made up, and +she spoke generally as one having authority; and who should, if she +should not? Was she not a sort of priestess and sibyl in all the most +awful straits and mysteries of life? How many births, and weddings, and +deaths had come and gone under her jurisdiction! And amid weeping or +rejoicing, was not Miss Roxy still the master-spirit,--consulted, +referred to by all?--was not her word law and precedent? Her younger +sister, Miss Ruey, a pliant, cozy, easy-to-be-entreated personage, plump +and cushiony, revolved around her as a humble satellite. Miss Roxy +looked on Miss Ruey as quite a frisky young thing, though under her +ample frisette of carroty hair her head might be seen white with the +same snow that had powdered that of her sister. Aunt Ruey had a face +much resembling the kind of one you may see, reader, by looking at +yourself in the convex side of a silver milk-pitcher. If you try the +experiment, this description will need no further amplification. + +The two almost always went together, for the variety of talent comprised +in their stock could always find employment in the varying wants of a +family. While one nursed the sick, the other made clothes for the well; +and thus they were always chippering and chatting to each other, like a +pair of antiquated house-sparrows, retailing over harmless gossips, and +moralizing in that gentle jogtrot which befits serious old women. In +fact, they had talked over everything in Nature, and said everything +they could think of to each other so often, that the opinions of one +were as like those of the other as two sides of a pea-pod. But as often +happens in cases of the sort, this was not because the two were in all +respects exactly alike, but because the stronger one had mesmerized the +weaker into consent. + +Miss Roxy was the master-spirit of the two, and, like the great coining +machine of a mint, came down with her own sharp, heavy stamp on every +opinion her sister put out. She was matter-of-fact, positive, and +declarative to the highest degree, while her sister was naturally +inclined to the elegiac and the pathetic, indulging herself in +sentimental poetry, and keeping a store thereof in her thread-case, +which she had cut from the "Christian Mirror." Miss Roxy sometimes, in +her brusque way, popped out observations on life and things, with a +droll, hard quaintness that took one's breath a little, yet never failed +to have a sharp crystallization of truth,--frosty though it were. She +was one of those sensible, practical creatures who tear every veil, and +lay their fingers on every spot in pure business-like good-will; and if +we shiver at them at times, as at the first plunge of a cold bath, we +confess to an invigorating power in them after all. + +"Well, now," said Miss Roxy, giving a decisive push to the tea-pot, +which buried it yet deeper in the embers, "ain't it all a strange kind +o' providence that this 'ere little thing is left behind so; and then +their callin' on her by such a strange, mournful kind of name,--Mara. I +thought sure as could be 'twas Mary, till the minister read the passage +from Scriptur'. Seems to me it's kind o' odd. I'd call it Maria, or I'd +put an Ann on to it. Mara-ann, now, wouldn't sound so strange." + +"It's a Scriptur' name, sister," said Aunt Ruey, "and that ought to be +enough for us." + +"Well, I don't know," said Aunt Roxy. "Now there was Miss Jones down on +Mure P'int called her twins Tiglath-Pileser and Shalmaneser,--Scriptur' +names both, but I never liked 'em. The boys used to call 'em, Tiggy and +Shally, so no mortal could guess they was Scriptur'." + +"Well," said Aunt Ruey, drawing a sigh which caused her plump +proportions to be agitated in gentle waves, "'tain't much matter, after +all, _what_ they call the little thing, for 'tain't 'tall likely it's +goin' to live,--cried and worried all night, and kep' a-suckin' my cheek +and my night-gown, poor little thing! This 'ere's a baby that won't get +along without its mother. What Mis' Pennel's a-goin' to do with it when +we is gone, I'm sure I don't know. It comes kind o' hard on old people +to be broke o' their rest. If it's goin' to be called home, it's a pity, +as I said, it didn't go with its mother"-- + +"And save the expense of another funeral," said Aunt Roxy. "Now when +Mis' Pennel's sister asked her what she was going to do with Naomi's +clothes, I couldn't help wonderin' when she said she should keep 'em for +the child." + +"She had a sight of things, Naomi did," said Aunt Ruey. "Nothin' was +never too much for her. I don't believe that Cap'n Pennel ever went to +Bath or Portland without havin' it in his mind to bring Naomi +somethin'." + +"Yes, and she had a faculty of puttin' of 'em on," said Miss Roxy, with +a decisive shake of the head. "Naomi was a still girl, but her faculty +was uncommon; and I tell you, Ruey, 'tain't everybody hes faculty as hes +things." + +"The poor Cap'n," said Miss Ruey, "he seemed greatly supported at the +funeral, but he's dreadful broke down since. I went into Naomi's room +this morning, and there the old man was a-sittin' by her bed, and he had +a pair of her shoes in his hand,--you know what a leetle bit of a foot +she had. I never saw nothin' look so kind o' solitary as that poor old +man did!" + +"Well," said Miss Roxy, "she was a master-hand for keepin' things, +Naomi was; her drawers is just a sight; she's got all the little +presents and things they ever give her since she was a baby, in one +drawer. There's a little pair of red shoes there that she had when she +wa'n't more'n five year old. You 'member, Ruey, the Cap'n brought 'em +over from Portland when we was to the house a-makin' Mis' Pennel's +figured black silk that he brought from Calcutty. You 'member they cost +just five and sixpence; but, law! the Cap'n he never grudged the money +when 'twas for Naomi. And so she's got all her husband's keepsakes and +things just as nice as when he give 'em to her." + +"It's real affectin'," said Miss Ruey, "I can't all the while help +a-thinkin' of the Psalm,-- + + "'So fades the lovely blooming flower,-- + Frail, smiling solace of an hour; + So quick our transient comforts fly, + And pleasure only blooms to die.'" + +"Yes," said Miss Roxy; "and, Ruey, I was a-thinkin' whether or no it +wa'n't best to pack away them things, 'cause Naomi hadn't fixed no baby +drawers, and we seem to want some." + +"I was kind o' hintin' that to Mis' Pennel this morning," said Ruey, +"but she can't seem to want to have 'em touched." + +"Well, we may just as well come to such things first as last," said Aunt +Roxy; "'cause if the Lord takes our friends, he does take 'em; and we +can't lose 'em and have 'em too, and we may as well give right up at +first, and done with it, that they are gone, and we've got to do without +'em, and not to be hangin' on to keep things just as they was." + +"So I was a-tellin' Mis' Pennel," said Miss Ruey, "but she'll come to it +by and by. I wish the baby might live, and kind o' grow up into her +mother's place." + +"Well," said Miss Roxy, "I wish it might, but there'd be a sight o' +trouble fetchin' on it up. Folks can do pretty well with children when +they're young and spry, if they do get 'em up nights; but come to +grandchildren, it's pretty tough." + +"I'm a-thinkin', sister," said Miss Ruey, taking off her spectacles and +rubbing her nose thoughtfully, "whether or no cow's milk ain't goin' to +be too hearty for it, it's such a pindlin' little thing. Now, Mis' +Badger she brought up a seven-months' child, and she told me she gave it +nothin' but these 'ere little seed cookies, wet in water, and it throve +nicely,--and the seed is good for wind." + +"Oh, don't tell me none of Mis' Badger's stories," said Miss Roxy, "I +don't believe in 'em. Cows is the Lord's ordinances for bringing up +babies that's lost their mothers; it stands to reason they should +be,--and babies that can't eat milk, why they can't be fetched up; but +babies can eat milk, and this un will if it lives, and if it can't it +won't live." So saying, Miss Roxy drummed away on the little back of the +party in question, authoritatively, as if to pound in a wholesome +conviction at the outset. + +"I hope," said Miss Ruey, holding up a strip of black crape, and looking +through it from end to end so as to test its capabilities, "I hope the +Cap'n and Mis' Pennel'll get some support at the prayer-meetin' this +afternoon." + +"It's the right place to go to," said Miss Roxy, with decision. + +"Mis' Pennel said this mornin' that she was just beat out tryin' to +submit; and the more she said, 'Thy will be done,' the more she didn't +seem to feel it." + +"Them's common feelin's among mourners, Ruey. These 'ere forty years +that I've been round nussin', and layin'-out, and tendin' funerals, I've +watched people's exercises. People's sometimes supported wonderfully +just at the time, and maybe at the funeral; but the three or four weeks +after, most everybody, if they's to say what they feel, is +unreconciled." + +"The Cap'n, he don't say nothin'," said Miss Ruey. + +"No, he don't, but he looks it in his eyes," said Miss Roxy; "he's one +of the kind o' mourners as takes it deep; that kind don't cry; it's a +kind o' dry, deep pain; them's the worst to get over it,--sometimes they +just says nothin', and in about six months they send for you to nuss 'em +in consumption or somethin'. Now, Mis' Pennel, she can cry and she can +talk,--well, she'll get over it; but _he_ won't get no support unless +the Lord reaches right down and lifts him up over the world. I've seen +that happen sometimes, and I tell you, Ruey, that sort makes powerful +Christians." + +At that moment the old pair entered the door. Zephaniah Pennel came and +stood quietly by the pillow where the little form was laid, and lifted a +corner of the blanket. The tiny head was turned to one side, showing the +soft, warm cheek, and the little hand was holding tightly a morsel of +the flannel blanket. He stood swallowing hard for a few moments. At last +he said, with deep humility, to the wise and mighty woman who held her, +"I'll tell you what it is, Miss Roxy, I'll give all there is in my old +chest yonder if you'll only make her--live." + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE KITTRIDGES + + +It did live. The little life, so frail, so unprofitable in every mere +material view, so precious in the eyes of love, expanded and flowered at +last into fair childhood. Not without much watching and weariness. Many +a night the old fisherman walked the floor with the little thing in his +arms, talking to it that jargon of tender nonsense which fairies bring +as love-gifts to all who tend a cradle. Many a day the good little old +grandmother called the aid of gossips about her, trying various +experiments of catnip, and sweet fern, and bayberry, and other teas of +rustic reputation for baby frailties. + +At the end of three years, the two graves in the lonely graveyard were +sodded and cemented down by smooth velvet turf, and playing round the +door of the brown houses was a slender child, with ways and manners so +still and singular as often to remind the neighbors that she was not +like other children,--a bud of hope and joy,--but the outcome of a great +sorrow,--a pearl washed ashore by a mighty, uprooting tempest. They that +looked at her remembered that her father's eye had never beheld her, and +her baptismal cup had rested on her mother's coffin. + +She was small of stature, beyond the wont of children of her age, and +moulded with a fine waxen delicacy that won admiration from all eyes. +Her hair was curly and golden, but her eyes were dark like her mother's, +and the lids drooped over them in that manner which gives a peculiar +expression of dreamy wistfulness. Every one of us must remember eyes +that have a strange, peculiar expression of pathos and desire, as if the +spirit that looked out of them were pressed with vague remembrances of a +past, or but dimly comprehended the mystery of its present life. Even +when the baby lay in its cradle, and its dark, inquiring eyes would +follow now one object and now another, the gossips would say the child +was longing for something, and Miss Roxy would still further venture to +predict that that child always would long and never would know exactly +what she was after. + +That dignitary sits at this minute enthroned in the kitchen corner, +looking majestically over the press-board on her knee, where she is +pressing the next year's Sunday vest of Zephaniah Pennel. As she makes +her heavy tailor's goose squeak on the work, her eyes follow the little +delicate fairy form which trips about the kitchen, busily and silently +arranging a little grotto of gold and silver shells and seaweed. The +child sings to herself as she works in a low chant, like the prattle of +a brook, but ever and anon she rests her little arms on a chair and +looks through the open kitchen-door far, far off where the horizon line +of the blue sea dissolves in the blue sky. + +"See that child now, Roxy," said Miss Ruey, who sat stitching beside +her; "do look at her eyes. She's as handsome as a pictur', but 't ain't +an ordinary look she has neither; she seems a contented little thing; +but what makes her eyes always look so kind o' wishful?" + +"Wa'n't her mother always a-longin' and a-lookin' to sea, and watchin' +the ships, afore she was born?" said Miss Roxy; "and didn't her heart +break afore she was born? Babies like that is marked always. They don't +know what ails 'em, nor nobody." + +"It's her mother she's after," said Miss Ruey. + +"The Lord only knows," said Miss Roxy; "but them kind o' children always +seem homesick to go back where they come from. They're mostly grave and +old-fashioned like this 'un. If they gets past seven years, why they +live; but it's always in 'em to long; they don't seem to be really +unhappy neither, but if anything's ever the matter with 'em, it seems a +great deal easier for 'em to die than to live. Some say it's the mothers +longin' after 'em makes 'em feel so, and some say it's them longin' +after their mothers; but dear knows, Ruey, what anything is or what +makes anything. Children's mysterious, that's my mind." + +"Mara, dear," said Miss Ruey, interrupting the child's steady lookout, +"what you thinking of?" + +"Me want somefin'," said the little one. + +"That's what she's always sayin'," said Miss Roxy. + +"Me want somebody to pay wis'," continued the little one. + +"Want somebody to play with," said old Dame Pennel, as she came in from +the back-room with her hands yet floury with kneading bread; "sure +enough, she does. Our house stands in such a lonesome place, and there +ain't any children. But I never saw such a quiet little thing--always +still and always busy." + +"I'll take her down with me to Cap'n Kittridge's," said Miss Roxy, "and +let her play with their little girl; she'll chirk her up, I'll warrant. +She's a regular little witch, Sally is, but she'll chirk her up. It +ain't good for children to be so still and old-fashioned; children ought +to be children. Sally takes to Mara just 'cause she's so different." + +"Well, now, you may," said Dame Pennel; "to be sure _he_ can't bear her +out of his sight a minute after he comes in; but after all, old folks +can't be company for children." + +Accordingly, that afternoon, the little Mara was arrayed in a little +blue flounced dress, which stood out like a balloon, made by Miss Roxy +in first-rate style, from a French fashion-plate; her golden hair was +twined in manifold curls by Dame Pennel, who, restricted in her ideas +of ornamentation, spared, nevertheless, neither time nor money to +enhance the charms of this single ornament to her dwelling. Mara was her +picture-gallery, who gave her in the twenty-four hours as many Murillos +or Greuzes as a lover of art could desire; and as she tied over the +child's golden curls a little flat hat, and saw her go dancing off along +the sea-sands, holding to Miss Roxy's bony finger, she felt she had in +her what galleries of pictures could not buy. + +It was a good mile to the one story, gambrel-roofed cottage where lived +Captain Kittridge,--the long, lean, brown man, with his good wife of the +great Leghorn bonnet, round, black bead eyes, and psalm-book, whom we +told you of at the funeral. The Captain, too, had followed the sea in +his early life, but being not, as he expressed it, "very rugged," in +time changed his ship for a tight little cottage on the seashore, and +devoted himself to boat-building, which he found sufficiently lucrative +to furnish his brown cottage with all that his wife's heart desired, +besides extra money for knick-knacks when she chose to go up to +Brunswick or over to Portland to shop. + +The Captain himself was a welcome guest at all the firesides round, +being a chatty body, and disposed to make the most of his foreign +experiences, in which he took the usual advantages of a traveler. In +fact, it was said, whether slanderously or not, that the Captain's yarns +were spun to order; and as, when pressed to relate his foreign +adventures, he always responded with, "What would you like to hear?" it +was thought that he fabricated his article to suit his market. In short, +there was no species of experience, finny, fishy, or aquatic,--no legend +of strange and unaccountable incident of fire or flood,--no romance of +foreign scenery and productions, to which his tongue was not competent, +when he had once seated himself in a double bow-knot at a neighbor's +evening fireside. + +His good wife, a sharp-eyed, literal body, and a vigorous church-member, +felt some concern of conscience on the score of these narrations; for, +being their constant auditor, she, better than any one else, could +perceive the variations and discrepancies of text which showed their +mythical character, and oftentimes her black eyes would snap and her +knitting-needles rattle with an admonitory vigor as he went on, and +sometimes she would unmercifully come in at the end of a narrative +with,-- + +"Well, now, the Cap'n's told them ar stories till he begins to b'lieve +'em himself, I think." + +But works of fiction, as we all know, if only well gotten up, have +always their advantages in the hearts of listeners over plain, homely +truth; and so Captain Kittridge's yarns were marketable fireside +commodities still, despite the skepticisms which attended them. + +The afternoon sunbeams at this moment are painting the gambrel-roof with +a golden brown. It is September again, as it was three years ago when +our story commenced, and the sea and sky are purple and amethystine with +its Italian haziness of atmosphere. + +The brown house stands on a little knoll, about a hundred yards from the +open ocean. Behind it rises a ledge of rocks, where cedars and hemlocks +make deep shadows into which the sun shoots golden shafts of light, +illuminating the scarlet feathers of the sumach, which throw themselves +jauntily forth from the crevices; while down below, in deep, damp, mossy +recesses, rise ferns which autumn has just begun to tinge with yellow +and brown. The little knoll where the cottage stood had on its right +hand a tiny bay, where the ocean water made up amid picturesque +rocks--shaggy and solemn. Here trees of the primeval forest, grand and +lordly, looked down silently into the waters which ebbed and flowed +daily into this little pool. Every variety of those beautiful evergreens +which feather the coast of Maine, and dip their wings in the very spray +of its ocean foam, found here a representative. There were aspiring +black spruces, crowned on the very top with heavy coronets of cones; +there were balsamic firs, whose young buds breathe the scent of +strawberries; there were cedars, black as midnight clouds, and white +pines with their swaying plumage of needle-like leaves, strewing the +ground beneath with a golden, fragrant matting; and there were the +gigantic, wide-winged hemlocks, hundreds of years old, and with long, +swaying, gray beards of moss, looking white and ghostly under the deep +shadows of their boughs. And beneath, creeping round trunk and matting +over stones, were many and many of those wild, beautiful things which +embellish the shadows of these northern forests. Long, feathery wreaths +of what are called ground-pines ran here and there in little ruffles of +green, and the prince's pine raised its oriental feather, with a mimic +cone on the top, as if it conceived itself to be a grown-up tree. Whole +patches of partridge-berry wove their evergreen matting, dotted +plentifully with brilliant scarlet berries. Here and there, the rocks +were covered with a curiously inwoven tapestry of moss, overshot with +the exquisite vine of the Linnea borealis, which in early spring rings +its two fairy bells on the end of every spray; while elsewhere the +wrinkled leaves of the mayflower wove themselves through and through +deep beds of moss, meditating silently thoughts of the thousand little +cups of pink shell which they had it in hand to make when the time of +miracles should come round next spring. + +Nothing, in short, could be more quaintly fresh, wild, and beautiful +than the surroundings of this little cove which Captain Kittridge had +thought fit to dedicate to his boat-building operations,--where he had +set up his tar-kettle between two great rocks above the highest +tide-mark, and where, at the present moment, he had a boat upon the +stocks. + +Mrs. Kittridge, at this hour, was sitting in her clean kitchen, very +busily engaged in ripping up a silk dress, which Miss Roxy had engaged +to come and make into a new one; and, as she ripped, she cast now and +then an eye at the face of a tall, black clock, whose solemn tick-tock +was the only sound that could be heard in the kitchen. + +By her side, on a low stool, sat a vigorous, healthy girl of six years, +whose employment evidently did not please her, for her well-marked black +eyebrows were bent in a frown, and her large black eyes looked surly and +wrathful, and one versed in children's grievances could easily see what +the matter was,--she was turning a sheet! Perhaps, happy young female +reader, you don't know what that is,--most likely not; for in these +degenerate days the strait and narrow ways of self-denial, formerly +thought so wholesome for little feet, are quite grass-grown with +neglect. Childhood nowadays is unceasingly feted and caressed, the +principal difficulty of the grown people seeming to be to discover what +the little dears want,--a thing not always clear to the little dears +themselves. But in old times, turning sheets was thought a most especial +and wholesome discipline for young girls; in the first place, because it +took off the hands of their betters a very uninteresting and monotonous +labor; and in the second place, because it was such a long, straight, +unending turnpike, that the youthful travelers, once started thereupon, +could go on indefinitely, without requiring guidance and direction of +their elders. For these reasons, also, the task was held in special +detestation by children in direct proportion to their amount of life, +and their ingenuity and love of variety. A dull child took it tolerably +well; but to a lively, energetic one, it was a perfect torture. + +"I don't see the use of sewing up sheets one side, and ripping up the +other," at last said Sally, breaking the monotonous tick-tock of the +clock by an observation which has probably occurred to every child in +similar circumstances. + +"Sally Kittridge, if you say another word about that ar sheet, I'll whip +you," was the very explicit rejoinder; and there was a snap of Mrs. +Kittridge's black eyes, that seemed to make it likely that she would +keep her word. It was answered by another snap from the six-year-old +eyes, as Sally comforted herself with thinking that when she was a woman +she'd speak her mind out in pay for all this. + +At this moment a burst of silvery child-laughter rang out, and there +appeared in the doorway, illuminated by the afternoon sunbeams, the +vision of Miss Roxy's tall, lank figure, with the little golden-haired, +blue-robed fairy, hanging like a gay butterfly upon the tip of a +thorn-bush. Sally dropped the sheet and clapped her hands, unnoticed by +her mother, who rose to pay her respects to the "cunning woman" of the +neighborhood. + +"Well, now, Miss Roxy, I was 'mazin' afraid you wer'n't a-comin'. I'd +just been an' got my silk ripped up, and didn't know how to get a step +farther without you." + +"Well, I was finishin' up Cap'n Pennel's best pantaloons," said Miss +Roxy; "and I've got 'em along so, Ruey can go on with 'em; and I told +Mis' Pennel I must come to you, if 'twas only for a day; and I fetched +the little girl down, 'cause the little thing's so kind o' lonesome +like. I thought Sally could play with her, and chirk her up a little." + +"Well, Sally," said Mrs. Kittridge, "stick in your needle, fold up your +sheet, put your thimble in your work-pocket, and then you may take the +little Mara down to the cove to play; but be sure you don't let her go +near the tar, nor wet her shoes. D'ye hear?" + +"Yes, ma'am," said Sally, who had sprung up in light and radiance, like +a translated creature, at this unexpected turn of fortune, and +performed the welcome orders with a celerity which showed how agreeable +they were; and then, stooping and catching the little one in her arms, +disappeared through the door, with the golden curls fluttering over her +own crow-black hair. + +The fact was, that Sally, at that moment, was as happy as human creature +could be, with a keenness of happiness that children who have never been +made to turn sheets of a bright afternoon can never realize. The sun was +yet an hour high, as she saw, by the flash of her shrewd, time-keeping +eye, and she could bear her little prize down to the cove, and collect +unknown quantities of gold and silver shells, and starfish, and +salad-dish shells, and white pebbles for her, besides quantities of well +turned shavings, brown and white, from the pile which constantly was +falling under her father's joiner's bench, and with which she would make +long extemporaneous tresses, so that they might play at being mermaids, +like those that she had heard her father tell about in some of his +sea-stories. + +"Now, railly, Sally, what you got there?" said Captain Kittridge, as he +stood in his shirt-sleeves peering over his joiner's bench, to watch the +little one whom Sally had dumped down into a nest of clean white +shavings. "Wal', wal', I should think you'd a-stolen the big doll I see +in a shop-window the last time I was to Portland. So this is Pennel's +little girl?--poor child!" + +"Yes, father, and we want some nice shavings." + +"Stay a bit, I'll make ye a few a-purpose," said the old man, reaching +his long, bony arm, with the greatest ease, to the farther part of his +bench, and bringing up a board, from which he proceeded to roll off +shavings in fine satin rings, which perfectly delighted the hearts of +the children, and made them dance with glee; and, truth to say, reader, +there are coarser and homelier things in the world than a well turned +shaving. + +"There, go now," he said, when both of them stood with both hands full; +"go now and play; and mind you don't let the baby wet her feet, Sally; +them shoes o' hern must have cost five-and-sixpence at the very least." + +That sunny hour before sundown seemed as long to Sally as the whole seam +of the sheet; for childhood's joys are all pure gold; and as she ran up +and down the white sands, shouting at every shell she found, or darted +up into the overhanging forest for checkerberries and ground-pine, all +the sorrows of the morning came no more into her remembrance. + +The little Mara had one of those sensitive, excitable natures, on which +every external influence acts with immediate power. Stimulated by the +society of her energetic, buoyant little neighbor, she no longer seemed +wishful or pensive, but kindled into a perfect flame of wild delight, +and gamboled about the shore like a blue and gold-winged fly; while her +bursts of laughter made the squirrels and blue jays look out +inquisitively from their fastnesses in the old evergreens. Gradually the +sunbeams faded from the pines, and the waves of the tide in the little +cove came in, solemnly tinted with purple, flaked with orange and +crimson, borne in from a great rippling sea of fire, into which the sun +had just sunk. + +"Mercy on us--them children!" said Miss Roxy. + +"_He's_ bringin' 'em along," said Mrs. Kittridge, as she looked out of +the window and saw the tall, lank form of the Captain, with one child +seated on either shoulder, and holding on by his head. + +The two children were both in the highest state of excitement, but never +was there a more marked contrast of nature. The one seemed a perfect +type of well-developed childish health and vigor, good solid flesh and +bones, with glowing skin, brilliant eyes, shining teeth, well-knit, +supple limbs,--vigorously and healthily beautiful; while the other +appeared one of those aerial mixtures of cloud and fire, whose radiance +seems scarcely earthly. A physiologist, looking at the child, would +shake his head, seeing one of those perilous organizations, all nerve +and brain, which come to life under the clear, stimulating skies of +America, and, burning with the intensity of lighted phosphorus, waste +themselves too early. + +The little Mara seemed like a fairy sprite, possessed with a wild spirit +of glee. She laughed and clapped her hands incessantly, and when set +down on the kitchen-floor spun round like a little elf; and that night +it was late and long before her wide, wakeful eyes could be veiled in +sleep. + +"Company jist sets this 'ere child crazy," said Miss Roxy; "it's jist +her lonely way of livin'; a pity Mis' Pennel hadn't another child to +keep company along with her." + +"Mis' Pennel oughter be trainin' of her up to work," said Mrs. +Kittridge. "Sally could oversew and hem when she wa'n't more'n three +years old; nothin' straightens out children like work. Mis' Pennel she +just keeps that ar child to look at." + +"All children ain't alike, Mis' Kittridge," said Miss Roxy, +sententiously. "This 'un ain't like your Sally. 'A hen and a bumble-bee +can't be fetched up alike, fix it how you will!'" + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +GRANDPARENTS + + +Zephaniah Pennel came back to his house in the evening, after Miss Roxy +had taken the little Mara away. He looked for the flowery face and +golden hair as he came towards the door, and put his hand in his +vest-pocket, where he had deposited a small store of very choice shells +and sea curiosities, thinking of the widening of those dark, soft eyes +when he should present them. + +"Where's Mara?" was the first inquiry after he had crossed the +threshold. + +"Why, Roxy's been an' taken her down to Cap'n Kittridge's to spend the +night," said Miss Ruey. "Roxy's gone to help Mis' Kittridge to turn her +spotted gray and black silk. We was talking this mornin' whether 'no 't +would turn, 'cause _I_ thought the spot was overshot, and wouldn't make +up on the wrong side; but Roxy she says it's one of them ar Calcutty +silks that has two sides to 'em, like the one you bought Miss Pennel, +that we made up for her, you know;" and Miss Ruey arose and gave a +finishing snap to the Sunday pantaloons, which she had been left to +"finish off,"--which snap said, as plainly as words could say that there +was a good job disposed of. + +Zephaniah stood looking as helpless as animals of the male kind +generally do when appealed to with such prolixity on feminine details; +in reply to it all, only he asked meekly,-- + +"Where's Mary?" + +"Mis' Pennel? Why, she's up chamber. She'll be down in a minute, she +said; she thought she'd have time afore supper to get to the bottom of +the big chist, and see if that 'ere vest pattern ain't there, and them +sticks o' twist for the button-holes, 'cause Roxy she says she never see +nothin' so rotten as that 'ere twist we've been a-workin' with, that +Mis' Pennel got over to Portland; it's a clear cheat, and Mis' Pennel +she give more'n half a cent a stick more for 't than what Roxy got for +her up to Brunswick; so you see these 'ere Portland stores charge up, +and their things want lookin' after." + +Here Mrs. Pennel entered the room, "the Captain" addressing her +eagerly,-- + +"How came you to let Aunt Roxy take Mara off so far, and be gone so +long?" + +"Why, law me, Captain Pennel! the little thing seems kind o' lonesome. +Chil'en want chil'en; Miss Roxy says she's altogether too sort o' still +and old-fashioned, and must have child's company to chirk her up, and so +she took her down to play with Sally Kittridge; there's no manner of +danger or harm in it, and she'll be back to-morrow afternoon, and Mara +will have a real good time." + +"Wal', now, really," said the good man, "but it's 'mazin' lonesome." + +"Cap'n Pennel, you're gettin' to make an idol of that 'ere child," said +Miss Ruey. "We have to watch our hearts. It minds me of the hymn,-- + + "'The fondness of a creature's love, + How strong it strikes the sense,-- + Thither the warm affections move, + Nor can we call them hence.'" + +Miss Ruey's mode of getting off poetry, in a sort of high-pitched +canter, with a strong thump on every accented syllable, might have +provoked a smile in more sophisticated society, but Zephaniah listened +to her with deep gravity, and answered,-- + +"I'm 'fraid there's truth in what you say, Aunt Ruey. When her mother +was called away, I thought that was a warning I never should forget; but +now I seem to be like Jonah,--I'm restin' in the shadow of my gourd, and +my heart is glad because of it. I kind o' trembled at the prayer meetin' +when we was a-singin',-- + + "'The dearest idol I have known, + Whate'er that idol be, + Help me to tear it from Thy throne, + And worship only Thee.'" + +"Yes," said Miss Ruey, "Roxy says if the Lord should take us up short on +our prayers, it would make sad work with us sometimes." + +"Somehow," said Mrs. Pennel, "it seems to me just her mother over again. +She don't look like her. I think her hair and complexion comes from the +Badger blood; my mother had that sort o' hair and skin,--but then she +has ways like Naomi,--and it seems as if the Lord had kind o' given +Naomi back to us; so I hope she's goin' to be spared to us." + +Mrs. Pennel had one of those natures--gentle, trustful, and hopeful, +because not very deep; she was one of the little children of the world +whose faith rests on child-like ignorance, and who know not the deeper +needs of deeper natures; such see only the sunshine and forget the +storm. + +This conversation had been going on to the accompaniment of a clatter of +plates and spoons and dishes, and the fizzling of sausages, prefacing +the evening meal, to which all now sat down after a lengthened grace +from Zephaniah. + +"There's a tremendous gale a-brewin'," he said, as they sat at table. "I +noticed the clouds to-night as I was comin' home, and somehow I felt +kind o' as if I wanted all our folks snug in-doors." + +"Why, law, husband, Cap'n Kittridge's house is as good as ours, if it +does blow. You never can seem to remember that houses don't run aground +or strike on rocks in storms." + +"The Cap'n puts me in mind of old Cap'n Jeduth Scranton," said Miss +Ruey, "that built that queer house down by Middle Bay. The Cap'n he +would insist on havin' on't jist like a ship, and the closet-shelves had +holes for the tumblers and dishes, and he had all his tables and chairs +battened down, and so when it came a gale, they say the old Cap'n used +to sit in his chair and hold on to hear the wind blow." + +"Well, I tell you," said Captain, "those that has followed the seas +hears the wind with different ears from lands-people. When you lie with +only a plank between you and eternity, and hear the voice of the Lord on +the waters, it don't sound as it does on shore." + +And in truth, as they were speaking, a fitful gust swept by the house, +wailing and screaming and rattling the windows, and after it came the +heavy, hollow moan of the surf on the beach, like the wild, angry howl +of some savage animal just beginning to be lashed into fury. + +"Sure enough, the wind is rising," said Miss Ruey, getting up from the +table, and flattening her snub nose against the window-pane. "Dear me, +how dark it is! Mercy on us, how the waves come in!--all of a sheet of +foam. I pity the ships that's comin' on coast such a night." + +The storm seemed to have burst out with a sudden fury, as if myriads of +howling demons had all at once been loosened in the air. Now they piped +and whistled with eldritch screech round the corners of the house--now +they thundered down the chimney--and now they shook the door and rattled +the casement--and anon mustering their forces with wild ado, seemed to +career over the house, and sail high up into the murky air. The dash of +the rising tide came with successive crash upon crash like the discharge +of heavy artillery, seeming to shake the very house, and the spray +borne by the wind dashed whizzing against the window-panes. + +Zephaniah, rising from supper, drew up the little stand that had the +family Bible on it, and the three old time-worn people sat themselves as +seriously down to evening worship as if they had been an extensive +congregation. They raised the old psalm-tune which our fathers called +"Complaint," and the cracked, wavering voices of the women, with the +deep, rough bass of the old sea-captain, rose in the uproar of the storm +with a ghostly, strange wildness, like the scream of the curlew or the +wailing of the wind:-- + + "Spare us, O Lord, aloud we pray, + Nor let our sun go down at noon: + Thy years are an eternal day, + And must thy children die so soon!" + +Miss Ruey valued herself on singing a certain weird and exalted part +which in ancient days used to be called counter, and which wailed and +gyrated in unimaginable heights of the scale, much as you may hear a +shrill, fine-voiced wind over a chimney-top; but altogether, the deep +and earnest gravity with which the three filled up the pauses in the +storm with their quaint minor key, had something singularly impressive. +When the singing was over, Zephaniah read to the accompaniment of wind +and sea, the words of poetry made on old Hebrew shores, in the dim, gray +dawn of the world:-- + +"The voice of the Lord is upon the waters; the God of glory thundereth; +the Lord is upon many waters. The voice of the Lord shaketh the +wilderness; the Lord shaketh the wilderness of Kadesh. The Lord sitteth +upon the floods, yea, the Lord sitteth King forever. The Lord will give +strength to his people; yea, the Lord will bless his people with peace." + +How natural and home-born sounded this old piece of Oriental poetry in +the ears of the three! The wilderness of Kadesh, with its great cedars, +was doubtless Orr's Island, where even now the goodly fellowship of +black-winged trees were groaning and swaying, and creaking as the breath +of the Lord passed over them. + +And the three old people kneeling by their smouldering fireside, amid +the general uproar, Zephaniah began in the words of a prayer which Moses +the man of God made long ago under the shadows of Egyptian pyramids: +"Lord, thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations. Before the +mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and +the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God." + +We hear sometimes in these days that the Bible is no more inspired of +God than many other books of historic and poetic merit. It is a fact, +however, that the Bible answers a strange and wholly exceptional purpose +by thousands of firesides on all shores of the earth; and, till some +other book can be found to do the same thing, it will not be surprising +if a belief of its Divine origin be one of the ineffaceable ideas of the +popular mind. It will be a long while before a translation from Homer or +a chapter in the Koran, or any of the beauties of Shakespeare, will be +read in a stormy night on Orr's Island with the same sense of a Divine +presence as the Psalms of David, or the prayer of Moses, the man of God. + +Boom! boom! "What's that?" said Zephaniah, starting, as they rose up +from prayer. "Hark! again, that's a gun,--there's a ship in distress." + +"Poor souls," said Miss Ruey; "it's an awful night!" + +The captain began to put on his sea-coat. + +"You ain't a-goin' out?" said his wife. + +"I must go out along the beach a spell, and see if I can hear any more +of that ship." + +"Mercy on us; the wind'll blow you over!" said Aunt Ruey. + +"I rayther think I've stood wind before in my day," said Zephaniah, a +grim smile stealing over his weather-beaten cheeks. In fact, the man +felt a sort of secret relationship to the storm, as if it were in some +manner a family connection--a wild, roystering cousin, who drew him out +by a rough attraction of comradeship. + +"Well, at any rate," said Mrs. Pennel, producing a large tin lantern +perforated with many holes, in which she placed a tallow candle, "take +this with you, and don't stay out long." + +The kitchen door opened, and the first gust of wind took off the old +man's hat and nearly blew him prostrate. He came back and shut the +door. "I ought to have known better," he said, knotting his +pocket-handkerchief over his head, after which he waited for a momentary +lull, and went out into the storm. + +Miss Ruey looked through the window-pane, and saw the light go twinkling +far down into the gloom, and ever and anon came the mournful boom of +distant guns. + +"Certainly there is a ship in trouble somewhere," she said. + +"He never can be easy when he hears these guns," said Mrs. Pennel; "but +what can he do, or anybody, in such a storm, the wind blowing right on +to shore?" + +"I shouldn't wonder if Cap'n Kittridge should be out on the beach, too," +said Miss Ruey; "but laws, he ain't much more than one of these 'ere old +grasshoppers you see after frost comes. Well, any way, there _ain't_ +much help in man if a ship comes ashore in such a gale as this, such a +dark night too." + +"It's kind o' lonesome to have poor little Mara away such a night as +this is," said Mrs. Pennel; "but who would a-thought it this afternoon, +when Aunt Roxy took her?" + +"I 'member my grandmother had a silver cream-pitcher that come ashore +in a storm on Mare P'int," said Miss Ruey, as she sat trotting her +knitting-needles. "Grand'ther found it, half full of sand, under a knot +of seaweed way up on the beach. It had a coat of arms on it,--might have +belonged to some grand family, that pitcher; in the Toothacre family +yet." + +"I remember when I was a girl," said Mrs. Pennel, "seeing the hull of a +ship that went on Eagle Island; it run way up in a sort of gully between +two rocks, and lay there years. They split pieces off it sometimes to +make fires, when they wanted to make a chowder down on the beach." + +"My aunt, Lois Toothacre, that lives down by Middle Bay," said Miss +Ruey, "used to tell about a dreadful blow they had once in time of the +equinoctial storm; and what was remarkable, she insisted that she heard +a baby cryin' out in the storm,--she heard it just as plain as could +be." + +"Laws a-mercy," said Mrs. Pennel, nervously, "it was nothing but the +wind,--it always screeches like a child crying; or maybe it was the +seals; seals will cry just like babes." + +"So they told her; but no,--she insisted she knew the difference,--it +_was_ a baby. Well, what do you think, when the storm cleared off, they +found a baby's cradle washed ashore sure enough!" + +"But they didn't find any baby," said Mrs. Pennel, nervously. + +"No; they searched the beach far and near, and that cradle was all they +found. Aunt Lois took it in--it was a very good cradle, and she took it +to use, but every time there came up a gale, that ar cradle would rock, +rock, jist as if somebody was a-sittin' by it; and you could stand +across the room and see there wa'n't nobody there." + +"You make me all of a shiver," said Mrs. Pennel. + +This, of course, was just what Miss Ruey intended, and she went on:-- + +"Wal', you see they kind o' got used to it; they found there wa'n't no +harm come of its rockin', and so they didn't mind; but Aunt Lois had a +sister Cerinthy that was a weakly girl, and had the janders. Cerinthy +was one of the sort that's born with veils over their faces, and can see +sperits; and one time Cerinthy was a-visitin' Lois after her second baby +was born, and there came up a blow, and Cerinthy comes out of the +keepin'-room, where the cradle was a-standin', and says, 'Sister,' says +she, 'who's that woman sittin' rockin' the cradle?' and Aunt Lois says +she, 'Why, there ain't nobody. That ar cradle always will rock in a +gale, but I've got used to it, and don't mind it.' 'Well,' says +Cerinthy, 'jist as true as you live, I just saw a woman with a silk gown +on, and long black hair a-hangin' down, and her face was pale as a +sheet, sittin' rockin' that ar cradle, and she looked round at me with +her great black eyes kind o' mournful and wishful, and then she stooped +down over the cradle.' 'Well,' says Lois, 'I ain't goin' to have no such +doin's in my house,' and she went right in and took up the baby, and the +very next day she jist had the cradle split up for kindlin'; and that +night, if you'll believe, when they was a-burnin' of it, they heard, +jist as plain as could be, a baby scream, scream, screamin' round the +house; but after that they never heard it no more." + +"I don't like such stories," said Dame Pennel, "'specially to-night, +when Mara's away. I shall get to hearing all sorts of noises in the +wind. I wonder when Cap'n Pennel will be back." + +And the good woman put more wood on the fire, and as the tongues of +flame streamed up high and clear, she approached her face to the +window-pane and started back with half a scream, as a pale, anxious +visage with sad dark eyes seemed to approach her. It took a moment or +two for her to discover that she had seen only the reflection of her own +anxious, excited face, the pitchy blackness without having converted the +window into a sort of dark mirror. + +Miss Ruey meanwhile began solacing herself by singing, in her +chimney-corner, a very favorite sacred melody, which contrasted oddly +enough with the driving storm and howling sea:-- + + "Haste, my beloved, haste away, + Cut short the hours of thy delay; + Fly like the bounding hart or roe, + Over the hills where spices grow." + +The tune was called "Invitation,"--one of those profusely florid in +runs, and trills, and quavers, which delighted the ears of a former +generation; and Miss Ruey, innocently unconscious of the effect of old +age on her voice, ran them up and down, and out and in, in a way that +would have made a laugh, had there been anybody there to notice or to +laugh. + +"I remember singin' that ar to Mary Jane Wilson the very night she +died," said Aunt Ruey, stopping. "She wanted me to sing to her, and it +was jist between two and three in the mornin'; there was jist the least +red streak of daylight, and I opened the window and sat there and sung, +and when I come to 'over the hills where spices grow,' I looked round +and there was a change in Mary Jane, and I went to the bed, and says she +very bright, 'Aunt Ruey, the Beloved has come,' and she was gone afore I +could raise her up on her pillow. I always think of Mary Jane at them +words; if ever there was a broken-hearted crittur took home, it was +her." + +At this moment Mrs. Pennel caught sight through the window of the gleam +of the returning lantern, and in a moment Captain Pennel entered, +dripping with rain and spray. + +"Why, Cap'n! you're e'en a'most drowned," said Aunt Ruey. + +"How long have you been gone? You must have been a great ways," said +Mrs. Pennel. + +"Yes, I have been down to Cap'n Kittridge's. I met Kittridge out on the +beach. We heard the guns plain enough, but couldn't see anything. I went +on down to Kittridge's to get a look at little Mara." + +"Well, she's all well enough?" said Mrs. Pennel, anxiously. + +"Oh, yes, well enough. Miss Roxy showed her to me in the trundle-bed, +'long with Sally. The little thing was lying smiling in her sleep, with +her cheek right up against Sally's. I took comfort looking at her. I +couldn't help thinking: 'So he giveth his beloved sleep!'" + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +FROM THE SEA + + +During the night and storm, the little Mara had lain sleeping as quietly +as if the cruel sea, that had made her an orphan from her birth, were +her kind-tempered old grandfather singing her to sleep, as he often +did,--with a somewhat hoarse voice truly, but with ever an undertone of +protecting love. But toward daybreak, there came very clear and bright +into her childish mind a dream, having that vivid distinctness which +often characterizes the dreams of early childhood. + +She thought she saw before her the little cove where she and Sally had +been playing the day before, with its broad sparkling white beach of +sand curving round its blue sea-mirror, and studded thickly with gold +and silver shells. She saw the boat of Captain Kittridge upon the +stocks, and his tar-kettle with the smouldering fires flickering under +it; but, as often happens in dreams, a certain rainbow vividness and +clearness invested everything, and she and Sally were jumping for joy at +the beautiful things they found on the beach. + +Suddenly, there stood before them a woman, dressed in a long white +garment. She was very pale, with sweet, serious dark eyes, and she led +by the hand a black-eyed boy, who seemed to be crying and looking about +as for something lost. She dreamed that she stood still, and the woman +came toward her, looking at her with sweet, sad eyes, till the child +seemed to feel them in every fibre of her frame. The woman laid her hand +on her head as if in blessing, and then put the boy's hand in hers, and +said, "Take him, Mara, he is a playmate for you;" and with that the +little boy's face flashed out into a merry laugh. The woman faded away, +and the three children remained playing together, gathering shells and +pebbles of a wonderful brightness. So vivid was this vision, that the +little one awoke laughing with pleasure, and searched under her pillows +for the strange and beautiful things that she had been gathering in +dreamland. + +"What's Mara looking after?" said Sally, sitting up in her trundle-bed, +and speaking in the patronizing motherly tone she commonly used to her +little playmate. + +"All gone, pitty boy--all gone!" said the child, looking round +regretfully, and shaking her golden head; "pitty lady all gone!" + +"How queer she talks!" said Sally, who had awakened with the project of +building a sheet-house with her fairy neighbor, and was beginning to +loosen the upper sheet and dispose the pillows with a view to this +species of architecture. "Come, Mara, let's make a pretty house!" she +said. + +"Pitty boy out dere--out dere!" said the little one, pointing to the +window, with a deeper expression than ever of wishfulness in her eyes. + +"Come, Sally Kittridge, get up this minute!" said the voice of her +mother, entering the door at this moment; "and here, put these clothes +on to Mara, the child mustn't run round in her best; it's strange, now, +Mary Pennel never thinks of such things." + +Sally, who was of an efficient temperament, was preparing energetically +to second these commands of her mother, and endue her little neighbor +with a coarse brown stuff dress, somewhat faded and patched, which she +herself had outgrown when of Mara's age; with shoes, which had been +coarsely made to begin with, and very much battered by time; but, quite +to her surprise, the child, generally so passive and tractable, opposed +a most unexpected and desperate resistance to this operation. She began +to cry and to sob and shake her curly head, throwing her tiny hands out +in a wild species of freakish opposition, which had, notwithstanding, a +quaint and singular grace about it, while she stated her objections in +all the little English at her command. + +"Mara don't want--Mara want pitty boo des--and _pitty_ shoes." + +"Why, was ever anything like it?" said Mrs. Kittridge to Miss Roxy, as +they both were drawn to the door by the outcry; "here's this child won't +have decent every-day clothes put on her,--she must be kept dressed up +like a princess. Now, that ar's French calico!" said Mrs. Kittridge, +holding up the controverted blue dress, "and that ar never cost a cent +under five-and-sixpence a yard; it takes a yard and a half to make it, +and it must have been a good day's work to make it up; call that +three-and-sixpence more, and with them pearl buttons and thread and all, +that ar dress never cost less than a dollar and seventy-five, and here +she's goin' to run out every day in it!" + +"Well, well!" said Miss Roxy, who had taken the sobbing fair one in her +lap, "you know, Mis' Kittridge, this 'ere's a kind o' pet lamb, an +old-folks' darling, and things be with her as they be, and we can't make +her over, and she's such a nervous little thing we mustn't cross her." +Saying which, she proceeded to dress the child in her own clothes. + +"If you had a good large checked apron, I wouldn't mind putting that on +her!" added Miss Roxy, after she had arrayed the child. + +"Here's one," said Mrs. Kittridge; "that may save her clothes some." + +Miss Roxy began to put on the wholesome garment; but, rather to her +mortification, the little fairy began to weep again in a most +heart-broken manner. + +"Don't want che't apon." + +"Why don't Mara want nice checked apron?" said Miss Roxy, in that extra +cheerful tone by which children are to be made to believe they have +mistaken their own mind. + +"Don't want it!" with a decided wave of the little hand; "I's too pitty +to wear che't apon." + +"Well! well!" said Mrs. Kittridge, rolling up her eyes, "did I ever! no, +I never did. If there ain't depraved natur' a-comin' out early. Well, if +she says she's pretty now, what'll it be when she's fifteen?" + +"She'll learn to tell a lie about it by that time," said Miss Roxy, "and +say she thinks she's horrid. The child _is_ pretty, and the truth comes +uppermost with her now." + +"Haw! haw! haw!" burst with a great crash from Captain Kittridge, who +had come in behind, and stood silently listening during this +conversation; "that's musical now; come here, my little maid, you _are_ +too pretty for checked aprons, and no mistake;" and seizing the child in +his long arms, he tossed her up like a butterfly, while her sunny curls +shone in the morning light. + +"There's one comfort about the child, Miss Kittridge," said Aunt Roxy: +"she's one of them that dirt won't stick to. I never knew her to stain +or tear her clothes,--she always come in jist so nice." + +"She ain't much like Sally, then!" said Mrs. Kittridge. "That girl'll +run through more clothes! Only last week she walked the crown out of my +old black straw bonnet, and left it hanging on the top of a +blackberry-bush." + +"Wal', wal'," said Captain Kittridge, "as to dressin' this 'ere +child,--why, ef Pennel's a mind to dress her in cloth of gold, it's none +of our business! He's rich enough for all he wants to do, and so let's +eat our breakfast and mind our own business." + +After breakfast Captain Kittridge took the two children down to the +cove, to investigate the state of his boat and tar-kettle, set high +above the highest tide-mark. The sun had risen gloriously, the sky was +of an intense, vivid blue, and only great snowy islands of clouds, lying +in silver banks on the horizon, showed vestiges of last night's storm. +The whole wide sea was one glorious scene of forming and dissolving +mountains of blue and purple, breaking at the crest into brilliant +silver. All round the island the waves were constantly leaping and +springing into jets and columns of brilliant foam, throwing themselves +high up, in silvery cataracts, into the very arms of the solemn +evergreen forests which overhung the shore. + +The sands of the little cove seemed harder and whiter than ever, and +were thickly bestrewn with the shells and seaweed which the upturnings +of the night had brought in. There lay what might have been fringes and +fragments of sea-gods' vestures,--blue, crimson, purple, and orange +seaweeds, wreathed in tangled ropes of kelp and sea-grass, or lying +separately scattered on the sands. The children ran wildly, shouting as +they began gathering sea-treasures; and Sally, with the air of an +experienced hand in the business, untwisted the coils of rosy seaweed, +from which every moment she disengaged some new treasure, in some rarer +shell or smoother pebble. + +Suddenly, the child shook out something from a knotted mass of +sea-grass, which she held up with a perfect shriek of delight. It was a +bracelet of hair, fastened by a brilliant clasp of green, sparkling +stones, such as she had never seen before. She redoubled her cries of +delight, as she saw it sparkle between her and the sun, calling upon her +father. + +"Father! father! do come here, and see what I've found!" + +He came quickly, and took the bracelet from the child's hand; but, at +the same moment, looking over her head, he caught sight of an object +partially concealed behind a projecting rock. He took a step forward, +and uttered an exclamation,-- + +"Well, well! sure enough! poor things!" + +There lay, bedded in sand and seaweed, a woman with a little boy clasped +in her arms! Both had been carefully lashed to a spar, but the child was +held to the bosom of the woman, with a pressure closer than any knot +that mortal hands could tie. Both were deep sunk in the sand, into which +had streamed the woman's long, dark hair, which sparkled with glittering +morsels of sand and pebbles, and with those tiny, brilliant, yellow +shells which are so numerous on that shore. + +The woman was both young and beautiful. The forehead, damp with +ocean-spray, was like sculptured marble,--the eyebrows dark and decided +in their outline; but the long, heavy, black fringes had shut down, as a +solemn curtain, over all the history of mortal joy or sorrow that those +eyes had looked upon. A wedding-ring gleamed on the marble hand; but the +sea had divorced all human ties, and taken her as a bride to itself. +And, in truth, it seemed to have made to her a worthy bed, for she was +all folded and inwreathed in sand and shells and seaweeds, and a great, +weird-looking leaf of kelp, some yards in length, lay twined around her +like a shroud. The child that lay in her bosom had hair, and face, and +eyelashes like her own, and his little hands were holding tightly a +portion of the black dress which she wore. + +"Cold,--cold,--stone dead!" was the muttered exclamation of the old +seaman, as he bent over the woman. + +"She must have struck her head there," he mused, as he laid his finger +on a dark, bruised spot on her temple. He laid his hand on the child's +heart, and put one finger under the arm to see if there was any +lingering vital heat, and then hastily cut the lashings that bound the +pair to the spar, and with difficulty disengaged the child from the cold +clasp in which dying love had bound him to a heart which should beat no +more with mortal joy or sorrow. + +Sally, after the first moment, had run screaming toward the house, with +all a child's forward eagerness, to be the bearer of news; but the +little Mara stood, looking anxiously, with a wishful earnestness of +face. + +"Pitty boy,--pitty boy,--come!" she said often; but the old man was so +busy, he scarcely regarded her. + +"Now, Cap'n Kittridge, do tell!" said Miss Roxy, meeting him in all +haste, with a cap-border stiff in air, while Dame Kittridge exclaimed,-- + +"Now, you don't! Well, well! didn't I say that was a ship last night? +And what a solemnizing thought it was that souls might be goin' into +eternity!" + +"We must have blankets and hot bottles, right away," said Miss Roxy, who +always took the earthly view of matters, and who was, in her own person, +a personified humane society. "Miss Kittridge, you jist dip out your +dishwater into the smallest tub, and we'll put him in. Stand away, Mara! +Sally, you take her out of the way! We'll fetch this child to, perhaps. +I've fetched 'em to, when they's seemed to be dead as door-nails!" + +"Cap'n Kittridge, you're sure the woman's dead?" + +"Laws, yes; she had a blow right on her temple here. There's no bringing +her to till the resurrection." + +"Well, then, you jist go and get Cap'n Pennel to come down and help you, +and get the body into the house, and we'll attend to layin' it out by +and by. Tell Ruey to come down." + +Aunt Roxy issued her orders with all the military vigor and precision of +a general in case of a sudden attack. It was her habit. Sickness and +death were her opportunities; where they were, she felt herself at home, +and she addressed herself to the task before her with undoubting faith. + +Before many hours a pair of large, dark eyes slowly emerged from under +the black-fringed lids of the little drowned boy,--they rolled dreamily +round for a moment, and dropped again in heavy languor. + +The little Mara had, with the quiet persistence which formed a trait in +her baby character, dragged stools and chairs to the back of the bed, +which she at last succeeded in scaling, and sat opposite to where the +child lay, grave and still, watching with intense earnestness the +process that was going on. At the moment when the eyes had opened, she +stretched forth her little arms, and said, eagerly, "Pitty boy, +come,"--and then, as they closed again, she dropped her hands with a +sigh of disappointment. Yet, before night, the little stranger sat up in +bed, and laughed with pleasure at the treasures of shells and pebbles +which the children spread out on the bed before him. + +He was a vigorous, well-made, handsome child, with brilliant eyes and +teeth, but the few words that he spoke were in a language unknown to +most present. Captain Kittridge declared it to be Spanish, and that a +call which he most passionately and often repeated was for his mother. +But he was of that happy age when sorrow can be easily effaced, and the +efforts of the children called forth joyous smiles. When his playthings +did not go to his liking, he showed sparkles of a fiery, irascible +spirit. + +The little Mara seemed to appropriate him in feminine fashion, as a +chosen idol and graven image. She gave him at once all her slender stock +of infantine treasures, and seemed to watch with an ecstatic devotion +his every movement,--often repeating, as she looked delightedly around, +"Pitty boy, come." + +She had no words to explain the strange dream of the morning; it lay in +her, struggling for expression, and giving her an interest in the +new-comer as in something belonging to herself. Whence it came,--whence +come multitudes like it, which spring up as strange, enchanted flowers, +every now and then in the dull, material pathway of life,--who knows? It +may be that our present faculties have among them a rudimentary one, +like the germs of wings in the chrysalis, by which the spiritual world +becomes sometimes an object of perception; there may be natures in which +the walls of the material are so fine and translucent that the spiritual +is seen through them as through a glass darkly. It may be, too, that the +love which is stronger than death has a power sometimes to make itself +heard and felt through the walls of our mortality, when it would plead +for the defenseless ones it has left behind. All these things _may_ +be,--who knows? + + * * * * * + +"There," said Miss Roxy, coming out of the keeping-room at sunset; "I +wouldn't ask to see a better-lookin' corpse. That ar woman was a sight +to behold this morning. I guess I shook a double handful of stones and +them little shells out of her hair,--now she reely looks beautiful. +Captain Kittridge has made a coffin out o' some cedar-boards he happened +to have, and I lined it with bleached cotton, and stuffed the pillow +nice and full, and when we come to get her in, she reely will look +lovely." + +"I s'pose, Mis' Kittridge, you'll have the funeral to-morrow,--it's +Sunday." + +"Why, yes, Aunt Roxy,--I think everybody must want to improve such a +dispensation. Have you took little Mara in to look at the corpse?" + +"Well, no," said Miss Roxy; "Mis' Pennel's gettin' ready to take her +home." + +"I think it's an opportunity we ought to improve," said Mrs. Kittridge, +"to learn children what death is. I think we can't begin to solemnize +their minds too young." + +At this moment Sally and the little Mara entered the room. + +"Come here, children," said Mrs. Kittridge, taking a hand of either one, +and leading them to the closed door of the keeping-room; "I've got +somethin' to show you." + +The room looked ghostly and dim,--the rays of light fell through the +closed shutter on an object mysteriously muffled in a white sheet. + +Sally's bright face expressed only the vague curiosity of a child to see +something new; but the little Mara resisted and hung back with all her +force, so that Mrs. Kittridge was obliged to take her up and hold her. + +She folded back the sheet from the chill and wintry form which lay so +icily, lonely, and cold. Sally walked around it, and gratified her +curiosity by seeing it from every point of view, and laying her warm, +busy hand on the lifeless and cold one; but Mara clung to Mrs. +Kittridge, with eyes that expressed a distressed astonishment. The good +woman stooped over and placed the child's little hand for a moment on +the icy forehead. The little one gave a piercing scream, and struggled +to get away; and as soon as she was put down, she ran and hid her face +in Aunt Roxy's dress, sobbing bitterly. + +"That child'll grow up to follow vanity," said Mrs. Kittridge; "her +little head is full of dress now, and she hates anything serious,--it's +easy to see that." + +The little Mara had no words to tell what a strange, distressful chill +had passed up her arm and through her brain, as she felt that icy cold +of death,--that cold so different from all others. It was an impression +of fear and pain that lasted weeks and months, so that she would start +out of sleep and cry with a terror which she had not yet a sufficiency +of language to describe. + +"You seem to forget, Mis' Kittridge, that this 'ere child ain't rugged +like our Sally," said Aunt Roxy, as she raised the little Mara in her +arms. "She was a seven-months' baby, and hard to raise at all, and a +shivery, scary little creature." + +"Well, then, she ought to be hardened," said Dame Kittridge. "But Mary +Pennel never had no sort of idea of bringin' up children; 'twas jist so +with Naomi,--the girl never had no sort o' resolution, and she just died +for want o' resolution,--that's what came of it. I tell ye, children's +got to learn to take the world as it is; and 'tain't no use bringin' on +'em up too tender. Teach 'em to begin as they've got to go out,--that's +my maxim." + +"Mis' Kittridge," said Aunt Roxy, "there's reason in all things, and +there's difference in children. 'What's one's meat's another's pison.' +You couldn't fetch up Mis' Pennel's children, and she couldn't fetch up +your'n,--so let's say no more 'bout it." + +"I'm always a-tellin' my wife that ar," said Captain Kittridge; "she's +always wantin' to make everybody over after her pattern." + +"Cap'n Kittridge, I don't think _you_ need to speak," resumed his wife. +"When such a loud providence is a-knockin' at _your_ door, I think you'd +better be a-searchin' your own heart,--here it is the eleventh hour, and +you hain't come into the Lord's vineyard yet." + +"Oh! come, come, Mis' Kittridge, don't twit a feller afore folks," said +the Captain. "I'm goin' over to Harpswell Neck this blessed minute after +the minister to 'tend the funeral,--so we'll let _him_ preach." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN + + +Life on any shore is a dull affair,--ever degenerating into commonplace; +and this may account for the eagerness with which even a great calamity +is sometimes accepted in a neighborhood, as affording wherewithal to +stir the deeper feelings of our nature. Thus, though Mrs. Kittridge was +by no means a hard-hearted woman, and would not for the world have had a +ship wrecked on her particular account, yet since a ship had been +wrecked and a body floated ashore at her very door, as it were, it +afforded her no inconsiderable satisfaction to dwell on the details and +to arrange for the funeral. + +It was something to talk about and to think of, and likely to furnish +subject-matter for talk for years to come when she should go out to tea +with any of her acquaintances who lived at Middle Bay, or Maquoit, or +Harpswell Neck. For although in those days,--the number of light-houses +being much smaller than it is now,--it was no uncommon thing for ships +to be driven on shore in storms, yet this incident had undeniably more +that was stirring and romantic in it than any within the memory of any +tea-table gossip in the vicinity. Mrs. Kittridge, therefore, looked +forward to the funeral services on Sunday afternoon as to a species of +solemn fete, which imparted a sort of consequence to her dwelling and +herself. Notice of it was to be given out in "meeting" after service, +and she might expect both keeping-room and kitchen to be full. Mrs. +Pennel had offered to do her share of Christian and neighborly +kindness, in taking home to her own dwelling the little boy. In fact, it +became necessary to do so in order to appease the feelings of the little +Mara, who clung to the new acquisition with most devoted fondness, and +wept bitterly when he was separated from her even for a few moments. +Therefore, in the afternoon of the day when the body was found, Mrs. +Pennel, who had come down to assist, went back in company with Aunt Ruey +and the two children. + +The September evening set in brisk and chill, and the cheerful fire that +snapped and roared up the ample chimney of Captain Kittridge's kitchen +was a pleasing feature. The days of our story were before the advent of +those sullen gnomes, the "air-tights," or even those more sociable and +cheery domestic genii, the cooking-stoves. They were the days of the +genial open kitchen-fire, with the crane, the pot-hooks, and +trammels,--where hissed and boiled the social tea-kettle, where steamed +the huge dinner-pot, in whose ample depths beets, carrots, potatoes, and +turnips boiled in jolly sociability with the pork or corned beef which +they were destined to flank at the coming meal. + +On the present evening, Miss Roxy sat bolt upright, as was her wont, in +one corner of the fireplace, with her spectacles on her nose, and an +unwonted show of candles on the little stand beside her, having resumed +the task of the silk dress which had been for a season interrupted. Mrs. +Kittridge, with her spectacles also mounted, was carefully and warily +"running-up breadths," stopping every few minutes to examine her work, +and to inquire submissively of Miss Roxy if "it will do?" + +Captain Kittridge sat in the other corner busily whittling on a little +boat which he was shaping to please Sally, who sat on a low stool by his +side with her knitting, evidently more intent on what her father was +producing than on the evening task of "ten bouts," which her mother +exacted before she could freely give her mind to anything on her own +account. As Sally was rigorously sent to bed exactly at eight o'clock, +it became her to be diligent if she wished to do anything for her own +amusement before that hour. + +And in the next room, cold and still, was lying that faded image of +youth and beauty which the sea had so strangely given up. Without a +name, without a history, without a single accompaniment from which her +past could even be surmised,--there she lay, sealed in eternal silence. + +"It's strange," said Captain Kittridge, as he whittled away,--"it's very +strange we don't find anything more of that ar ship. I've been all up +and down the beach a-lookin'. There was a spar and some broken bits of +boards and timbers come ashore down on the beach, but nothin' to speak +of." + +"It won't be known till the sea gives up its dead," said Miss Roxy, +shaking her head solemnly, "and there'll be a great givin' up then, I'm +a-thinkin'." + +"Yes, indeed," said Mrs. Kittridge, with an emphatic nod. + +"Father," said Sally, "how many, many things there must be at the bottom +of the sea,--so many ships are sunk with all their fine things on board. +Why don't people contrive some way to go down and get them?" + +"They do, child," said Captain Kittridge; "they have diving-bells, and +men go down in 'em with caps over their faces, and long tubes to get the +air through, and they walk about on the bottom of the ocean." + +"Did you ever go down in one, father?" + +"Why, yes, child, to be sure; and strange enough it was, to be sure. +There you could see great big sea critters, with ever so many eyes and +long arms, swimming right up to catch you, and all you could do would be +to muddy the water on the bottom, so they couldn't see you." + +"I never heard of that, Cap'n Kittridge," said his wife, drawing herself +up with a reproving coolness. + +"Wal', Mis' Kittridge, you hain't heard of everything that ever +happened," said the Captain, imperturbably, "though you _do_ know a +sight." + +"And how does the bottom of the ocean look, father?" said Sally. + +"Laws, child, why trees and bushes grow there, just as they do on land; +and great plants,--blue and purple and green and yellow, and lots of +great pearls lie round. I've seen 'em big as chippin'-birds' eggs." + +"Cap'n Kittridge!" said his wife. + +"I have, and big as robins' eggs, too, but them was off the coast of +Ceylon and Malabar, and way round the Equator," said the Captain, +prudently resolved to throw his romance to a sufficient distance. + +"It's a pity you didn't get a few of them pearls," said his wife, with +an indignant appearance of scorn. + +"I did get lots on 'em, and traded 'em off to the Nabobs in the interior +for Cashmere shawls and India silks and sich," said the Captain, +composedly; "and brought 'em home and sold 'em at a good figure, too." + +"Oh, father!" said Sally, earnestly, "I wish you had saved just one or +two for us." + +"Laws, child, I wish now I had," said the Captain, good-naturedly. "Why, +when I was in India, I went up to Lucknow, and Benares, and round, and +saw all the Nabobs and Biggums,--why, they don't make no more of gold +and silver and precious stones than we do of the shells we find on the +beach. Why, I've seen one of them fellers with a diamond in his turban +as big as my fist." + +"Cap'n Kittridge, what are you telling?" said his wife once more. + +"Fact,--as big as my fist," said the Captain, obdurately; "and all the +clothes he wore was jist a stiff crust of pearls and precious stones. I +tell you, he looked like something in the Revelations,--a real New +Jerusalem look he had." + +"I call that ar talk wicked, Cap'n Kittridge, usin' Scriptur' that ar +way," said his wife. + +"Why, don't it tell about all sorts of gold and precious stones in the +Revelations?" said the Captain; "that's all I meant. Them ar countries +off in Asia ain't like our'n,--stands to reason they shouldn't be; +them's Scripture countries, and everything is different there." + +"Father, didn't you ever get any of those splendid things?" said Sally. + +"Laws, yes, child. Why, I had a great green ring, an emerald, that one +of the princes giv' me, and ever so many pearls and diamonds. I used to +go with 'em rattlin' loose in my vest pocket. I was young and gay in +them days, and thought of bringin' of 'em home for the gals, but somehow +I always got opportunities for swappin' of 'em off for goods and sich. +That ar shawl your mother keeps in her camfire chist was what I got for +one on 'em." + +"Well, well," said Mrs. Kittridge, "there's never any catchin' you, +'cause you've been where we haven't." + +"You've caught me once, and that ought'r do," said the Captain, with +unruffled good-nature. "I tell you, Sally, your mother was the +handsomest gal in Harpswell in them days." + +"I should think you was too old for such nonsense, Cap'n," said Mrs. +Kittridge, with a toss of her head, and a voice that sounded far less +inexorable than her former admonition. In fact, though the old Captain +was as unmanageable under his wife's fireside _regime_ as any brisk old +cricket that skipped and sang around the hearth, and though he hopped +over all moral boundaries with a cheerful alertness of conscience that +was quite discouraging, still there was no resisting the spell of his +inexhaustible good-nature. + +By this time he had finished the little boat, and to Sally's great +delight, began sailing it for her in a pail of water. + +"I wonder," said Mrs. Kittridge, "what's to be done with that ar child. +I suppose the selectmen will take care on't; it'll be brought up by the +town." + +"I shouldn't wonder," said Miss Roxy, "if Cap'n Pennel should adopt it." + +"You don't think so," said Mrs. Kittridge. "'Twould be taking a great +care and expense on their hands at their time of life." + +"I wouldn't want no better fun than to bring up that little shaver," +said Captain Kittridge; "he's a bright un, I promise you." + +"You, Cap'n Kittridge! I wonder you can talk so," said his wife. "It's +an awful responsibility, and I wonder you don't think whether or no +you're fit for it." + +"Why, down here on the shore, I'd as lives undertake a boy as a +Newfoundland pup," said the Captain. "Plenty in the sea to eat, drink, +and wear. That ar young un may be the staff of their old age yet." + +"You see," said Miss Roxy, "I think they'll adopt it to be company for +little Mara; they're bound up in her, and the little thing pines bein' +alone." + +"Well, they make a real graven image of that ar child," said Mrs. +Kittridge, "and fairly bow down to her and worship her." + +"Well, it's natural," said Miss Roxy. "Besides, the little thing is +cunnin'; she's about the cunnin'est little crittur that I ever saw, and +has such enticin' ways." + +The fact was, as the reader may perceive, that Miss Roxy had been thawed +into an unusual attachment for the little Mara, and this affection was +beginning to spread a warming element though her whole being. It was as +if a rough granite rock had suddenly awakened to a passionate +consciousness of the beauty of some fluttering white anemone that +nestled in its cleft, and felt warm thrills running through all its +veins at every tender motion and shadow. A word spoken against the +little one seemed to rouse her combativeness. Nor did Dame Kittridge +bear the child the slightest ill-will, but she was one of those +naturally care-taking people whom Providence seems to design to perform +the picket duties for the rest of society, and who, therefore, challenge +everybody and everything to stand and give an account of themselves. +Miss Roxy herself belonged to this class, but sometimes found herself so +stoutly overhauled by the guns of Mrs. Kittridge's battery, that she +could only stand modestly on the defensive. + +One of Mrs. Kittridge's favorite hobbies was education, or, as she +phrased it, the "fetchin' up" of children, which she held should be +performed to the letter of the old stiff rule. In this manner she had +already trained up six sons, who were all following their fortunes upon +the seas, and, on this account, she had no small conceit of her +abilities; and when she thought she discerned a lamb being left to frisk +heedlessly out of bounds, her zeal was stirred to bring it under proper +sheepfold regulations. + +"Come, Sally, it's eight o'clock," said the good woman. + +Sally's dark brows lowered over her large, black eyes, and she gave an +appealing look to her father. + +"Law, mother, let the child sit up a quarter of an hour later, jist for +once." + +"Cap'n Kittridge, if I was to hear to you, there'd never be no rule in +this house. Sally, you go 'long this minute, and be sure you put your +knittin' away in its place." + +The Captain gave a humorous nod of submissive good-nature to his +daughter as she went out. In fact, putting Sally to bed was taking away +his plaything, and leaving him nothing to do but study faces in the +coals, or watch the fleeting sparks which chased each other in flocks +up the sooty back of the chimney. + +It was Saturday night, and the morrow was Sunday,--never a very pleasant +prospect to the poor Captain, who, having, unfortunately, no spiritual +tastes, found it very difficult to get through the day in compliance +with his wife's views of propriety, for he, alas! soared no higher in +his aims. + +"I b'lieve, on the hull, Polly, I'll go to bed, too," said he, suddenly +starting up. + +"Well, father, your clean shirt is in the right-hand corner of the upper +drawer, and your Sunday clothes on the back of the chair by the bed." + +The fact was that the Captain promised himself the pleasure of a long +conversation with Sally, who nestled in the trundle-bed under the +paternal couch, to whom he could relate long, many-colored yarns, +without the danger of interruption from her mother's sharp, +truth-seeking voice. + +A moralist might, perhaps, be puzzled exactly what account to make of +the Captain's disposition to romancing and embroidery. In all real, +matter-of-fact transactions, as between man and man, his word was as +good as another's, and he was held to be honest and just in his +dealings. It was only when he mounted the stilts of foreign travel that +his paces became so enormous. Perhaps, after all, a rude poetic and +artistic faculty possessed the man. He might have been a humbler phase +of the "mute, inglorious Milton." Perhaps his narrations required the +privileges and allowances due to the inventive arts generally. Certain +it was that, in common with other artists, he required an atmosphere of +sympathy and confidence in which to develop himself fully; and, when +left alone with children, his mind ran such riot, that the bounds +between the real and unreal became foggier than the banks of +Newfoundland. + +The two women sat up, and the night wore on apace, while they kept +together that customary vigil which it was thought necessary to hold +over the lifeless casket from which an immortal jewel had recently been +withdrawn. + +"I re'lly did hope," said Mrs. Kittridge, mournfully, "that this 'ere +solemn Providence would have been sent home to the Cap'n's mind; but he +seems jist as light and triflin' as ever." + +"There don't nobody see these 'ere things unless they's effectually +called," said Miss Roxy, "and the Cap'n's time ain't come." + +"It's gettin' to be t'ward the eleventh hour," said Mrs. Kittridge, "as +I was a-tellin' him this afternoon." + +"Well," said Miss Roxy, "you know + + "'While the lamp holds out to burn, + The vilest sinner may return.'" + +"Yes, I know that," said Mrs. Kittridge, rising and taking up the +candle. "Don't you think, Aunt Roxy, we may as well give a look in there +at the corpse?" + +It was past midnight as they went together into the keeping-room. All +was so still that the clash of the rising tide and the ticking of the +clock assumed that solemn and mournful distinctness which even tones +less impressive take on in the night-watches. Miss Roxy went +mechanically through with certain arrangements of the white drapery +around the cold sleeper, and uncovering the face and bust for a moment, +looked critically at the still, unconscious countenance. + +"Not one thing to let us know who or what she is," she said; "that boy, +if he lives, would give a good deal to know, some day." + +"What is it one's duty to do about this bracelet?" said Mrs. Kittridge, +taking from a drawer the article in question, which had been found on +the beach in the morning. + +"Well, I s'pose it belongs to the child, whatever it's worth," said Miss +Roxy. + +"Then if the Pennels conclude to take him, I may as well give it to +them," said Mrs. Kittridge, laying it back in the drawer. + +Miss Roxy folded the cloth back over the face, and the two went out into +the kitchen. The fire had sunk low--the crickets were chirruping +gleefully. Mrs. Kittridge added more wood, and put on the tea-kettle +that their watching might be refreshed by the aid of its talkative and +inspiring beverage. The two solemn, hard-visaged women drew up to each +other by the fire, and insensibly their very voices assumed a tone of +drowsy and confidential mystery. + +"If this 'ere poor woman was hopefully pious, and could see what was +goin' on here," said Mrs. Kittridge, "it would seem to be a comfort to +her that her child has fallen into such good hands. It seems a'most a +pity she couldn't know it." + +"How do you know she don't?" said Miss Roxy, brusquely. + +"Why, you know the hymn," said Mrs. Kittridge, quoting those somewhat +saddusaical lines from the popular psalm-book:-- + + "'The living know that they must die, + But all the dead forgotten lie-- + _Their memory and their senses gone, + Alike unknowing and unknown_.'" + +"Well, I don't know 'bout that," said Miss Roxy, flavoring her cup of +tea; "hymn-book ain't Scriptur', and I'm pretty sure that ar ain't true +always;" and she nodded her head as if she could say more if she chose. + +Now Miss Roxy's reputation of vast experience in all the facts relating +to those last fateful hours, which are the only certain event in every +human existence, caused her to be regarded as a sort of Delphic oracle +in such matters, and therefore Mrs. Kittridge, not without a share of +the latent superstition to which each human heart must confess at some +hours, drew confidentially near to Miss Roxy, and asked if she had +anything particular on her mind. + +"Well, Mis' Kittridge," said Miss Roxy, "I ain't one of the sort as +likes to make a talk of what I've seen, but mebbe if I was, I've seen +some things _as_ remarkable as anybody. I tell you, Mis' Kittridge, +folks don't tend the sick and dyin' bed year in and out, at all hours, +day and night, and not see some remarkable things; that's my opinion." + +"Well, Miss Roxy, did you ever see a sperit?" + +"I won't say as I have, and I won't say as I haven't," said Miss Roxy; +"only as I have seen some remarkable things." + +There was a pause, in which Mrs. Kittridge stirred her tea, looking +intensely curious, while the old kitchen-clock seemed to tick with one +of those fits of loud insistence which seem to take clocks at times when +all is still, as if they had something that they were getting ready to +say pretty soon, if nobody else spoke. + +But Miss Roxy evidently had something to say, and so she began:-- + +"Mis' Kittridge, this 'ere's a very particular subject to be talkin' +of. I've had opportunities to observe that most haven't, and I don't +care if I jist say to you, that I'm pretty sure spirits that has left +the body do come to their friends sometimes." + +The clock ticked with still more _empressement_, and Mrs. Kittridge +glared through the horn bows of her glasses with eyes of eager +curiosity. + +"Now, you remember Cap'n Titcomb's wife, that died fifteen years ago +when her husband had gone to Archangel; and you remember that he took +her son John out with him--and of all her boys, John was the one she +was particular sot on." + +"Yes, and John died at Archangel; I remember that." + +"Jes' so," said Miss Roxy, laying her hand on Mrs. Kittridge's; "he died +at Archangel the very day his mother died, and jist the hour, for the +Cap'n had it down in his log-book." + +"You don't say so!" + +"Yes, I do. Well, now," said Miss Roxy, sinking her voice, "this 'ere +was remarkable. Mis' Titcomb was one of the fearful sort, tho' one of +the best women that ever lived. Our minister used to call her 'Mis' +Muchafraid'--you know, in the 'Pilgrim's Progress'--but he was satisfied +with her evidences, and told her so; she used to say she was 'afraid of +the dark valley,' and she told our minister so when he went out, that ar +last day he called; and his last words, as he stood with his hand on the +knob of the door, was 'Mis' Titcomb, the Lord will find ways to bring +you thro' the dark valley.' Well, she sunk away about three o'clock in +the morning. I remember the time, 'cause the Cap'n's chronometer watch +that he left with her lay on the stand for her to take her drops by. I +heard her kind o' restless, and I went up, and I saw she was struck with +death, and she looked sort o' anxious and distressed. + +"'Oh, Aunt Roxy,' says she, 'it's so dark, who will go with me?' and in +a minute her whole face brightened up, and says she, 'John is going with +me,' and she jist gave the least little sigh and never breathed no +more--she jist died as easy as a bird. I told our minister of it next +morning, and he asked if I'd made a note of the hour, and I told him I +had, and says he, 'You did right, Aunt Roxy.'" + +"What did he seem to think of it?" + +"Well, he didn't seem inclined to speak freely. 'Miss Roxy,' says he, +'all natur's in the Lord's hands, and there's no saying why he uses this +or that; them that's strong enough to go by faith, he lets 'em, but +there's no saying what he won't do for the weak ones.'" + +"Wa'n't the Cap'n overcome when you told him?" said Mrs. Kittridge. + +"Indeed he was; he was jist as white as a sheet." + +Miss Roxy now proceeded to pour out another cup of tea, and having mixed +and flavored it, she looked in a weird and sibylline manner across it, +and inquired,-- + +"Mis' Kittridge, do you remember that ar Mr. Wadkins that come to +Brunswick twenty years ago, in President Averill's days?" + +"Yes, I remember the pale, thin, long-nosed gentleman that used to sit +in President Averill's pew at church. Nobody knew who he was, or where +he came from. The college students used to call him Thaddeus of Warsaw. +Nobody knew who he was but the President, 'cause he could speak all the +foreign tongues--one about as well as another; but the President he knew +his story, and said he was a good man, and he used to stay to the +sacrament regular, I remember." + +"Yes," said Miss Roxy, "he used to live in a room all alone, and keep +himself. Folks said he was quite a gentleman, too, and fond of reading." + +"I heard Cap'n Atkins tell," said Mrs. Kittridge, "how they came to take +him up on the shores of Holland. You see, when he was somewhere in a +port in Denmark, some men come to him and offered him a pretty good sum +of money if he'd be at such a place on the coast of Holland on such a +day, and take whoever should come. So the Cap'n he went, and sure enough +on that day there come a troop of men on horseback down to the beach +with this man, and they all bid him good-by, and seemed to make much of +him, but he never told 'em nothin' on board ship, only he seemed kind o' +sad and pinin'." + +"Well," said Miss Roxy; "Ruey and I we took care o' that man in his +last sickness, and we watched with him the night he died, and there was +something quite remarkable." + +"Do tell now," said Mrs. Kittridge. + +"Well, you see," said Miss Roxy, "he'd been low and poorly all day, kind +o' tossin' and restless, and a little light-headed, and the Doctor said +he thought he wouldn't last till morning, and so Ruey and I we set up +with him, and between twelve and one Ruey said she thought she'd jist +lop down a few minutes on the old sofa at the foot of the bed, and I +made me a cup of tea like as I'm a-doin' now, and set with my back to +him." + +"Well?" said Mrs. Kittridge, eagerly. + +"Well, you see he kept a-tossin' and throwin' off the clothes, and I +kept a-gettin' up to straighten 'em; and once he threw out his arms, and +something bright fell out on to the pillow, and I went and looked, and +it was a likeness that he wore by a ribbon round his neck. It was a +woman--a real handsome one--and she had on a low-necked black dress, of +the cut they used to call Marie Louise, and she had a string of pearls +round her neck, and her hair curled with pearls in it, and very wide +blue eyes. Well, you see, I didn't look but a minute before he seemed to +wake up, and he caught at it and hid it in his clothes. Well, I went and +sat down, and I grew kind o' sleepy over the fire; but pretty soon I +heard him speak out very clear, and kind o' surprised, in a tongue I +didn't understand, and I looked round." + +Miss Roxy here made a pause, and put another lump of sugar into her tea. + +"Well?" said Mrs. Kittridge, ready to burst with curiosity. + +"Well, now, I don't like to tell about these 'ere things, and you +mustn't never speak about it; but as sure as you live, Polly Kittridge, +I see that ar very woman standin' at the back of the bed, right in the +partin' of the curtains, jist as she looked in the pictur'--blue eyes +and curly hair and pearls on her neck, and black dress." + +"What did you do?" said Mrs. Kittridge. + +"Do? Why, I jist held my breath and looked, and in a minute it kind o' +faded away, and I got up and went to the bed, but the man was gone. He +lay there with the pleasantest smile on his face that ever you see; and +I woke up Ruey, and told her about it." + +Mrs. Kittridge drew a long breath. "What do you think it was?" + +"Well," said Miss Roxy, "I know what I think, but I don't think best to +tell. I told Doctor Meritts, and he said there were more things in +heaven and earth than folks knew about--and so I think." + + * * * * * + +Meanwhile, on this same evening, the little Mara frisked like a +household fairy round the hearth of Zephaniah Pennel. + +The boy was a strong-limbed, merry-hearted little urchin, and did full +justice to the abundant hospitalities of Mrs. Pennel's tea-table; and +after supper little Mara employed herself in bringing apronful after +apronful of her choicest treasures, and laying them down at his feet. +His great black eyes flashed with pleasure, and he gamboled about the +hearth with his new playmate in perfect forgetfulness, apparently, of +all the past night of fear and anguish. + +When the great family Bible was brought out for prayers, and little Mara +composed herself on a low stool by her grandmother's side, he, however, +did not conduct himself as a babe of grace. He resisted all Miss Ruey's +efforts to make him sit down beside her, and stood staring with his +great, black, irreverent eyes during the Bible-reading, and laughed out +in the most inappropriate manner when the psalm-singing began, and +seemed disposed to mingle incoherent remarks of his own even in the +prayers. + +"This is a pretty self-willed youngster," said Miss Ruey, as they rose +from the exercises, "and I shouldn't think he'd been used to religious +privileges." + +"Perhaps not," said Zephaniah Pennel; "but who can say but what this +providence is a message of the Lord to us--such as Pharaoh's daughter +sent about Moses, 'Take this child, and bring him up for me'?" + +"I'd like to take him, if I thought I was capable," said Mrs. Pennel, +timidly. "It seems a real providence to give Mara some company; the poor +child pines so for want of it." + +"Well, then, Mary, if you say so, we will bring him up with our little +Mara," said Zephaniah, drawing the child toward him. "May the Lord bless +him!" he added, laying his great brown hands on the shining black curls +of the child. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +MOSES + + +Sunday morning rose clear and bright on Harpswell Bay. The whole sea was +a waveless, blue looking-glass, streaked with bands of white, and +flecked with sailing cloud-shadows from the skies above. Orr's Island, +with its blue-black spruces, its silver firs, its golden larches, its +scarlet sumachs, lay on the bosom of the deep like a great many-colored +gem on an enchanted mirror. A vague, dreamlike sense of rest and Sabbath +stillness seemed to brood in the air. The very spruce-trees seemed to +know that it was Sunday, and to point solemnly upward with their dusky +fingers; and the small tide-waves that chased each other up on the +shelly beach, or broke against projecting rocks, seemed to do it with a +chastened decorum, as if each blue-haired wave whispered to his brother, +"Be still--be still." + +Yes, Sunday it was along all the beautiful shores of Maine--netted in +green and azure by its thousand islands, all glorious with their +majestic pines, all musical and silvery with the caresses of the +sea-waves, that loved to wander and lose themselves in their numberless +shelly coves and tiny beaches among their cedar shadows. + +Not merely as a burdensome restraint, or a weary endurance, came the +shadow of that Puritan Sabbath. It brought with it all the sweetness +that belongs to rest, all the sacredness that hallows home, all the +memories of patient thrift, of sober order, of chastened yet intense +family feeling, of calmness, purity, and self-respecting dignity which +distinguish the Puritan household. It seemed a solemn pause in all the +sights and sounds of earth. And he whose moral nature was not yet enough +developed to fill the blank with visions of heaven was yet wholesomely +instructed by his weariness into the secret of his own spiritual +poverty. + +Zephaniah Pennel, in his best Sunday clothes, with his hard visage +glowing with a sort of interior tenderness, ministered this morning at +his family-altar--one of those thousand priests of God's ordaining that +tend the sacred fire in as many families of New England. He had risen +with the morning star and been forth to meditate, and came in with his +mind softened and glowing. The trance-like calm of earth and sea found a +solemn answer with him, as he read what a poet wrote by the sea-shores +of the Mediterranean, ages ago: "Bless the Lord, O my soul. O Lord my +God, thou art very great; thou art clothed with honor and majesty. Who +coverest thyself with light as with a garment: who stretchest out the +heavens like a curtain: who layeth the beams of his chambers in the +waters: who maketh the clouds his chariot: who walketh upon the wings of +the wind. The trees of the Lord are full of sap; the cedars of Lebanon, +which he hath planted; where the birds make their nests; as for the +stork, the fir-trees are her house. O Lord, how manifold are thy works! +in wisdom hast thou made them all." + +Ages ago the cedars that the poet saw have rotted into dust, and from +their cones have risen generations of others, wide-winged and grand. But +the words of that poet have been wafted like seed to our days, and +sprung up in flowers of trust and faith in a thousand households. + +"Well, now," said Miss Ruey, when the morning rite was over, "Mis' +Pennel, I s'pose you and the Cap'n will be wantin' to go to the meetin', +so don't you gin yourse'ves a mite of trouble about the children, for +I'll stay at home with 'em. The little feller was starty and fretful in +his sleep last night, and didn't seem to be quite well." + +"No wonder, poor dear," said Mrs. Pennel; "it's a wonder children can +forget as they do." + +"Yes," said Miss Ruey; "you know them lines in the 'English Reader,'-- + + 'Gay hope is theirs by fancy led, + Least pleasing when possessed; + The tear forgot as soon as shed, + The sunshine of the breast.' + +Them lines all'ys seemed to me affectin'." + +Miss Ruey's sentiment was here interrupted by a loud cry from the +bedroom, and something between a sneeze and a howl. + +"Massy! what is that ar young un up to!" she exclaimed, rushing into the +adjoining bedroom. + +There stood the young Master Hopeful of our story, with streaming eyes +and much-bedaubed face, having just, after much labor, succeeded in +making Miss Ruey's snuff-box fly open, which he did with such force as +to send the contents in a perfect cloud into eyes, nose, and mouth. The +scene of struggling and confusion that ensued cannot be described. The +washings, and wipings, and sobbings, and exhortings, and the sympathetic +sobs of the little Mara, formed a small tempest for the time being that +was rather appalling. + +"Well, this 'ere's a youngster that's a-goin' to make work," said Miss +Ruey, when all things were tolerably restored. "Seems to make himself at +home first thing." + +"Poor little dear," said Mrs. Pennel, in the excess of loving-kindness, +"I hope he will; he's welcome, I'm sure." + +"Not to my snuff-box," said Miss Ruey, who had felt herself attacked in +a very tender point. + +"He's got the notion of lookin' into things pretty early," said Captain +Pennel, with an indulgent smile. + +"Well, Aunt Ruey," said Mrs. Pennel, when this disturbance was somewhat +abated, "I feel kind o' sorry to deprive you of your privileges to-day." + +"Oh! never mind me," said Miss Ruey, briskly. "I've got the big Bible, +and I can sing a hymn or two by myself. My voice ain't quite what it +used to be, but then I get a good deal of pleasure out of it." Aunt +Ruey, it must be known, had in her youth been one of the foremost +leaders in the "singers' seats," and now was in the habit of speaking of +herself much as a retired _prima donna_ might, whose past successes were +yet in the minds of her generation. + +After giving a look out of the window, to see that the children were +within sight, she opened the big Bible at the story of the ten plagues +of Egypt, and adjusting her horn spectacles with a sort of sideway twist +on her little pug nose, she seemed intent on her Sunday duties. A moment +after she looked up and said, "I don't know but I must send a message by +you over to Mis' Deacon Badger, about a worldly matter, if 'tis Sunday; +but I've been thinkin', Mis' Pennel, that there'll have to be clothes +made up for this 'ere child next week, and so perhaps Roxy and I had +better stop here a day or two longer, and you tell Mis' Badger that +we'll come to her a Wednesday, and so she'll have time to have that new +press-board done,--the old one used to pester me so." + +"Well, I'll remember," said Mrs. Pennel. + +"It seems a'most impossible to prevent one's thoughts wanderin' +Sundays," said Aunt Ruey; "but I couldn't help a-thinkin' I could get +such a nice pair o' trousers out of them old Sunday ones of the Cap'n's +in the garret. I was a-lookin' at 'em last Thursday, and thinkin' what a +pity 'twas you hadn't nobody to cut down for; but this 'ere young un's +going to be such a tearer, he'll want somethin' real stout; but I'll try +and put it out of my mind till Monday. Mis' Pennel, you'll be sure to +ask Mis' Titcomb how Harriet's toothache is, and whether them drops +cured her that I gin her last Sunday; and ef you'll jist look in a +minute at Major Broad's, and tell 'em to use bayberry wax for his +blister, it's so healin'; and do jist ask if Sally's baby's eye-tooth +has come through yet." + +"Well, Aunt Ruey, I'll try to remember all," said Mrs. Pennel, as she +stood at the glass in her bedroom, carefully adjusting the respectable +black silk shawl over her shoulders, and tying her neat bonnet-strings. + +"I s'pose," said Aunt Ruey, "that the notice of the funeral'll be gin +out after sermon." + +"Yes, I think so," said Mrs. Pennel. + +"It's another loud call," said Miss Ruey, "and I hope it will turn the +young people from their thoughts of dress and vanity,--there's Mary Jane +Sanborn was all took up with gettin' feathers and velvet for her fall +bonnet. I don't think I shall get no bonnet this year till snow comes. +My bonnet's respectable enough,--don't you think so?" + +"Certainly, Aunt Ruey, it looks very well." + +"Well, I'll have the pork and beans and brown-bread all hot on table +agin you come back," said Miss Ruey, "and then after dinner we'll all go +down to the funeral together. Mis' Pennel, there's one thing on my +mind,--what you goin' to call this 'ere boy?" + +"Father and I've been thinkin' that over," said Mrs. Pennel. + +"Wouldn't think of giv'n him the Cap'n's name?" said Aunt Ruey. + +"He must have a name of his own," said Captain Pennel. "Come here, +sonny," he called to the child, who was playing just beside the door. + +The child lowered his head, shook down his long black curls, and looked +through them as elfishly as a Skye terrier, but showed no inclination to +come. + +"One thing he hasn't learned, evidently," said Captain Pennel, "and that +is to mind." + +"Here!" he said, turning to the boy with a little of the tone he had +used of old on the quarter-deck, and taking his small hand firmly. + +The child surrendered, and let the good man lift him on his knee and +stroke aside the clustering curls; the boy then looked fixedly at him +with his great gloomy black eyes, his little firm-set mouth and bridled +chin,--a perfect little miniature of proud manliness. + +"What's your name, little boy?" + +The great eyes continued looking in the same solemn quiet. + +"Law, he don't understand a word," said Zephaniah, putting his hand +kindly on the child's head; "our tongue is all strange to him. Kittridge +says he's a Spanish child; may be from the West Indies; but nobody +knows,--we never shall know his name." + +"Well, I dare say it was some Popish nonsense or other," said Aunt Ruey; +"and now he's come to a land of Christian privileges, we ought to give +him a good Scripture name, and start him well in the world." + +"Let's call him Moses," said Zephaniah, "because we drew him out of the +water." + +"Now, did I ever!" said Miss Ruey; "there's something in the Bible to +fit everything, ain't there?" + +"I like Moses, because I had a brother of that name," said Mrs. Pennel. + +The child had slid down from his protector's knee, and stood looking +from one to the other gravely while this discussion was going on. What +change of destiny was then going on for him in this simple formula of +adoption, none could tell; but, surely, never orphan stranded on a +foreign shore found home with hearts more true and loving. + +"Well, wife, I suppose we must be goin'," said Zephaniah. + +About a stone's throw from the open door, the little fishing-craft lay +courtesying daintily on the small tide-waves that came licking up the +white pebbly shore. Mrs. Pennel seated herself in the end of the boat, +and a pretty placid picture she was, with her smooth, parted hair, her +modest, cool, drab bonnet, and her bright hazel eyes, in which was the +Sabbath calm of a loving and tender heart. Zephaniah loosed the sail, +and the two children stood on the beach and saw them go off. A pleasant +little wind carried them away, and back on the breeze came the sound of +Zephaniah's Sunday-morning psalm:-- + + "Lord, in the morning thou shalt hear + My voice ascending high; + To thee will I direct my prayer, + To thee lift up mine eye. + + "Unto thy house will I resort. + To taste thy mercies there; + I will frequent thy holy court, + And worship in thy fear." + +The surface of the glassy bay was dotted here and there with the white +sails of other little craft bound for the same point and for the same +purpose. It was as pleasant a sight as one might wish to see. + +Left in charge of the house, Miss Ruey drew a long breath, took a +consoling pinch of snuff, sang "Bridgewater" in an uncommonly high key, +and then began reading in the prophecies. With her good head full of the +"daughter of Zion" and the house of Israel and Judah, she was recalled +to terrestrial things by loud screams from the barn, accompanied by a +general flutter and cackling among the hens. + +Away plodded the good soul, and opening the barn-door saw the little boy +perched on the top of the hay-mow, screaming and shrieking,--his face +the picture of dismay,--while poor little Mara's cries came in a more +muffled manner from some unexplored lower region. In fact, she was found +to have slipped through a hole in the hay-mow into the nest of a very +domestic sitting-hen, whose clamors at the invasion of her family +privacy added no little to the general confusion. + +The little princess, whose nicety as to her dress and sensitiveness as +to anything unpleasant about her pretty person we have seen, was lifted +up streaming with tears and broken eggs, but otherwise not seriously +injured, having fallen on the very substantial substratum of hay which +Dame Poulet had selected as the foundation of her domestic hopes. + +"Well, now, did I ever!" said Miss Ruey, when she had ascertained that +no bones were broken; "if that ar young un isn't a limb! I declare for't +I pity Mis' Pennel,--she don't know what she's undertook. How upon 'arth +the critter managed to get Mara on to the hay, I'm sure I can't +tell,--that ar little thing never got into no such scrapes before." + +Far from seeming impressed with any wholesome remorse of conscience, the +little culprit frowned fierce defiance at Miss Ruey, when, after having +repaired the damages of little Mara's toilet, she essayed the good old +plan of shutting him into the closet. He fought and struggled so +fiercely that Aunt Ruey's carroty frisette came off in the skirmish, and +her head-gear, always rather original, assumed an aspect verging on the +supernatural. Miss Ruey thought of Philistines and Moabites, and all the +other terrible people she had been reading about that morning, and came +as near getting into a passion with the little elf as so good-humored +and Christian an old body could possibly do. Human virtue is frail, and +every one has some vulnerable point. The old Roman senator could not +control himself when his beard was invaded, and the like sensitiveness +resides in an old woman's cap; and when young master irreverently clawed +off her Sunday best, Aunt Ruey, in her confusion of mind, administered a +sound cuff on either ear. + +Little Mara, who had screamed loudly through the whole scene, now +conceiving that her precious new-found treasure was endangered, flew at +poor Miss Ruey with both little hands; and throwing her arms round her +"boy," as she constantly called him, she drew him backward, and looked +defiance at the common enemy. Miss Ruey was dumb-struck. + +"I declare for't, I b'lieve he's bewitched her," she said, stupefied, +having never seen anything like the martial expression which now gleamed +from those soft brown eyes. "Why, Mara dear,--putty little Mara." + +But Mara was busy wiping away the angry tears that stood on the hot, +glowing cheeks of the boy, and offering her little rosebud of a mouth to +kiss him, as she stood on tiptoe. + +"Poor boy,--no kie,--Mara's boy," she said; "Mara love boy;" and then +giving an angry glance at Aunt Ruey, who sat much disheartened and +confused, she struck out her little pearly hand, and cried, "Go way,--go +way, naughty!" + +The child jabbered unintelligibly and earnestly to Mara, and she seemed +to have the air of being perfectly satisfied with his view of the case, +and both regarded Miss Ruey with frowning looks. Under these peculiar +circumstances, the good soul began to bethink her of some mode of +compromise, and going to the closet took out a couple of slices of cake, +which she offered to the little rebels with pacificatory words. + +Mara was appeased at once, and ran to Aunt Ruey; but the boy struck the +cake out of her hand, and looked at her with steady defiance. The little +one picked it up, and with much chippering and many little feminine +manoeuvres, at last succeeded in making him taste it, after which +appetite got the better of his valorous resolutions,--he ate and was +comforted; and after a little time, the three were on the best possible +footing. And Miss Ruey having smoothed her hair, and arranged her +frisette and cap, began to reflect upon herself as the cause of the +whole disturbance. If she had not let them run while she indulged in +reading and singing, this would not have happened. So the toilful good +soul kept them at her knee for the next hour or two, while they looked +through all the pictures in the old family Bible. + + * * * * * + +The evening of that day witnessed a crowded funeral in the small rooms +of Captain Kittridge. Mrs. Kittridge was in her glory. Solemn and +lugubrious to the last degree, she supplied in her own proper person the +want of the whole corps of mourners, who generally attract sympathy on +such occasions. But what drew artless pity from all was the unconscious +orphan, who came in, led by Mrs. Pennel by the one hand, and with the +little Mara by the other. + +The simple rite of baptism administered to the wondering little creature +so strongly recalled that other scene three years before, that Mrs. +Pennel hid her face in her handkerchief, and Zephaniah's firm hand shook +a little as he took the boy to offer him to the rite. The child received +the ceremony with a look of grave surprise, put up his hand quickly and +wiped the holy drops from his brow, as if they annoyed him; and +shrinking back, seized hold of the gown of Mrs. Pennel. His great +beauty, and, still more, the air of haughty, defiant firmness with which +he regarded the company, drew all eyes, and many were the whispered +comments. + +"Pennel'll have his hands full with that ar chap," said Captain +Kittridge to Miss Roxy. + +Mrs. Kittridge darted an admonitory glance at her husband, to remind him +that she was looking at him, and immediately he collapsed into +solemnity. + +The evening sunbeams slanted over the blackberry bushes and mullein +stalks of the graveyard, when the lonely voyager was lowered to the rest +from which she should not rise till the heavens be no more. As the +purple sea at that hour retained no trace of the ships that had furrowed +its waves, so of this mortal traveler no trace remained, not even in +that infant soul that was to her so passionately dear. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE MINISTER + + +Mrs. Kittridge's advantages and immunities resulting from the shipwreck +were not yet at an end. Not only had one of the most "solemn +providences" known within the memory of the neighborhood fallen out at +her door,--not only had the most interesting funeral that had occurred +for three or four years taken place in her parlor, but she was still +further to be distinguished in having the minister to tea after the +performances were all over. To this end she had risen early, and taken +down her best china tea-cups, which had been marked with her and her +husband's joint initials in Canton, and which only came forth on high +and solemn occasions. In view of this probable distinction, on Saturday, +immediately after the discovery of the calamity, Mrs. Kittridge had +found time to rush to her kitchen, and make up a loaf of pound-cake and +some doughnuts, that the great occasion which she foresaw might not find +her below her reputation as a forehanded housewife. + +It was a fine golden hour when the minister and funeral train turned +away from the grave. Unlike other funerals, there was no draught on the +sympathies in favor of mourners--no wife, or husband, or parent, left a +heart in that grave; and so when the rites were all over, they turned +with the more cheerfulness back into life, from the contrast of its +freshness with those shadows into which, for the hour, they had been +gazing. + +The Rev. Theophilus Sewell was one of the few ministers who preserved +the costume of a former generation, with something of that imposing +dignity with which, in earlier times, the habits of the clergy were +invested. He was tall and majestic in stature, and carried to advantage +the powdered wig and three-cornered hat, the broad-skirted coat, +knee-breeches, high shoes, and plated buckles of the ancient costume. +There was just a sufficient degree of the formality of olden times to +give a certain quaintness to all he said and did. He was a man of a +considerable degree of talent, force, and originality, and in fact had +been held in his day to be one of the most promising graduates of +Harvard University. But, being a good man, he had proposed to himself no +higher ambition than to succeed to the pulpit of his father in +Harpswell. + +His parish included not only a somewhat scattered seafaring population +on the mainland, but also the care of several islands. Like many other +of the New England clergy of those times, he united in himself numerous +different offices for the benefit of the people whom he served. As there +was neither lawyer nor physician in the town, he had acquired by his +reading, and still more by his experience, enough knowledge in both +these departments to enable him to administer to the ordinary wants of a +very healthy and peaceable people. + +It was said that most of the deeds and legal conveyances in his parish +were in his handwriting, and in the medical line his authority was only +rivaled by that of Miss Roxy, who claimed a very obvious advantage over +him in a certain class of cases, from the fact of her being a woman, +which was still further increased by the circumstance that the good man +had retained steadfastly his bachelor estate. "So, of course," Miss Roxy +used to say, "poor man! what could he know about a woman, you know?" + +This state of bachelorhood gave occasion to much surmising; but when +spoken to about it, he was accustomed to remark with gallantry, that he +should have too much regard for any lady whom he could think of as a +wife, to ask her to share his straitened circumstances. His income, +indeed, consisted of only about two hundred dollars a year; but upon +this he and a very brisk, cheerful maiden sister contrived to keep up a +thrifty and comfortable establishment, in which everything appeared to +be pervaded by a spirit of quaint cheerfulness. + +In fact, the man might be seen to be an original in his way, and all the +springs of his life were kept oiled by a quiet humor, which sometimes +broke out in playful sparkles, despite the gravity of the pulpit and the +awfulness of the cocked hat. He had a placid way of amusing himself with +the quaint and picturesque side of life, as it appeared in all his +visitings among a very primitive, yet very shrewd-minded people. + +There are those people who possess a peculiar faculty of mingling in the +affairs of this life as spectators as well as actors. It does not, of +course, suppose any coldness of nature or want of human interest or +sympathy--nay, it often exists most completely with people of the +tenderest human feeling. It rather seems to be a kind of distinct +faculty working harmoniously with all the others; but he who possesses +it needs never to be at a loss for interest or amusement; he is always a +spectator at a tragedy or comedy, and sees in real life a humor and a +pathos beyond anything he can find shadowed in books. + +Mr. Sewell sometimes, in his pastoral visitations, took a quiet pleasure +in playing upon these simple minds, and amusing himself with the odd +harmonies and singular resolutions of chords which started out under his +fingers. Surely he had a right to something in addition to his limited +salary, and this innocent, unsuspected entertainment helped to make up +the balance for his many labors. + +His sister was one of the best-hearted and most unsuspicious of the +class of female idolaters, and worshiped her brother with the most +undoubting faith and devotion--wholly ignorant of the constant amusement +she gave him by a thousand little feminine peculiarities, which struck +him with a continual sense of oddity. It was infinitely diverting to him +to see the solemnity of her interest in his shirts and stockings, and +Sunday clothes, and to listen to the subtle distinctions which she would +draw between best and second-best, and every-day; to receive her +somewhat prolix admonition how he was to demean himself in respect of +the wearing of each one; for Miss Emily Sewell was a gentlewoman, and +held rigidly to various traditions of gentility which had been handed +down in the Sewell family, and which afforded her brother too much quiet +amusement to be disturbed. He would not have overthrown one of her +quiddities for the world; it would be taking away a part of his capital +in existence. + +Miss Emily was a trim, genteel little person, with dancing black eyes, +and cheeks which had the roses of youth well dried into them. It was +easy to see that she had been quite pretty in her days; and her neat +figure, her brisk little vivacious ways, her unceasing good-nature and +kindness of heart, still made her an object both of admiration and +interest in the parish. She was great in drying herbs and preparing +recipes; in knitting and sewing, and cutting and contriving; in saving +every possible snip and chip either of food or clothing; and no less +liberal was she in bestowing advice and aid in the parish, where she +moved about with all the sense of consequence which her brother's +position warranted. + +The fact of his bachelorhood caused his relations to the female part of +his flock to be even more shrouded in sacredness and mystery than is +commonly the case with the great man of the parish; but Miss Emily +delighted to act as interpreter. She was charmed to serve out to the +willing ears of his parish from time to time such scraps of information +as regarded his life, habits, and opinions as might gratify their ever +new curiosity. Instructed by her, all the good wives knew the difference +between his very best long silk stocking and his second best, and how +carefully the first had to be kept under lock and key, where he could +not get at them; for he was understood, good as he was, to have +concealed in him all the thriftless and pernicious inconsiderateness of +the male nature, ready at any moment to break out into unheard-of +improprieties. But the good man submitted himself to Miss Emily's rule, +and suffered himself to be led about by her with an air of half +whimsical consciousness. + +Mrs. Kittridge that day had felt the full delicacy of the compliment +when she ascertained by a hasty glance, before the first prayer, that +the good man had been brought out to her funeral in all his very best +things, not excepting the long silk stockings, for she knew the +second-best pair by means of a certain skillful darn which Miss Emily +had once shown her, which commemorated the spot where a hole had been. +The absence of this darn struck to Mrs. Kittridge's heart at once as a +delicate attention. + +"Mis' Simpkins," said Mrs. Kittridge to her pastor, as they were seated +at the tea-table, "told me that she wished when you were going home that +you would call in to see Mary Jane; she couldn't come out to the funeral +on account of a dreffle sore throat. I was tellin' on her to gargle it +with blackberry-root tea--don't you think that is a good gargle, Mr. +Sewell?" + +"Yes, I think it a very good gargle," replied the minister, gravely. + +"Ma'sh rosemary is the gargle that I always use," said Miss Roxy; "it +cleans out your throat so." + +"Marsh rosemary is a very excellent gargle," said Mr. Sewell. + +"Why, brother, don't you think that rose leaves and vitriol is a good +gargle?" said little Miss Emily; "I always thought that you liked rose +leaves and vitriol for a gargle." + +"So I do," said the imperturbable Mr. Sewell, drinking his tea with the +air of a sphinx. + +"Well, now, you'll have to tell which on 'em will be most likely to cure +Mary Jane," said Captain Kittridge, "or there'll be a pullin' of caps, +I'm thinkin'; or else the poor girl will have to drink them all, which +is generally the way." + +"There won't any of them cure Mary Jane's throat," said the minister, +quietly. + +"Why, brother!" "Why, Mr. Sewell!" "Why, you don't!" burst in different +tones from each of the women. + +"I thought you said that blackberry-root tea was good," said Mrs. +Kittridge. + +"I understood that you 'proved of ma'sh rosemary," said Miss Roxy, +touched in her professional pride. + +"And I am sure, brother, that I have heard you say, often and often, +that there wasn't a better gargle than rose leaves and vitriol," said +Miss Emily. + +"You are quite right, ladies, all of you. I think these are all good +gargles--excellent ones." + +"But I thought you said that they didn't do any good?" said all the +ladies in a breath. + +"No, they don't--not the least in the world," said Mr. Sewell; "but they +are all excellent gargles, and as long as people must have gargles, I +think one is about as good as another." + +"Now you have got it," said Captain Kittridge. + +"Brother, you do say the strangest things," said Miss Emily. + +"Well, I must say," said Miss Roxy, "it is a new idea to me, long as +I've been nussin', and I nussed through one season of scarlet fever +when sometimes there was five died in one house; and if ma'sh rosemary +didn't do good then, I should like to know what did." + +"So would a good many others," said the minister. + +"Law, now, Miss Roxy, you mus'n't mind him. Do you know that I believe +he says these sort of things just to hear us talk? Of course he wouldn't +think of puttin' his experience against yours." + +"But, Mis' Kittridge," said Miss Emily, with a view of summoning a less +controverted subject, "what a beautiful little boy that was, and what a +striking providence that brought him into such a good family!" + +"Yes," said Mrs. Kittridge; "but I'm sure I don't see what Mary Pennel +is goin' to do with that boy, for she ain't got no more government than +a twisted tow-string." + +"Oh, the Cap'n, he'll lend a hand," said Miss Roxy, "it won't be easy +gettin' roun' him; Cap'n bears a pretty steady hand when he sets out to +drive." + +"Well," said Miss Emily, "I do think that bringin' up children is the +most awful responsibility, and I always wonder when I hear that any one +dares to undertake it." + +"It requires a great deal of resolution, certainly," said Mrs. +Kittridge; "I'm sure I used to get a'most discouraged when my boys was +young: they was a reg'lar set of wild ass's colts," she added, not +perceiving the reflection on their paternity. + +But the countenance of Mr. Sewell was all aglow with merriment, which +did not break into a smile. + +"Wal', Mis' Kittridge," said the Captain, "strikes me that you're +gettin' pussonal." + +"No, I ain't neither," said the literal Mrs. Kittridge, ignorant of the +cause of the amusement which she saw around her; "but you wa'n't no help +to me, you know; you was always off to sea, and the whole wear and tear +on't came on me." + +"Well, well, Polly, all's well that ends well; don't you think so, Mr. +Sewell?" + +"I haven't much experience in these matters," said Mr. Sewell, politely. + +"No, indeed, that's what he hasn't, for he never will have a child round +the house that he don't turn everything topsy-turvy for them," said Miss +Emily. + +"But I was going to remark," said Mr. Sewell, "that a friend of mine +said once, that the woman that had brought up six boys deserved a seat +among the martyrs; and that is rather my opinion." + +"Wal', Polly, if you git up there, I hope you'll keep a seat for me." + +"Cap'n Kittridge, what levity!" said his wife. + +"I didn't begin it, anyhow," said the Captain. + +Miss Emily interposed, and led the conversation back to the subject. +"What a pity it is," she said, "that this poor child's family can never +know anything about him. There may be those who would give all the world +to know what has become of him; and when he comes to grow up, how sad he +will feel to have no father and mother!" + +"Sister," said Mr. Sewell, "you cannot think that a child brought up by +Captain Pennel and his wife would ever feel as without father and +mother." + +"Why, no, brother, to be sure not. There's no doubt he will have +everything done for him that a child could. But then it's a loss to lose +one's real home." + +"It may be a gracious deliverance," said Mr. Sewell--"who knows? We may +as well take a cheerful view, and think that some kind wave has drifted +the child away from an unfortunate destiny to a family where we are +quite sure he will be brought up industriously and soberly, and in the +fear of God." + +"Well, I never thought of that," said Miss Roxy. + +Miss Emily, looking at her brother, saw that he was speaking with a +suppressed vehemence, as if some inner fountain of recollection at the +moment were disturbed. But Miss Emily knew no more of the deeper parts +of her brother's nature than a little bird that dips its beak into the +sunny waters of some spring knows of its depths of coldness and shadow. + +"Mis' Pennel was a-sayin' to me," said Mrs. Kittridge, "that I should +ask you what was to be done about the bracelet they found. We don't know +whether 'tis real gold and precious stones, or only glass and pinchbeck. +Cap'n Kittridge he thinks it's real; and if 'tis, why then the question +is, whether or no to try to sell it, or keep it for the boy agin he +grows up. It may help find out who and what he is." + +"And why should he want to find out?" said Mr. Sewell. "Why should he +not grow up and think himself the son of Captain and Mrs. Pennel? What +better lot could a boy be born to?" + +"That may be, brother, but it can't be kept from him. Everybody knows +how he was found, and you may be sure every bird of the air will tell +him, and he'll grow up restless and wanting to know. Mis' Kittridge, +have you got the bracelet handy?" + +The fact was, little Miss Emily was just dying with curiosity to set her +dancing black eyes upon it. + +"Here it is," said Mrs. Kittridge, taking it from a drawer. + +It was a bracelet of hair, of some curious foreign workmanship. A green +enameled serpent, studded thickly with emeralds and with eyes of ruby, +was curled around the clasp. A crystal plate covered a wide flat braid +of hair, on which the letters "D.M." were curiously embroidered in a +cipher of seed pearls. The whole was in style and workmanship quite +different from any jewelry which ordinarily meets one's eye. + +But what was remarkable was the expression in Mr. Sewell's face when +this bracelet was put into his hand. Miss Emily had risen from table and +brought it to him, leaning over him as she did so, and he turned his +head a little to hold it in the light from the window, so that only she +remarked the sudden expression of blank surprise and startled +recognition which fell upon it. He seemed like a man who chokes down an +exclamation; and rising hastily, he took the bracelet to the window, and +standing with his back to the company, seemed to examine it with the +minutest interest. After a few moments he turned and said, in a very +composed tone, as if the subject were of no particular interest,-- + +"It is a singular article, so far as workmanship is concerned. The value +of the gems in themselves is not great enough to make it worth while to +sell it. It will be worth more as a curiosity than anything else. It +will doubtless be an interesting relic to keep for the boy when he grows +up." + +"Well, Mr. Sewell, you keep it," said Mrs. Kittridge; "the Pennels told +me to give it into your care." + +"I shall commit it to Emily here; women have a native sympathy with +anything in the jewelry line. She'll be sure to lay it up so securely +that she won't even know where it is herself." + +"Brother!" + +"Come, Emily," said Mr. Sewell, "your hens will all go to roost on the +wrong perch if you are not at home to see to them; so, if the Captain +will set us across to Harpswell, I think we may as well be going." + +"Why, what's your hurry?" said Mrs. Kittridge. + +"Well," said Mr. Sewell, "firstly, there's the hens; secondly, the pigs; +and lastly, the cow. Besides I shouldn't wonder if some of Emily's +admirers should call on her this evening,--never any saying when Captain +Broad may come in." + +"Now, brother, you are too bad," said Miss Emily, as she bustled about +her bonnet and shawl. "Now, that's all made up out of whole cloth. +Captain Broad called last week a Monday, to talk to you about the pews, +and hardly spoke a word to me. You oughtn't to say such things, 'cause +it raises reports." + +"Ah, well, then, I won't again," said her brother. "I believe, after +all, it was Captain Badger that called twice." + +"Brother!" + +"And left you a basket of apples the second time." + +"Brother, you know he only called to get some of my hoarhound for +Mehitable's cough." + +"Oh, yes, I remember." + +"If you don't take care," said Miss Emily, "I'll tell where you call." + +"Come, Miss Emily, you must not mind him," said Miss Roxy; "we all know +his ways." + +And now took place the grand leave-taking, which consisted first of the +three women's standing in a knot and all talking at once, as if their +very lives depended upon saying everything they could possibly think of +before they separated, while Mr. Sewell and Captain Kittridge stood +patiently waiting with the resigned air which the male sex commonly +assume on such occasions; and when, after two or three "Come, Emily's," +the group broke up only to form again on the door-step, where they were +at it harder than ever, and a third occasion of the same sort took place +at the bottom of the steps, Mr. Sewell was at last obliged by main force +to drag his sister away in the middle of a sentence. + +Miss Emily watched her brother shrewdly all the way home, but all traces +of any uncommon feeling had passed away; and yet, with the restlessness +of female curiosity, she felt quite sure that she had laid hold of the +end of some skein of mystery, could she only find skill enough to unwind +it. + +She took up the bracelet, and held it in the fading evening light, and +broke into various observations with regard to the singularity of the +workmanship. Her brother seemed entirely absorbed in talking with +Captain Kittridge about the brig Anna Maria, which was going to be +launched from Pennel's wharf next Wednesday. But she, therefore, +internally resolved to lie in wait for the secret in that confidential +hour which usually preceded going to bed. Therefore, as soon as she had +arrived at their quiet dwelling, she put in operation the most seducing +little fire that ever crackled and snapped in a chimney, well knowing +that nothing was more calculated to throw light into any hidden or +concealed chamber of the soul than that enlivening blaze, which danced +so merrily on her well-polished andirons, and made the old chintz sofa +and the time-worn furniture so rich in remembrances of family comfort. + +She then proceeded to divest her brother of his wig and his dress-coat, +and to induct him into the flowing ease of a study-gown, crowning his +well-shaven head with a black cap, and placing his slippers before the +corner of a sofa nearest the fire. She observed him with satisfaction +sliding into his seat, and then she trotted to a closet with a glass +door in the corner of the room, and took down an old, quaintly-shaped +silver cup, which had been an heirloom in their family, and was the only +piece of plate which their modern domestic establishment could boast; +and with this, down cellar she tripped, her little heels tapping lightly +on each stair, and the hum of a song coming back after her as she sought +the cider-barrel. Up again she came, and set the silver cup, with its +clear amber contents, down by the fire, and then busied herself in +making just the crispest, nicest square of toast to be eaten with it; +for Miss Emily had conceived the idea that some little ceremony of this +sort was absolutely necessary to do away all possible ill effects from a +day's labor, and secure an uninterrupted night's repose. Having done +all this, she took her knitting-work, and stationed herself just +opposite to her brother. + +It was fortunate for Miss Emily that the era of daily journals had not +yet arisen upon the earth, because if it had, after all her care and +pains, her brother would probably have taken up the evening paper, and +holding it between his face and her, have read an hour or so in silence; +but Mr. Sewell had not this resort. He knew perfectly well that he had +excited his sister's curiosity on a subject where he could not gratify +it, and therefore he took refuge in a kind of mild, abstracted air of +quietude which bid defiance to all her little suggestions. + +After in vain trying every indirect form, Miss Emily approached the +subject more pointedly. "I thought that you looked very much interested +in that poor woman to-day." + +"She had an interesting face," said her brother, dryly. + +"Was it like anybody that you ever saw?" said Miss Emily. + +Her brother did not seem to hear her, but, taking the tongs, picked up +the two ends of a stick that had just fallen apart, and arranged them so +as to make a new blaze. + +Miss Emily was obliged to repeat her question, whereat he started as one +awakened out of a dream, and said,-- + +"Why, yes, he didn't know but she did; there were a good many women with +black eyes and black hair,--Mrs. Kittridge, for instance." + +"Why, I don't think that she looked like Mrs. Kittridge in the least," +said Miss Emily, warmly. + +"Oh, well! I didn't say she did," said her brother, looking drowsily at +his watch; "why, Emily, it's getting rather late." + +"What made you look so when I showed you that bracelet?" said Miss +Emily, determined now to push the war to the heart of the enemy's +country. + +"Look how?" said her brother, leisurely moistening a bit of toast in his +cider. + +"Why, I never saw anybody look more wild and astonished than you did for +a minute or two." + +"I did, did I?" said her brother, in the same indifferent tone. "My dear +child, what an active imagination you have. Did you ever look through a +prism, Emily?" + +"Why, no, Theophilus; what do you mean?" + +"Well, if you should, you would see everybody and everything with a nice +little bordering of rainbow around them; now the rainbow isn't on the +things, but in the prism." + +"Well, what's that to the purpose?" said Miss Emily, rather bewildered. + +"Why, just this: you women are so nervous and excitable, that you are +very apt to see your friends and the world in general with some coloring +just as unreal. I am sorry for you, childie, but really I can't help you +to get up a romance out of this bracelet. Well, good-night, Emily; take +good care of yourself and go to bed;" and Mr. Sewell went to his room, +leaving poor Miss Emily almost persuaded out of the sight of her own +eyes. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +LITTLE ADVENTURERS + + +The little boy who had been added to the family of Zephaniah Pennel and +his wife soon became a source of grave solicitude to that mild and +long-suffering woman. For, as the reader may have seen, he was a +resolute, self-willed little elf, and whatever his former life may have +been, it was quite evident that these traits had been developed without +any restraint. + +Mrs. Pennel, whose whole domestic experience had consisted in rearing +one very sensitive and timid daughter, who needed for her development +only an extreme of tenderness, and whose conscientiousness was a law +unto herself, stood utterly confounded before the turbulent little +spirit to which her loving-kindness had opened so ready an asylum, and +she soon discovered that it is one thing to take a human being to bring +up, and another to know what to do with it after it is taken. + +The child had the instinctive awe of Zephaniah which his manly nature +and habits of command were fitted to inspire, so that morning and +evening, when he was at home, he was demure enough; but while the good +man was away all day, and sometimes on fishing excursions which often +lasted a week, there was a chronic state of domestic warfare--a +succession of skirmishes, pitched battles, long treaties, with divers +articles of capitulation, ending, as treaties are apt to do, in open +rupture on the first convenient opportunity. + +Mrs. Pennel sometimes reflected with herself mournfully, and with many +self-disparaging sighs, what was the reason that young master somehow +contrived to keep her far more in awe of him than he was of her. Was she +not evidently, as yet at least, bigger and stronger than he, able to +hold his rebellious little hands, to lift and carry him, and to shut him +up, if so she willed, in a dark closet, and even to administer to him +that discipline of the birch which Mrs. Kittridge often and forcibly +recommended as the great secret of her family prosperity? Was it not her +duty, as everybody told her, to break his will while he was young?--a +duty which hung like a millstone round the peaceable creature's neck, +and weighed her down with a distressing sense of responsibility. + +Now, Mrs. Pennel was one of the people to whom self-sacrifice is +constitutionally so much a nature, that self-denial for her must have +consisted in standing up for her own rights, or having her own way when +it crossed the will and pleasure of any one around her. All she wanted +of a child, or in fact of any human creature, was something to love and +serve. We leave it entirely to theologians to reconcile such facts with +the theory of total depravity; but it is a fact that there are a +considerable number of women of this class. Their life would flow on +very naturally if it might consist only in giving, never in +withholding--only in praise, never in blame--only in acquiescence, never +in conflict; and the chief comfort of such women in religion is that it +gives them at last an object for love without criticism, and for whom +the utmost degree of self-abandonment is not idolatry, but worship. + +Mrs. Pennel would gladly have placed herself and all she possessed at +the disposition of the children; they might have broken her china, dug +in the garden with her silver spoons, made turf alleys in her best room, +drummed on her mahogany tea-table, filled her muslin drawer with their +choicest shells and seaweed; only Mrs. Pennel knew that such kindness +was no kindness, and that in the dreadful word responsibility, familiar +to every New England mother's ear, there lay an awful summons to deny +and to conflict where she could so much easier have conceded. + +She saw that the tyrant little will would reign without mercy, if it +reigned at all; and ever present with her was the uneasy sense that it +was her duty to bring this erratic little comet within the laws of a +well-ordered solar system,--a task to which she felt about as competent +as to make a new ring for Saturn. Then, too, there was a secret feeling, +if the truth must be told, of what Mrs. Kittridge would think about it; +for duty is never more formidable than when she gets on the cap and gown +of a neighbor; and Mrs. Kittridge, with her resolute voice and +declamatory family government, had always been a secret source of +uneasiness to poor Mrs. Pennel, who was one of those sensitive souls who +can feel for a mile or more the sphere of a stronger neighbor. During +all the years that they had lived side by side, there had been this +shadowy, unconfessed feeling on the part of poor Mrs. Pennel, that Mrs. +Kittridge thought her deficient in her favorite virtue of "resolution," +as, in fact, in her inmost soul she knew she was;--but who wants to have +one's weak places looked into by the sharp eyes of a neighbor who is +strong precisely where we are weak? The trouble that one neighbor may +give to another, simply by living within a mile of one, is incredible; +but until this new accession to her family, Mrs. Pennel had always been +able to comfort herself with the idea that the child under her +particular training was as well-behaved as any of those of her more +demonstrative friend. But now, all this consolation had been put to +flight; she could not meet Mrs. Kittridge without most humiliating +recollections. + +On Sundays, when those sharp black eyes gleamed upon her through the +rails of the neighboring pew, her very soul shrank within her, as she +recollected all the compromises and defeats of the week before. It +seemed to her that Mrs. Kittridge saw it all,--how she had ingloriously +bought peace with gingerbread, instead of maintaining it by rightful +authority,--how young master had sat up till nine o'clock on divers +occasions, and even kept little Mara up for his lordly pleasure. + +How she trembled at every movement of the child in the pew, dreading +some patent and open impropriety which should bring scandal on her +government! This was the more to be feared, as the first effort to +initiate the youthful neophyte in the decorums of the sanctuary had +proved anything but a success,--insomuch that Zephaniah Pennel had been +obliged to carry him out from the church; therefore, poor Mrs. Pennel +was thankful every Sunday when she got her little charge home without +any distinct scandal and breach of the peace. + +But, after all, he was such a handsome and engaging little wretch, +attracting all eyes wherever he went, and so full of saucy drolleries, +that it seemed to Mrs. Pennel that everything and everybody conspired to +help her spoil him. There are two classes of human beings in this world: +one class seem made to give love, and the other to take it. Now Mrs. +Pennel and Mara belonged to the first class, and little Master Moses to +the latter. + +It was, perhaps, of service to the little girl to give to her delicate, +shrinking, highly nervous organization the constant support of a +companion so courageous, so richly blooded, and highly vitalized as the +boy seemed to be. There was a fervid, tropical richness in his air that +gave one a sense of warmth in looking at him, and made his Oriental name +seem in good-keeping. He seemed an exotic that might have waked up under +fervid Egyptian suns, and been found cradled among the lotus blossoms of +old Nile; and the fair golden-haired girl seemed to be gladdened by his +companionship, as if he supplied an element of vital warmth to her +being. She seemed to incline toward him as naturally as a needle to a +magnet. + +The child's quickness of ear and the facility with which he picked up +English were marvelous to observe. Evidently, he had been somewhat +accustomed to the sound of it before, for there dropped out of his +vocabulary, after he began to speak, phrases which would seem to betoken +a longer familiarity with its idioms than could be equally accounted for +by his present experience. Though the English evidently was not his +native language, there had yet apparently been some effort to teach it +to him, although the terror and confusion of the shipwreck seemed at +first to have washed every former impression from his mind. + +But whenever any attempt was made to draw him to speak of the past, of +his mother, or of where he came from, his brow lowered gloomily, and he +assumed that kind of moody, impenetrable gravity, which children at +times will so strangely put on, and which baffle all attempts to look +within them. Zephaniah Pennel used to call it putting up his +dead-lights. Perhaps it was the dreadful association of agony and terror +connected with the shipwreck, that thus confused and darkened the mirror +of his mind the moment it was turned backward; but it was thought wisest +by his new friends to avoid that class of subjects altogether--indeed, +it was their wish that he might forget the past entirely, and remember +them as his only parents. + +Miss Roxy and Miss Ruey came duly, as appointed, to initiate the young +pilgrim into the habiliments of a Yankee boy, endeavoring, at the same +time, to drop into his mind such seeds of moral wisdom as might make the +internal economy in time correspond to the exterior. But Miss Roxy +declared that "of all the children that ever she see, he beat all for +finding out new mischief,--the moment you'd make him understand he +mustn't do one thing, he was right at another." + +One of his exploits, however, had very nearly been the means of cutting +short the materials of our story in the outset. + +It was a warm, sunny afternoon, and the three women, being busy together +with their stitching, had tied a sun-bonnet on little Mara, and turned +the two loose upon the beach to pick up shells. All was serene, and +quiet, and retired, and no possible danger could be apprehended. So up +and down they trotted, till the spirit of adventure which ever burned in +the breast of little Moses caught sight of a small canoe which had been +moored just under the shadow of a cedar-covered rock. Forthwith he +persuaded his little neighbor to go into it, and for a while they made +themselves very gay, rocking it from side to side. + +The tide was going out, and each retreating wave washed the boat up and +down, till it came into the boy's curly head how beautiful it would be +to sail out as he had seen men do,--and so, with much puffing and +earnest tugging of his little brown hands, the boat at last was loosed +from her moorings and pushed out on the tide, when both children laughed +gayly to find themselves swinging and balancing on the amber surface, +and watching the rings and sparkles of sunshine and the white pebbles +below. Little Moses was glorious,--his adventures had begun,--and with a +fairy-princess in his boat, he was going to stretch away to some of the +islands of dreamland. He persuaded Mara to give him her pink sun-bonnet, +which he placed for a pennon on a stick at the end of the boat, while he +made a vehement dashing with another, first on one side of the boat and +then on the other,--spattering the water in diamond showers, to the +infinite amusement of the little maiden. + +Meanwhile the tide waves danced them out and still outward, and as they +went farther and farther from shore, the more glorious felt the boy. He +had got Mara all to himself, and was going away with her from all grown +people, who wouldn't let children do as they pleased,--who made them sit +still in prayer-time, and took them to meeting, and kept so many things +which they must not touch, or open, or play with. Two white sea-gulls +came flying toward the children, and they stretched their little arms in +welcome, nothing doubting but these fair creatures were coming at once +to take passage with them for fairy-land. But the birds only dived and +shifted and veered, turning their silvery sides toward the sun, and +careering in circles round the children. A brisk little breeze, that +came hurrying down from the land, seemed disposed to favor their +unsubstantial enterprise,--for your winds, being a fanciful, uncertain +tribe of people, are always for falling in with anything that is +contrary to common sense. So the wind trolled them merrily along, +nothing doubting that there might be time, if they hurried, to land +their boat on the shore of some of the low-banked red clouds that lay in +the sunset, where they could pick up shells,--blue and pink and +purple,--enough to make them rich for life. The children were all +excitement at the rapidity with which their little bark danced and +rocked, as it floated outward to the broad, open ocean; at the blue, +freshening waves, at the silver-glancing gulls, at the floating, +white-winged ships, and at vague expectations of going rapidly +somewhere, to something more beautiful still. And what is the happiness +of the brightest hours of grown people more than this? + +"Roxy," said Aunt Ruey innocently, "seems to me I haven't heard nothin' +o' them children lately. They're so still, I'm 'fraid there's some +mischief." + +"Well, Ruey, you jist go and give a look at 'em," said Miss Roxy. "I +declare, that boy! I never know what he will do next; but there didn't +seem to be nothin' to get into out there but the sea, and the beach is +so shelving, a body can't well fall into that." + +Alas! good Miss Roxy, the children are at this moment tilting up and +down on the waves, half a mile out to sea, as airily happy as the +sea-gulls; and little Moses now thinks, with glorious scorn, of you and +your press-board, as of grim shadows of restraint and bondage that shall +never darken his free life more. + +Both Miss Roxy and Mrs. Pennel were, however, startled into a paroxysm +of alarm when poor Miss Ruey came screaming, as she entered the door,-- + +"As sure as you're alive, them chil'en are off in the boat,--they're out +to sea, sure as I'm alive! What shall we do? The boat'll upset, and the +sharks'll get 'em." + +Miss Roxy ran to the window, and saw dancing and courtesying on the blue +waves the little pinnace, with its fanciful pink pennon fluttered gayly +by the indiscreet and flattering wind. + +Poor Mrs. Pennel ran to the shore, and stretched her arms wildly, as if +she would have followed them across the treacherous blue floor that +heaved and sparkled between them. + +"Oh, Mara, Mara! Oh, my poor little girl! Oh, poor children!" + +"Well, if ever I see such a young un as that," soliloquized Miss Roxy +from the chamber-window; "there they be, dancin' and giggitin' about; +they'll have the boat upset in a minit, and the sharks are waitin' for +'em, no doubt. _I_ b'lieve that ar young un's helped by the Evil +One,--not a boat round, else I'd push off after 'em. Well, I don't see +but we must trust in the Lord,--there don't seem to be much else to +trust to," said the spinster, as she drew her head in grimly. + +To say the truth, there was some reason for the terror of these most +fearful suggestions; for not far from the place where the children +embarked was Zephaniah's fish-drying ground, and multitudes of sharks +came up with every rising tide, allured by the offal that was here +constantly thrown into the sea. Two of these prowlers, outward-bound +from their quest, were even now assiduously attending the little boat, +and the children derived no small amusement from watching their motions +in the pellucid water,--the boy occasionally almost upsetting the boat +by valorous plunges at them with his stick. It was the most exhilarating +and piquant entertainment he had found for many a day; and little Mara +laughed in chorus at every lunge that he made. + +What would have been the end of it all, it is difficult to say, had not +some mortal power interfered before they had sailed finally away into +the sunset. But it so happened, on this very afternoon, Rev. Mr. Sewell +was out in a boat, busy in the very apostolic employment of catching +fish, and looking up from one of the contemplative pauses which his +occupation induced, he rubbed his eyes at the apparition which presented +itself. A tiny little shell of a boat came drifting toward him, in which +was a black-eyed boy, with cheeks like a pomegranate and lustrous +tendrils of silky dark hair, and a little golden-haired girl, white as a +water-lily, and looking ethereal enough to have risen out of the +sea-foam. Both were in the very sparkle and effervescence of that +fanciful glee which bubbles up from the golden, untried fountains of +early childhood. Mr. Sewell, at a glance, comprehended the whole, and at +once overhauling the tiny craft, he broke the spell of fairy-land, and +constrained the little people to return to the confines, dull and +dreary, of real and actual life. + +Neither of them had known a doubt or a fear in that joyous trance of +forbidden pleasure which shadowed with so many fears the wiser and more +far-seeing heads and hearts of the grown people; nor was there enough +language yet in common between the two classes to make the little ones +comprehend the risk they had run. Perhaps so do our elder brothers, in +our Father's house, look anxiously out when we are sailing gayly over +life's sea,--over unknown depths,--amid threatening monsters,--but want +words to tell us why what seems so bright is so dangerous. + +Duty herself could not have worn a more rigid aspect than Miss Roxy, as +she stood on the beach, press-board in hand; for she had forgotten to +lay it down in the eagerness of her anxiety. She essayed to lay hold of +the little hand of Moses to pull him from the boat, but he drew back, +and, looking at her with a world of defiance in his great eyes, jumped +magnanimously upon the beach. The spirit of Sir Francis Drake and of +Christopher Columbus was swelling in his little body, and was he to be +brought under by a dry-visaged woman with a press-board? In fact, +nothing is more ludicrous about the escapades of children than the utter +insensibility they feel to the dangers they have run, and the light +esteem in which they hold the deep tragedy they create. + +That night, when Zephaniah, in his evening exercise, poured forth most +fervent thanksgivings for the deliverance, while Mrs. Pennel was sobbing +in her handkerchief, Miss Roxy was much scandalized by seeing the young +cause of all the disturbance sitting upon his heels, regarding the +emotion of the kneeling party with his wide bright eyes, without a wink +of compunction. + +"Well, for her part," she said, "she hoped Cap'n Pennel would be blessed +in takin' that ar boy; but she was sure she didn't see much that looked +like it now." + + * * * * * + +The Rev. Mr. Sewell fished no more that day, for the draught from +fairy-land with which he had filled his boat brought up many thoughts +into his mind, which he pondered anxiously. + +"Strange ways of God," he thought, "that should send to my door this +child, and should wash upon the beach the only sign by which he could be +identified. To what end or purpose? Hath the Lord a will in this +matter, and what is it?" + +So he thought as he slowly rowed homeward, and so did his thoughts work +upon him that half way across the bay to Harpswell he slackened his oar +without knowing it, and the boat lay drifting on the purple and +gold-tinted mirror, like a speck between two eternities. Under such +circumstances, even heads that have worn the clerical wig for years at +times get a little dizzy and dreamy. Perhaps it was because of the +impression made upon him by the sudden apparition of those great dark +eyes and sable curls, that he now thought of the boy that he had found +floating that afternoon, looking as if some tropical flower had been +washed landward by a monsoon; and as the boat rocked and tilted, and the +minister gazed dreamily downward into the wavering rings of purple, +orange, and gold which spread out and out from it, gradually it seemed +to him that a face much like the child's formed itself in the waters; +but it was the face of a girl, young and radiantly beautiful, yet with +those same eyes and curls,--he saw her distinctly, with her thousand +rings of silky hair, bound with strings of pearls and clasped with +strange gems, and she raised one arm imploringly to him, and on the +wrist he saw the bracelet embroidered with seed pearls, and the letters +D.M. "Ah, Dolores," he said, "well wert thou called so. Poor Dolores! I +cannot help thee." + +"What am I dreaming of?" said the Rev. Mr. Sewell. "It is my Thursday +evening lecture on Justification, and Emily has got tea ready, and here +I am catching cold out on the bay." + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +SEA TALES + + +Mr. Sewell, as the reader may perhaps have inferred, was of a nature +profoundly secretive. It was in most things quite as pleasant for him to +keep matters to himself, as it was to Miss Emily to tell them to +somebody else. She resembled more than anything one of those trotting, +chattering little brooks that enliven the "back lot" of many a New +England home, while he was like one of those wells you shall sometimes +see by a deserted homestead, so long unused that ferns and lichens +feather every stone down to the dark, cool water. + +Dear to him was the stillness and coolness of inner thoughts with which +no stranger intermeddles; dear to him every pendent fern-leaf of memory, +every dripping moss of old recollection; and though the waters of his +soul came up healthy and refreshing enough when one really must have +them, yet one had to go armed with bucket and line and draw them +up,--they never flowed. One of his favorite maxims was, that the only +way to keep a secret was never to let any one suspect that you have one. +And as he had one now, he had, as you have seen, done his best to baffle +and put to sleep the feminine curiosity of his sister. + +He rather wanted to tell her, too, for he was a good-natured brother, +and would have liked to have given her the amount of pleasure the +confidence would have produced; but then he reflected with dismay on the +number of women in his parish with whom Miss Emily was on tea-drinking +terms,--he thought of the wondrous solvent powers of that beverage in +whose amber depths so many resolutions yea, and solemn vows, of utter +silence have been dissolved like Cleopatra's pearls. He knew that an +infusion of his secret would steam up from every cup of tea Emily should +drink for six months to come, till gradually every particle would be +dissolved and float in the air of common fame. No; it would not do. + +You would have thought, however, that something was the matter with Mr. +Sewell, had you seen him after he retired for the night, after he had so +very indifferently dismissed the subject of Miss Emily's inquiries. For +instead of retiring quietly to bed, as had been his habit for years at +that hour, he locked his door, and then unlocked a desk of private +papers, and emptied certain pigeon-holes of their contents, and for an +hour or two sat unfolding and looking over old letters and papers; and +when all this was done, he pushed them from him, and sat for a long time +buried in thoughts which went down very, very deep into that dark and +mossy well of which we have spoken. + +Then he took a pen and wrote a letter, and addressed it to a direction +for which he had searched through many piles of paper, and having done +so, seemed to ponder, uncertainly, whether to send it or not. The +Harpswell post-office was kept in Mr. Silas Perrit's store, and the +letters were every one of them carefully and curiously investigated by +all the gossips of the village, and as this was addressed to St. +Augustine in Florida, he foresaw that before Sunday the news would be in +every mouth in the parish that the minister had written to so and so in +Florida, "and what do you s'pose it's about?" + +"No, no," he said to himself, "that will never do; but at all events +there is no hurry," and he put back the papers in order, put the letter +with them, and locking his desk, looked at his watch and found it to be +two o'clock, and so he went to bed to think the matter over. + +Now, there may be some reader so simple as to feel a portion of Miss +Emily's curiosity. But, my friend, restrain it, for Mr. Sewell will +certainly, as we foresee, become less rather than more communicative on +this subject, as he thinks upon it. Nevertheless, whatever it be that he +knows or suspects, it is something which leads him to contemplate with +more than usual interest this little mortal waif that has so strangely +come ashore in his parish. He mentally resolves to study the child as +minutely as possible, without betraying that he has any particular +reason for being interested in him. + +Therefore, in the latter part of this mild November afternoon, which he +has devoted to pastoral visiting, about two months after the funeral, he +steps into his little sail-boat, and stretches away for the shores of +Orr's Island. He knows the sun will be down before he reaches there; but +he sees, in the opposite horizon, the spectral, shadowy moon, only +waiting for daylight to be gone to come out, calm and radiant, like a +saintly friend neglected in the flush of prosperity, who waits patiently +to enliven our hours of darkness. + +As his boat-keel grazed the sands on the other side, a shout of laughter +came upon his oar from behind a cedar-covered rock, and soon emerged +Captain Kittridge, as long and lean and brown as the Ancient Mariner, +carrying little Mara on one shoulder, while Sally and little Moses +Pennel trotted on before. + +It was difficult to say who in this whole group was in the highest +spirits. The fact was that Mrs. Kittridge had gone to a tea-drinking +over at Maquoit, and left the Captain as housekeeper and general +overseer; and little Mara and Moses and Sally had been gloriously +keeping holiday with him down by the boat-cove, where, to say the truth, +few shavings were made, except those necessary to adorn the children's +heads with flowing suits of curls of a most extraordinary effect. The +aprons of all of them were full of these most unsubstantial specimens of +woody treasure, which hung out in long festoons, looking of a yellow +transparency in the evening light. But the delight of the children in +their acquisitions was only equaled by that of grown-up people in +possessions equally fanciful in value. + +The mirth of the little party, however, came to a sudden pause as they +met the minister. Mara clung tight to the Captain's neck, and looked out +slyly under her curls. But the little Moses made a step forward, and +fixed his bold, dark, inquisitive eyes upon him. The fact was, that the +minister had been impressed upon the boy, in his few visits to the +"meeting," as such a grand and mysterious reason for good behavior, that +he seemed resolved to embrace the first opportunity to study him close +at hand. + +"Well, my little man," said Mr. Sewell, with an affability which he +could readily assume with children, "you seem to like to look at me." + +"I do like to look at you," said the boy gravely, continuing to fix his +great black eyes upon him. + +"I see you do, my little fellow." + +"Are you the Lord?" said the child, solemnly. + +"Am I what?" + +"The Lord," said the boy. + +"No, indeed, my lad," said Mr. Sewell, smiling. "Why, what put that into +your little head?" + +"I thought you were," said the boy, still continuing to study the pastor +with attention. "Miss Roxy said so." + +"It's curious what notions chil'en will get in their heads," said +Captain Kittridge. "They put this and that together and think it over, +and come out with such queer things." + +"But," said the minister, "I have brought something for you all;" saying +which he drew from his pocket three little bright-cheeked apples, and +gave one to each child; and then taking the hand of the little Moses in +his own, he walked with him toward the house-door. + +Mrs. Pennel was sitting in her clean kitchen, busily spinning at the +little wheel, and rose flushed with pleasure at the honor that was done +her. + +"Pray, walk in, Mr. Sewell," she said, rising, and leading the way +toward the penetralia of the best room. + +"Now, Mrs. Pennel, I am come here for a good sit-down by your +kitchen-fire, this evening," said Mr. Sewell. "Emily has gone out to sit +with old Mrs. Broad, who is laid up with the rheumatism, and so I am +turned loose to pick up my living on the parish, and you must give me a +seat for a while in your kitchen corner. Best rooms are always cold." + +"The minister's right," said Captain Kittridge. "When rooms ain't much +set in, folks never feel so kind o' natural in 'em. So you jist let me +put on a good back-log and forestick, and build up a fire to tell +stories by this evening. My wife's gone out to tea, too," he said, with +an elastic skip. + +And in a few moments the Captain had produced in the great cavernous +chimney a foundation for a fire that promised breadth, solidity, and +continuance. A great back-log, embroidered here and there with tufts of +green or grayish moss, was first flung into the capacious arms of the +fireplace, and a smaller log placed above it. "Now, all you young uns go +out and bring in chips," said the Captain. "There's capital ones out to +the wood-pile." + +Mr. Sewell was pleased to see the flash that came from the eyes of +little Moses at this order, how energetically he ran before the others, +and came with glowing cheeks and distended arms, throwing down great +white chips with their green mossy bark, scattering tufts on the floor. +"Good," said he softly to himself, as he leaned on the top of his +gold-headed cane; "there's energy, ambition, muscle;" and he nodded his +head once or twice to some internal decision. + +"There!" said the Captain, rising out of a perfect whirlwind of chips +and pine kindlings with which in his zeal he had bestrown the wide, +black stone hearth, and pointing to the tongues of flame that were +leaping and blazing up through the crevices of the dry pine wood which +he had intermingled plentifully with the more substantial fuel,--"there, +Mis' Pennel, ain't I a master-hand at a fire? But I'm really sorry I've +dirtied your floor," he said, as he brushed down his pantaloons, which +were covered with bits of grizzly moss, and looked on the surrounding +desolations; "give me a broom, I can sweep up now as well as any woman." + +"Oh, never mind," said Mrs. Pennel, laughing, "I'll sweep up." + +"Well, now, Mis' Pennel, you're one of the women that don't get put out +easy; ain't ye?" said the Captain, still contemplating his fire with a +proud and watchful eye. + +"Law me!" he exclaimed, glancing through the window, "there's the Cap'n +a-comin'. I'm jist goin' to give a look at what he's brought in. Come, +chil'en," and the Captain disappeared with all three of the children at +his heels, to go down to examine the treasures of the fishing-smack. + +Mr. Sewell seated himself cozily in the chimney corner and sank into a +state of half-dreamy reverie; his eyes fixed on the fairest sight one +can see of a frosty autumn twilight--a crackling wood-fire. + +Mrs. Pennel moved soft-footed to and fro, arraying her tea-table in her +own finest and pure damask, and bringing from hidden stores her best +china and newest silver, her choicest sweetmeats and cake--whatever was +fairest and nicest in her house--to honor her unexpected guest. + +Mr. Sewell's eyes followed her occasionally about the room, with an +expression of pleased and curious satisfaction. He was taking it all in +as an artistic picture--that simple, kindly hearth, with its mossy logs, +yet steaming with the moisture of the wild woods; the table so neat, so +cheery with its many little delicacies, and refinements of appointment, +and its ample varieties to tempt the appetite; and then the Captain +coming in, yet fresh and hungry from his afternoon's toil, with the +children trotting before him. + +"And this is the inheritance he comes into," he murmured; +"healthy--wholesome--cheerful--secure: how much better than hot, +stifling luxury!" + +Here the minister's meditations were interrupted by the entrance of all +the children, joyful and loquacious. Little Moses held up a string of +mackerel, with their graceful bodies and elegantly cut fins. + +"Just a specimen of the best, Mary," said Captain Pennel. "I thought I'd +bring 'em for Miss Emily." + +"Miss Emily will be a thousand times obliged to you," said Mr. Sewell, +rising up. + +As to Mara and Sally, they were reveling in apronfuls of shells and +seaweed, which they bustled into the other room to bestow in their +spacious baby-house. + +And now, after due time for Zephaniah to assume a land toilet, all sat +down to the evening meal. + +After supper was over, the Captain was besieged by the children. Little +Mara mounted first into his lap, and nestled herself quietly under his +coat--Moses and Sally stood at each knee. + +"Come, now," said Moses, "you said you would tell us about the mermen +to-night." + +"Yes, and the mermaids," said Sally. "Tell them all you told me the +other night in the trundle-bed." + +Sally valued herself no little on the score of the Captain's talent as a +romancer. + +"You see, Moses," she said, volubly, "father saw mermen and mermaids a +plenty of them in the West Indies." + +"Oh, never mind about 'em now," said Captain Kittridge, looking at Mr. +Sewell's corner. + +"Why not, father? mother isn't here," said Sally, innocently. + +A smile passed round the faces of the company, and Mr. Sewell said, +"Come, Captain, no modesty; we all know you have as good a faculty for +telling a story as for making a fire." + +"Do tell me what mermen are," said Moses. + +"Wal'," said the Captain, sinking his voice confidentially, and hitching +his chair a little around, "mermen and maids is a kind o' people that +have their world jist like our'n, only it's down in the bottom of the +sea, 'cause the bottom of the sea has its mountains and its valleys, and +its trees and its bushes, and it stands to reason there should be people +there too." + +Moses opened his broad black eyes wider than usual, and looked absorbed +attention. + +"Tell 'em about how you saw 'em," said Sally. + +"Wal', yes," said Captain Kittridge; "once when I was to the +Bahamas,--it was one Sunday morning in June, the first Sunday in the +month,--we cast anchor pretty nigh a reef of coral, and I was jist +a-sittin' down to read my Bible, when up comes a merman over the side of +the ship, all dressed as fine as any old beau that ever ye see, with +cocked hat and silk stockings, and shoe-buckles, and his clothes were +sea-green, and his shoe-buckles shone like diamonds." + +"Do you suppose they were diamonds, really?" said Sally. + +"Wal', child, I didn't ask him, but I shouldn't be surprised, from all I +know of their ways, if they was," said the Captain, who had now got so +wholly into the spirit of his fiction that he no longer felt +embarrassed by the minister's presence, nor saw the look of amusement +with which he was listening to him in his chimney-corner. "But, as I was +sayin', he came up to me, and made the politest bow that ever ye see, +and says he, 'Cap'n Kittridge, I presume,' and says I, 'Yes, sir.' 'I'm +sorry to interrupt your reading,' says he; and says I, 'Oh, no matter, +sir.' 'But,' says he, 'if you would only be so good as to move your +anchor. You've cast anchor right before my front-door, and my wife and +family can't get out to go to meetin'.'" + +"Why, do they go to meeting in the bottom of the sea?" said Moses. + +"Law, bless you sonny, yes. Why, Sunday morning, when the sea was all +still, I used to hear the bass-viol a-soundin' down under the waters, +jist as plain as could be,--and psalms and preachin'. I've reason to +think there's as many hopefully pious mermaids as there be folks," said +the Captain. + +"But," said Moses, "you said the anchor was before the front-door, so +the family couldn't get out,--how did the merman get out?" + +"Oh! he got out of the scuttle on the roof," said the Captain, promptly. + +"And did you move your anchor?" said Moses. + +"Why, child, yes, to be sure I did; he was such a gentleman I wanted to +oblige him,--it shows you how important it is always to be polite," said +the Captain, by way of giving a moral turn to his narrative. + +Mr. Sewell, during the progress of this story, examined the Captain with +eyes of amused curiosity. His countenance was as fixed and steady, and +his whole manner of reciting as matter-of-fact and collected, as if he +were relating some of the every-day affairs of his boat-building. + +"Wal', Sally," said the Captain, rising, after his yarn had proceeded +for an indefinite length in this manner, "you and I must be goin'. I +promised your ma you shouldn't be up late, and we have a long walk +home,--besides it's time these little folks was in bed." + +The children all clung round the Captain, and could hardly be persuaded +to let him go. + +When he was gone, Mrs. Pennel took the little ones to their nest in an +adjoining room. + +Mr. Sewell approached his chair to that of Captain Pennel, and began +talking to him in a tone of voice so low, that we have never been able +to make out exactly what he was saying. Whatever it might be, however, +it seemed to give rise to an anxious consultation. "I did not think it +advisable to tell _any_ one this but yourself, Captain Pennel. It is for +you to decide, in view of the probabilities I have told you, what you +will do." + +"Well," said Zephaniah, "since you leave it to me, I say, let us keep +him. It certainly seems a marked providence that he has been thrown upon +us as he has, and the Lord seemed to prepare a way for him in our +hearts. I am well able to afford it, and Mis' Pennel, she agrees to it, +and on the whole I don't think we'd best go back on our steps; besides, +our little Mara has thrived since he came under our roof. He is, to be +sure, kind o' masterful, and I shall have to take him off Mis' Pennel's +hands before long, and put him into the sloop. But, after all, there +seems to be the makin' of a man in him, and when we are called away, why +he'll be as a brother to poor little Mara. Yes, I think it's best as 't +is." + +The minister, as he flitted across the bay by moonlight, felt relieved +of a burden. His secret was locked up as safe in the breast of Zephaniah +Pennel as it could be in his own. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +BOY AND GIRL + + +Zephaniah Pennel was what might be called a Hebrew of the Hebrews. + +New England, in her earlier days, founding her institutions on the +Hebrew Scriptures, bred better Jews than Moses could, because she read +Moses with the amendments of Christ. + +The state of society in some of the districts of Maine, in these days, +much resembled in its spirit that which Moses labored to produce in +ruder ages. It was entirely democratic, simple, grave, hearty, and +sincere,--solemn and religious in its daily tone, and yet, as to all +material good, full of wholesome thrift and prosperity. Perhaps, taking +the average mass of the people, a more healthful and desirable state of +society never existed. Its better specimens had a simple Doric grandeur +unsurpassed in any age. The bringing up a child in this state of society +was a far more simple enterprise than in our modern times, when the +factious wants and aspirations are so much more developed. + +Zephaniah Pennel was as high as anybody in the land. He owned not only +the neat little schooner, "Brilliant," with divers small fishing-boats, +but also a snug farm, adjoining the brown house, together with some +fresh, juicy pasture-lots on neighboring islands, where he raised +mutton, unsurpassed even by the English South-down, and wool, which +furnished homespun to clothe his family on all every-day occasions. + +Mrs. Pennel, to be sure, had silks and satins, and flowered India +chintz, and even a Cashmere shawl, the fruits of some of her husband's +earlier voyages, which were, however, carefully stowed away for +occasions so high and mighty, that they seldom saw the light. _Not to +wear best things every day_ was a maxim of New England thrift as little +disputed as any verse of the catechism; and so Mrs. Pennel found the +stuff gown of her own dyeing and spinning so respectable for most +purposes, that it figured even in the meeting-house itself, except on +the very finest of Sundays, when heaven and earth seemed alike +propitious. A person can well afford to wear homespun stuff to meeting, +who is buoyed up by a secret consciousness of an abundance of fine +things that could be worn, if one were so disposed, and everybody +respected Mrs. Pennel's homespun the more, because they thought of the +things she didn't wear. + +As to advantages of education, the island, like all other New England +districts, had its common school, where one got the key of +knowledge,--for having learned to read, write, and cipher, the young +fellow of those regions commonly regarded himself as in possession of +all that a man needs, to help himself to any further acquisitions he +might desire. The boys then made fishing voyages to the Banks, and those +who were so disposed took their books with them. If a boy did not wish +to be bored with study, there was nobody to force him; but if a bright +one saw visions of future success in life lying through the avenues of +knowledge, he found many a leisure hour to pore over his books, and work +out the problems of navigation directly over the element they were meant +to control. + +Four years having glided by since the commencement of our story, we find +in the brown house of Zephaniah Pennel a tall, well-knit, handsome boy +of ten years, who knows no fear of wind or sea; who can set you over +from Orr's Island to Harpswell, either in sail or row-boat, he thinks, +as well as any man living; who knows every rope of the schooner +Brilliant, and fancies he could command it as well as "father" himself; +and is supporting himself this spring, during the tamer drudgeries of +driving plough, and dropping potatoes, with the glorious vision of being +taken this year on the annual trip to "the Banks," which comes on after +planting. He reads fluently,--witness the "Robinson Crusoe," which never +departs from under his pillow, and Goldsmith's "History of Greece and +Rome," which good Mr. Sewell has lent him,--and he often brings shrewd +criticisms on the character and course of Romulus or Alexander into the +common current of every-day life, in a way that brings a smile over the +grave face of Zephaniah, and makes Mrs. Pennel think the boy certainly +ought to be sent to college. + +As for Mara, she is now a child of seven, still adorned with long golden +curls, still looking dreamily out of soft hazel eyes into some unknown +future not her own. She has no dreams for herself--they are all for +Moses. For his sake she has learned all the womanly little +accomplishments which Mrs. Kittridge has dragooned into Sally. She knits +his mittens and his stockings, and hems his pocket-handkerchiefs, and +aspires to make his shirts all herself. Whatever book Moses reads, +forthwith she aspires to read too, and though three years younger, reads +with a far more precocious insight. + +Her little form is slight and frail, and her cheek has a clear +transparent brilliancy quite different from the rounded one of the boy; +she looks not exactly in ill health, but has that sort of transparent +appearance which one fancies might be an attribute of fairies and +sylphs. All her outward senses are finer and more acute than his, and +finer and more delicate all the attributes of her mind. Those who +contend against giving woman the same education as man do it on the +ground that it would make the woman unfeminine, as if Nature had done +her work so slightly that it could be so easily raveled and knit over. +In fact, there is a masculine and a feminine element in all knowledge, +and a man and a woman put to the same study extract only what their +nature fits them to see, so that knowledge can be fully orbed only when +the two unite in the search and share the spoils. + +When Moses was full of Romulus and Numa, Mara pondered the story of the +nymph Egeria--sweet parable, in which lies all we have been saying. Her +trust in him was boundless. He was a constant hero in her eyes, and in +her he found a steadfast believer as to all possible feats and exploits +to which he felt himself competent, for the boy often had privately +assured her that he could command the Brilliant as well as father +himself. + +Spring had already come, loosing the chains of ice in all the bays and +coves round Harpswell, Orr's Island, Maquoit, and Middle Bay. The +magnificent spruces stood forth in their gala-dresses, tipped on every +point with vivid emerald; the silver firs exuded from their tender +shoots the fragrance of ripe pineapple; the white pines shot forth long +weird fingers at the end of their fringy boughs; and even every little +mimic evergreen in the shadows at their feet was made beautiful by the +addition of a vivid border of green on the sombre coloring of its last +year's leaves. Arbutus, fragrant with its clean, wholesome odors, gave +forth its thousand dewy pink blossoms, and the trailing Linnea borealis +hung its pendent twin bells round every mossy stump and old rock damp +with green forest mould. The green and vermilion matting of the +partridge-berry was impearled with white velvet blossoms, the +checkerberry hung forth a translucent bell under its varnished green +leaf, and a thousand more fairy bells, white or red, hung on blueberry +and huckleberry bushes. The little Pearl of Orr's Island had wandered +many an hour gathering bouquets of all these, to fill the brown house +with sweetness when her grandfather and Moses should come in from work. + +The love of flowers seemed to be one of her earliest characteristics, +and the young spring flowers of New England, in their airy delicacy and +fragility, were much like herself; and so strong seemed the affinity +between them, that not only Mrs. Pennel's best India china vases on the +keeping-room mantel were filled, but here stood a tumbler of scarlet +rock columbine, and there a bowl of blue and white violets, and in +another place a saucer of shell-tinted crowfoot, blue liverwort, and +white anemone, so that Zephaniah Pennel was wont to say there wasn't a +drink of water to be got, for Mara's flowers; but he always said it with +a smile that made his weather-beaten, hard features look like a rock lit +up by a sunbeam. Little Mara was the pearl of the old seaman's life, +every finer particle of his nature came out in her concentrated and +polished, and he often wondered at a creature so ethereal belonging to +him--as if down on some shaggy sea-green rock an old pearl oyster should +muse and marvel on the strange silvery mystery of beauty that was +growing in the silence of his heart. + +But May has passed; the arbutus and the Linnea are gone from the woods, +and the pine tips have grown into young shoots, which wilt at noon under +a direct reflection from sun and sea, and the blue sky has that metallic +clearness and brilliancy which distinguishes those regions, and the +planting is at last over, and this very morning Moses is to set off in +the Brilliant for his first voyage to the Banks. Glorious knight he! the +world all before him, and the blood of ten years racing and throbbing in +his veins as he talks knowingly of hooks, and sinkers, and bait, and +lines, and wears proudly the red flannel shirt which Mara had just +finished for him. + +"How I do wish I were going with you!" she says. "I could do something, +couldn't I--take care of your hooks, or something?" + +"Pooh!" said Moses, sublimely regarding her while he settled the collar +of his shirt, "you're a girl; and what can girls do at sea? you never +like to catch fish--it always makes you cry to see 'em flop." + +"Oh, yes, poor fish!" said Mara, perplexed between her sympathy for the +fish and her desire for the glory of her hero, which must be founded on +their pain; "I can't help feeling sorry when they gasp so." + +"Well, and what do you suppose you would do when the men are pulling up +twenty and forty pounder?" said Moses, striding sublimely. "Why, they +flop so, they'd knock you over in a minute." + +"Do they? Oh, Moses, do be careful. What if they should hurt you?" + +"Hurt me!" said Moses, laughing; "that's a good one. I'd like to see a +fish that could hurt me." + +"Do hear that boy talk!" said Mrs. Pennel to her husband, as they stood +within their chamber-door. + +"Yes, yes," said Captain Pennel, smiling; "he's full of the matter. I +believe he'd take the command of the schooner this morning, if I'd let +him." + +The Brilliant lay all this while courtesying on the waves, which kissed +and whispered to the little coquettish craft. A fairer June morning had +not risen on the shores that week; the blue mirror of the ocean was all +dotted over with the tiny white sails of fishing-craft bound on the same +errand, and the breeze that was just crisping the waters had the very +spirit of energy and adventure in it. + +Everything and everybody was now on board, and she began to spread her +fair wings, and slowly and gracefully to retreat from the shore. Little +Moses stood on the deck, his black curls blowing in the wind, and his +large eyes dancing with excitement,--his clear olive complexion and +glowing cheeks well set off by his red shirt. + +Mrs. Pennel stood with Mara on the shore to see them go. The fair little +golden-haired Ariadne shaded her eyes with one arm, and stretched the +other after her Theseus, till the vessel grew smaller, and finally +seemed to melt away into the eternal blue. Many be the wives and lovers +that have watched those little fishing-craft as they went gayly out like +this, but have waited long--too long--and seen them again no more. In +night and fog they have gone down under the keel of some ocean packet or +Indiaman, and sunk with brave hearts and hands, like a bubble in the +mighty waters. Yet Mrs. Pennel did not turn back to her house in +apprehension of this. Her husband had made so many voyages, and always +returned safely, that she confidently expected before long to see them +home again. + +The next Sunday the seat of Zephaniah Pennel was vacant in church. +According to custom, a note was put up asking prayers for his safe +return, and then everybody knew that he was gone to the Banks; and as +the roguish, handsome face of Moses was also missing, Miss Roxy +whispered to Miss Ruey, "There! Captain Pennel's took Moses on his first +voyage. We must contrive to call round on Mis' Pennel afore long. She'll +be lonesome." + +Sunday evening Mrs. Pennel was sitting pensively with little Mara by the +kitchen hearth, where they had been boiling the tea-kettle for their +solitary meal. They heard a brisk step without, and soon Captain and +Mrs. Kittridge made their appearance. + +"Good evening, Mis' Pennel," said the Captain; "I's a-tellin' my good +woman we must come down and see how you's a-getting along. It's raly a +work of necessity and mercy proper for the Lord's day. Rather lonesome, +now the Captain's gone, ain't ye? Took little Moses, too, I see. Wasn't +at meetin' to-day, so I says, Mis' Kittridge, we'll just step down and +chirk 'em up a little." + +"I didn't really know how to come," said Mrs. Kittridge, as she allowed +Mrs. Pennel to take her bonnet; "but Aunt Roxy's to our house now, and +she said she'd see to Sally. So you've let the boy go to the Banks? He's +young, ain't he, for that?" + +"Not a bit of it," said Captain Kittridge. "Why, I was off to the Banks +long afore I was his age, and a capital time we had of it, too. Golly! +how them fish did bite! We stood up to our knees in fish before we'd +fished half an hour." + +Mara, who had always a shy affinity for the Captain, now drew towards +him and climbed on his knee. "Did the wind blow very hard?" she said. + +"What, my little maid?" + +"Does the wind blow at the Banks?" + +"Why, yes, my little girl, that it does, sometimes; but then there ain't +the least danger. Our craft ride out storms like live creatures. I've +stood it out in gales that was tight enough, I'm sure. 'Member once I +turned in 'tween twelve and one, and hadn't more'n got asleep, afore I +came _clump_ out of my berth, and found everything upside down. And +'stead of goin' upstairs to get on deck, I had to go right down. Fact +was, that 'ere vessel jist turned clean over in the water, and come +right side up like a duck." + +"Well, now, Cap'n, I wouldn't be tellin' such a story as that," said his +helpmeet. + +"Why, Polly, what do you know about it? you never was to sea. We did +turn clear over, for I 'member I saw a bunch of seaweed big as a peck +measure stickin' top of the mast next day. Jist shows how safe them ar +little fishing craft is,--for all they look like an egg-shell on the +mighty deep, as Parson Sewell calls it." + +"I was very much pleased with Mr. Sewell's exercise in prayer this +morning," said Mrs. Kittridge; "it must have been a comfort to you, Mis' +Pennel." + +"It was, to be sure," said Mrs. Pennel. + +"Puts me in mind of poor Mary Jane Simpson. Her husband went out, you +know, last June, and hain't been heard of since. Mary Jane don't really +know whether to put on mourning or not." + +"Law! I don't think Mary Jane need give up yet," said the Captain. +"'Member one year I was out, we got blowed clear up to Baffin's Bay, and +got shut up in the ice, and had to go ashore and live jist as we could +among them Esquimaux. Didn't get home for a year. Old folks had clean +giv' us up. Don't need never despair of folks gone to sea, for they's +sure to turn up, first or last." + +"But I hope," said Mara, apprehensively, "that grandpapa won't get blown +up to Baffin's Bay. I've seen that on his chart,--it's a good ways." + +"And then there's them 'ere icebergs," said Mrs. Kittridge; "I'm always +'fraid of running into them in the fog." + +"Law!" said Captain Kittridge, "I've met 'em bigger than all the +colleges up to Brunswick,--great white bears on 'em,--hungry as Time in +the Primer. Once we came kersmash on to one of 'em, and if the Flying +Betsey hadn't been made of whalebone and injer-rubber, she'd a-been +stove all to pieces. Them white bears, they was so hungry, that they +stood there with the water jist runnin' out of their chops in a perfect +stream." + +"Oh, dear, dear," said Mara, with wide round eyes, "what will Moses do +if they get on the icebergs?" + +"Yes," said Mrs. Kittridge, looking solemnly at the child through the +black bows of her spectacles, "we can truly say:-- + + "'Dangers stand thick through all the ground, + To push us to the tomb,' + +as the hymn-book says." + +The kind-hearted Captain, feeling the fluttering heart of little Mara, +and seeing the tears start in her eyes, addressed himself forthwith to +consolation. "Oh, never you mind, Mara," he said, "there won't nothing +hurt 'em. Look at me. Why, I've been everywhere on the face of the +earth. I've been on icebergs, and among white bears and Indians, and +seen storms that would blow the very hair off your head, and here I am, +dry and tight as ever. You'll see 'em back before long." + +The cheerful laugh with which the Captain was wont to chorus his +sentences sounded like the crackling of dry pine wood on the social +hearth. One would hardly hear it without being lightened in heart; and +little Mara gazed at his long, dry, ropy figure, and wrinkled thin face, +as a sort of monument of hope; and his uproarious laugh, which Mrs. +Kittridge sometimes ungraciously compared to "the crackling of thorns +under a pot," seemed to her the most delightful thing in the world. + +"Mary Jane was a-tellin' me," resumed Mrs. Kittridge, "that when her +husband had been out a month, she dreamed she see him, and three other +men, a-floatin' on an iceberg." + +"Laws," said Captain Kittridge, "that's jist what my old mother dreamed +about me, and 'twas true enough, too, till we got off the ice on to the +shore up in the Esquimaux territory, as I was a-tellin'. So you tell +Mary Jane she needn't look out for a second husband _yet_, for that ar +dream's a sartin sign he'll be back." + +"Cap'n Kittridge!" said his helpmeet, drawing herself up, and giving him +an austere glance over her spectacles; "how often must I tell you that +there _is_ subjects which shouldn't be treated with levity?" + +"Who's been a-treatin' of 'em with levity?" said the Captain. "I'm sure +I ain't. Mary Jane's good-lookin', and there's plenty of young fellows +as sees it as well as me. I declare, she looked as pretty as any young +gal when she ris up in the singers' seats to-day. Put me in mind of you, +Polly, when I first come home from the Injies." + +"Oh, come now, Cap'n Kittridge! we're gettin' too old for that sort o' +talk." + +"We ain't too old, be we, Mara?" said the Captain, trotting the little +girl gayly on his knee; "and we ain't afraid of icebergs and no sich, be +we? I tell you they's a fine sight of a bright day; they has millions of +steeples, all white and glistering, like the New Jerusalem, and the +white bears have capital times trampin' round on 'em. Wouldn't little +Mara like a great, nice white bear to ride on, with his white fur, so +soft and warm, and a saddle made of pearls, and a gold bridle?" + +"You haven't seen any little girls ride so," said Mara, doubtfully. + +"I shouldn't wonder if I had; but you see, Mis' Kittridge there, she +won't let me tell all I know," said the Captain, sinking his voice to a +confidential tone; "you jist wait till we get alone." + +"But, you are sure," said Mara, confidingly, in return, "that white +bears will be kind to Moses?" + +"Lord bless you, yes, child, the kindest critturs in the world they be, +if you only get the right side of 'em," said the Captain. + +"Oh, yes! because," said Mara, "I know how good a wolf was to Romulus +and Remus once, and nursed them when they were cast out to die. I read +that in the Roman history." + +"Jist so," said the Captain, enchanted at this historic confirmation of +his apocrypha. + +"And so," said Mara, "if Moses should happen to get on an iceberg, a +bear might take care of him, you know." + +"Jist so, jist so," said the Captain; "so don't you worry your little +curly head one bit. Some time when you come down to see Sally, we'll go +down to the cove, and I'll tell you lots of stories about chil'en that +have been fetched up by white bears, jist like Romulus and what's his +name there." + +"Come, Mis' Kittridge," added the cheery Captain; "you and I mustn't be +keepin' the folks up till nine o'clock." + +"Well now," said Mrs. Kittridge, in a doleful tone, as she began to put +on her bonnet, "Mis' Pennel, you must keep up your spirits--it's one's +duty to take cheerful views of things. I'm sure many's the night, when +the Captain's been gone to sea, I've laid and shook in my bed, hearin' +the wind blow, and thinking what if I should be left a lone widow." + +"There'd a-been a dozen fellows a-wanting to get you in six months, +Polly," interposed the Captain. "Well, good-night, Mis' Pennel; there'll +be a splendid haul of fish at the Banks this year, or there's no truth +in signs. Come, my little Mara, got a kiss for the dry old daddy? That's +my good girl. Well, good night, and the Lord bless you." + +And so the cheery Captain took up his line of march homeward, leaving +little Mara's head full of dazzling visions of the land of romance to +which Moses had gone. She was yet on that shadowy boundary between the +dreamland of childhood and the real land of life; so all things looked +to her quite possible; and gentle white bears, with warm, soft fur and +pearl and gold saddles, walked through her dreams, and the victorious +curls of Moses appeared, with his bright eyes and cheeks, over +glittering pinnacles of frost in the ice-land. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +THE ENCHANTED ISLAND + + +June and July passed, and the lonely two lived a quiet life in the brown +house. Everything was so still and fair--no sound but the coming and +going tide, and the swaying wind among the pine-trees, and the tick of +the clock, and the whirr of the little wheel as Mrs. Pennel sat spinning +in her door in the mild weather. Mara read the Roman history through +again, and began it a third time, and read over and over again the +stories and prophecies that pleased her in the Bible, and pondered the +wood-cuts and texts in a very old edition of AEsop's Fables; and as she +wandered in the woods, picking fragrant bayberries and gathering +hemlock, checkerberry, and sassafras to put in the beer which her +grandmother brewed, she mused on the things that she read till her +little mind became a tabernacle of solemn, quaint, dreamy forms, where +old Judean kings and prophets, and Roman senators and warriors, marched +in and out in shadowy rounds. She invented long dramas and conversations +in which they performed imaginary parts, and it would not have appeared +to the child in the least degree surprising either to have met an angel +in the woods, or to have formed an intimacy with some talking wolf or +bear, such as she read of in AEsop's Fables. + +One day, as she was exploring the garret, she found in an old barrel of +cast-off rubbish a bit of reading which she begged of her grandmother +for her own. It was the play of the "Tempest," torn from an old edition +of Shakespeare, and was in that delightfully fragmentary condition +which most particularly pleases children, because they conceive a +mutilated treasure thus found to be more especially their own +property--something like a rare wild-flower or sea-shell. The pleasure +which thoughtful and imaginative children sometimes take in reading that +which they do not and cannot fully comprehend is one of the most common +and curious phenomena of childhood. + +And so little Mara would lie for hours stretched out on the pebbly +beach, with the broad open ocean before her and the whispering pines and +hemlocks behind her, and pore over this poem, from which she collected +dim, delightful images of a lonely island, an old enchanter, a beautiful +girl, and a spirit not quite like those in the Bible, but a very +probable one to her mode of thinking. As for old Caliban, she fancied +him with a face much like that of a huge skate-fish she had once seen +drawn ashore in one of her grandfather's nets; and then there was the +beautiful young Prince Ferdinand, much like what Moses would be when he +was grown up--and how glad she would be to pile up his wood for him, if +any old enchanter should set him to work! + +One attribute of the child was a peculiar shamefacedness and shyness +about her inner thoughts, and therefore the wonder that this new +treasure excited, the host of surmises and dreams to which it gave rise, +were never mentioned to anybody. That it was all of it as much authentic +fact as the Roman history, she did not doubt, but whether it had +happened on Orr's Island or some of the neighboring ones, she had not +exactly made up her mind. She resolved at her earliest leisure to +consult Captain Kittridge on the subject, wisely considering that it +much resembled some of his fishy and aquatic experiences. + +Some of the little songs fixed themselves in her memory, and she would +hum them as she wandered up and down the beach. + + "Come unto these yellow sands, + And then take hands; + Courtsied when you have and kissed + The wild waves whist, + Foot it featly here and there; + And, sweet sprites, the burthen bear." + +And another which pleased her still more:-- + + "Full fathom five thy father lies; + Of his bones are coral made, + Those are pearls that were his eyes: + Nothing of him that can fade + But doth suffer a sea-change + Into something rich and strange; + Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell: + Hark, now I hear them--ding-dong, bell." + +These words she pondered very long, gravely revolving in her little head +whether they described the usual course of things in the mysterious +under-world that lay beneath that blue spangled floor of the sea; +whether everybody's eyes changed to pearl, and their bones to coral, if +they sunk down there; and whether the sea-nymphs spoken of were the same +as the mermaids that Captain Kittridge had told of. Had he not said that +the bell rung for church of a Sunday morning down under the waters? + +Mara vividly remembered the scene on the sea-beach, the finding of +little Moses and his mother, the dream of the pale lady that seemed to +bring him to her; and not one of the conversations that had transpired +before her among different gossips had been lost on her quiet, listening +little ears. These pale, still children that play without making any +noise are deep wells into which drop many things which lie long and +quietly on the bottom, and come up in after years whole and new, when +everybody else has forgotten them. + +So she had heard surmises as to the remaining crew of that unfortunate +ship, where, perhaps, Moses had a father. And sometimes she wondered if +_he_ were lying fathoms deep with sea-nymphs ringing his knell, and +whether Moses ever thought about him; and yet she could no more have +asked him a question about it than if she had been born dumb. She +decided that she should never show him this poetry--it might make him +feel unhappy. + +One bright afternoon, when the sea lay all dead asleep, and the long, +steady respiration of its tides scarcely disturbed the glassy +tranquillity of its bosom, Mrs. Pennel sat at her kitchen-door spinning, +when Captain Kittridge appeared. + +"Good afternoon, Mis' Pennel; how ye gettin' along?" + +"Oh, pretty well, Captain; won't you walk in and have a glass of beer?" + +"Well, thank you," said the Captain, raising his hat and wiping his +forehead, "I be pretty dry, it's a fact." + +Mrs. Pennel hastened to a cask which was kept standing in a corner of +the kitchen, and drew from thence a mug of her own home-brewed, fragrant +with the smell of juniper, hemlock, and wintergreen, which she presented +to the Captain, who sat down in the doorway and discussed it in +leisurely sips. + +"Wal', s'pose it's most time to be lookin' for 'em home, ain't it?" he +said. + +"I _am_ lookin' every day," said Mrs. Pennel, involuntarily glancing +upward at the sea. + +At the word appeared the vision of little Mara, who rose up like a +spirit from a dusky corner, where she had been stooping over her +reading. + +"Why, little Mara," said the Captain, "you ris up like a ghost all of a +sudden. I thought you's out to play. I come down a-purpose arter you. +Mis' Kittridge has gone shoppin' up to Brunswick, and left Sally a +'stent' to do; and I promised her if she'd clap to and do it quick, I'd +go up and fetch you down, and we'd have a play in the cove." + +Mara's eyes brightened, as they always did at this prospect, and Mrs. +Pennel said, "Well, I'm glad to have the child go; she seems so kind o' +still and lonesome since Moses went away; really one feels as if that +boy took all the noise there was with him. I get tired myself sometimes +hearing the clock tick. Mara, when she's alone, takes to her book more +than's good for a child." + +"She does, does she? Well, we'll see about that. Come, little Mara, get +on your sun-bonnet. Sally's sewin' fast as ever she can, and we're goin' +to dig some clams, and make a fire, and have a chowder; that'll be nice, +won't it? Don't you want to come, too, Mis' Pennel?" + +"Oh, thank you, Captain, but I've got so many things on hand to do afore +they come home, I don't really think I can. I'll trust Mara to you any +day." + +Mara had run into her own little room and secured her precious fragment +of treasure, which she wrapped up carefully in her handkerchief, +resolving to enlighten Sally with the story, and to consult the Captain +on any nice points of criticism. Arrived at the cove, they found Sally +already there in advance of them, clapping her hands and dancing in a +manner which made her black elf-locks fly like those of a distracted +creature. + +"Now, Sally," said the Captain, imitating, in a humble way, his wife's +manner, "are you sure you've finished your work well?" + +"Yes, father, every stitch on't." + +"And stuck in your needle, and folded it up, and put it in the drawer, +and put away your thimble, and shet the drawer, and all the rest on't?" +said the Captain. + +"Yes, father," said Sally, gleefully, "I've done everything I could +think of." + +"'Cause you know your ma'll be arter ye, if you don't leave everything +straight." + +"Oh, never you fear, father, I've done it all half an hour ago, and I've +found the most capital bed of clams just round the point here; and you +take care of Mara there, and make up a fire while I dig 'em. If she +comes, she'll be sure to wet her shoes, or spoil her frock, or +something." + +"Wal', she likes no better fun now," said the Captain, watching Sally, +as she disappeared round the rock with a bright tin pan. + +He then proceeded to construct an extemporary fireplace of loose stones, +and to put together chips and shavings for the fire,--in which work +little Mara eagerly assisted; but the fire was crackling and burning +cheerily long before Sally appeared with her clams, and so the Captain, +with a pile of hemlock boughs by his side, sat on a stone feeding the +fire leisurely from time to time with crackling boughs. Now was the time +for Mara to make her inquiries; her heart beat, she knew not why, for +she was full of those little timidities and shames that so often +embarrass children in their attempts to get at the meanings of things in +this great world, where they are such ignorant spectators. + +"Captain Kittridge," she said at last, "do the mermaids toll any bells +for people when they are drowned?" + +Now the Captain had never been known to indicate the least ignorance on +any subject in heaven or earth, which any one wished his opinion on; he +therefore leisurely poked another great crackling bough of green hemlock +into the fire, and, Yankee-like, answered one question by asking +another. + +"What put that into your curly pate?" he said. + +"A book I've been reading says they do,--that is, sea-nymphs do. Ain't +sea-nymphs and mermaids the same thing?" + +"Wal', I guess they be, pretty much," said the Captain, rubbing down his +pantaloons; "yes, they be," he added, after reflection. + +"And when people are drowned, how long does it take for their bones to +turn into coral, and their eyes into pearl?" said little Mara. + +"Well, that depends upon circumstances," said the Captain, who wasn't +going to be posed; "but let me jist see your book you've been reading +these things out of." + +"I found it in a barrel up garret, and grandma gave it to me," said +Mara, unrolling her handkerchief; "it's a beautiful book,--it tells +about an island, and there was an old enchanter lived on it, and he had +one daughter, and there was a spirit they called Ariel, whom a wicked +old witch fastened in a split of a pine-tree, till the enchanter got him +out. He was a beautiful spirit, and rode in the curled clouds and hung +in flowers,--because he could make himself big or little, you see." + +"Ah, yes, I see, to be sure," said the Captain, nodding his head. + +"Well, that about sea-nymphs ringing his knell is here," Mara added, +beginning to read the passage with wide, dilated eyes and great +emphasis. "You see," she went on speaking very fast, "this enchanter had +been a prince, and a wicked brother had contrived to send him to sea +with his poor little daughter, in a ship so leaky that the very rats had +left it." + +"Bad business that!" said the Captain, attentively. + +"Well," said Mara, "they got cast ashore on this desolate island, where +they lived together. But once, when a ship was going by on the sea that +had his wicked brother and his son--a real good, handsome young +prince--in it, why then he made a storm by magic arts." + +"Jist so," said the Captain; "that's been often done, to my sartin +knowledge." + +"And he made the ship be wrecked, and all the people thrown ashore, but +there wasn't any of 'em drowned, and this handsome prince heard Ariel +singing this song about his father, and it made him think he was dead." + +"Well, what became of 'em?" interposed Sally, who had come up with her +pan of clams in time to hear this story, to which she had listened with +breathless interest. + +"Oh, the beautiful young prince married the beautiful young lady," said +Mara. + +"Wal'," said the Captain, who by this time had found his soundings; +"that you've been a-tellin' is what they call a play, and I've seen 'em +act it at a theatre, when I was to Liverpool once. I know all about it. +Shakespeare wrote it, and he's a great English poet." + +"But did it ever happen?" said Mara, trembling between hope and fear. +"Is it like the Bible and Roman history?" + +"Why, no," said Captain Kittridge, "not exactly; but things jist like +it, you know. Mermaids and sich is common in foreign parts, and they has +funerals for drowned sailors. 'Member once when we was sailing near the +Bermudas by a reef where the Lively Fanny went down, and I heard a kind +o' ding-dongin',--and the waters there is clear as the sky,--and I +looked down and see the coral all a-growin', and the sea-plants a-wavin' +as handsome as a pictur', and the mermaids they was a-singin'. It was +beautiful; they sung kind o' mournful; and Jack Hubbard, he would have +it they was a-singin' for the poor fellows that was a-lyin' there round +under the seaweed." + +"But," said Mara, "did you ever see an enchanter that could make +storms?" + +"Wal', there be witches and conjurers that make storms. 'Member once +when we was crossin' the line, about twelve o'clock at night, there was +an old man with a long white beard that shone like silver, came and +stood at the masthead, and he had a pitchfork in one hand, and a lantern +in the other, and there was great balls of fire as big as my fist came +out all round in the rigging. And I'll tell you if we didn't get a blow +that ar night! I thought to my soul we should all go to the bottom." + +"Why," said Mara, her eyes staring with excitement, "that was just like +this shipwreck; and 'twas Ariel made those balls of fire; he says so; he +said he 'flamed amazement' all over the ship." + +"I've heard Miss Roxy tell about witches that made storms," said Sally. + +The Captain leisurely proceeded to open the clams, separating from the +shells the contents, which he threw into a pan, meanwhile placing a +black pot over the fire in which he had previously arranged certain +slices of salt pork, which soon began frizzling in the heat. + +"Now, Sally, you peel them potatoes, and mind you slice 'em thin," he +said, and Sally soon was busy with her work. + +"Yes," said the Captain, going on with his part of the arrangement, +"there was old Polly Twitchell, that lived in that ar old tumble-down +house on Mure P'int; people used to say she brewed storms, and went to +sea in a sieve." + +"Went in a sieve!" said both children; "why a sieve wouldn't swim!" + +"No more it wouldn't, in any Christian way," said the Captain; "but that +was to show what a great witch she was." + +"But this was a good enchanter," said Mara, "and he did it all by a book +and a rod." + +"Yes, yes," said the Captain; "that ar's the gen'l way magicians do, +ever since Moses's time in Egypt. 'Member once I was to Alexandria, in +Egypt, and I saw a magician there that could jist see everything you +ever did in your life in a drop of ink that he held in his hand." + +"He could, father!" + +"To be sure he could! told me all about the old folks at home; and +described our house as natural as if he'd a-been there. He used to +carry snakes round with him,--a kind so p'ison that it was certain death +to have 'em bite you; but he played with 'em as if they was kittens." + +"Well," said Mara, "my enchanter was a king; and when he got through all +he wanted, and got his daughter married to the beautiful young prince, +he said he would break his staff, and deeper than plummet sounded he +would bury his book." + +"It was pretty much the best thing he could do," said the Captain, +"because the Bible is agin such things." + +"Is it?" said Mara; "why, he was a real good man." + +"Oh, well, you know, we all on us does what ain't quite right sometimes, +when we gets pushed up," said the Captain, who now began arranging the +clams and sliced potatoes in alternate layers with sea-biscuit, strewing +in salt and pepper as he went on; and, in a few moments, a smell, +fragrant to hungry senses, began to steam upward, and Sally began +washing and preparing some mammoth clam-shells, to serve as ladles and +plates for the future chowder. + +Mara, who sat with her morsel of a book in her lap, seemed deeply +pondering the past conversation. At last she said, "What did you mean by +saying you'd seen 'em act that at a theatre?" + +"Why, they make it all seem real; and they have a shipwreck, and you see +it all jist right afore your eyes." + +"And the Enchanter, and Ariel, and Caliban, and all?" said Mara. + +"Yes, all on't,--plain as printing." + +"Why, that is by magic, ain't it?" said Mara. + +"No; they hes ways to jist make it up; but,"--added the Captain, "Sally, +you needn't say nothin' to your ma 'bout the theatre, 'cause she +wouldn't think I's fit to go to meetin' for six months arter, if she +heard on't." + +"Why, ain't theatres good?" said Sally. + +"Wal', there's a middlin' sight o' bad things in 'em," said the +Captain, "that I must say; but as long as folks _is_ folks, why, they +will be _folksy_;--but there's never any makin' women folk understand +about them ar things." + +"I am sorry they are bad," said Mara; "I want to see them." + +"Wal', wal'," said the Captain, "on the hull I've seen real things a +good deal more wonderful than all their shows, and they hain't no +make-b'lieve to 'em; but theatres is takin' arter all. But, Sally, mind +you don't say nothin' to Mis' Kittridge." + +A few moments more and all discussion was lost in preparations for the +meal, and each one, receiving a portion of the savory stew in a large +shell, made a spoon of a small cockle, and with some slices of bread and +butter, the evening meal went off merrily. The sun was sloping toward +the ocean; the wide blue floor was bedropped here and there with rosy +shadows of sailing clouds. Suddenly the Captain sprang up, calling +out,-- + +"Sure as I'm alive, there they be!" + +"Who?" exclaimed the children. + +"Why, Captain Pennel and Moses; don't you see?" + +And, in fact, on the outer circle of the horizon came drifting a line of +small white-breasted vessels, looking like so many doves. + +"Them's 'em," said the Captain, while Mara danced for joy. + +"How soon will they be here?" + +"Afore long," said the Captain; "so, Mara, I guess you'll want to be +getting hum." + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +THE HOME COMING + + +Mrs. Pennel, too, had seen the white, dove-like cloud on the horizon, +and had hurried to make biscuits, and conduct other culinary +preparations which should welcome the wanderers home. + +The sun was just dipping into the great blue sea--a round ball of +fire--and sending long, slanting tracks of light across the top of each +wave, when a boat was moored at the beach, and the minister sprang +out,--not in his suit of ceremony, but attired in fisherman's garb. + +"Good afternoon, Mrs. Pennel," he said. "I was out fishing, and I +thought I saw your husband's schooner in the distance. I thought I'd +come and tell you." + +"Thank you, Mr. Sewell. I thought I saw it, but I was not certain. Do +come in; the Captain would be delighted to see you here." + +"We miss your husband in our meetings," said Mr. Sewell; "it will be +good news for us all when he comes home; he is one of those I depend on +to help me preach." + +"I'm sure you don't preach to anybody who enjoys it more," said Mrs. +Pennel. "He often tells me that the greatest trouble about his voyages +to the Banks is that he loses so many sanctuary privileges; though he +always keeps Sunday on his ship, and reads and sings his psalms; but, he +says, after all, there's nothing like going to Mount Zion." + +"And little Moses has gone on his first voyage?" said the minister. + +"Yes, indeed; the child has been teasing to go for more than a year. +Finally the Cap'n told him if he'd be faithful in the ploughing and +planting, he should go. You see, he's rather unsteady, and apt to be off +after other things,--very different from Mara. Whatever you give her to +do, she always keeps at it till it's done." + +"And pray, where is the little lady?" said the minister; "is she gone?" + +"Well, Cap'n Kittridge came in this afternoon to take her down to see +Sally. The Cap'n's always so fond of Mara, and she has always taken to +him ever since she was a baby." + +"The Captain is a curious creature," said the minister, smiling. + +Mrs. Pennel smiled also; and it is to be remarked that nobody ever +mentioned the poor Captain's name without the same curious smile. + +"The Cap'n is a good-hearted, obliging creature," said Mrs. Pennel, "and +a master-hand for telling stories to the children." + +"Yes, a perfect 'Arabian Nights' Entertainment,'" said Mr. Sewell. + +"Well, I really believe the Cap'n believes his own stories," said Mrs. +Pennel; "he always seems to, and certainly a more obliging man and a +kinder neighbor couldn't be. He has been in and out almost every day +since I've been alone, to see if I wanted anything. He would insist on +chopping wood and splitting kindlings for me, though I told him the +Cap'n and Moses had left a plenty to last till they came home." + +At this moment the subject of their conversation appeared striding along +the beach, with a large, red lobster in one hand, while with the other +he held little Mara upon his shoulder, she the while clapping her hands +and singing merrily, as she saw the Brilliant out on the open blue sea, +its white sails looking of a rosy purple in the evening light, careering +gayly homeward. + +"There is Captain Kittridge this very minute," said Mrs. Pennel, setting +down a tea-cup she had been wiping, and going to the door. + +"Good evening, Mis' Pennel," said the Captain. "I s'pose you see your +folks are comin'. I brought down one of these 'ere ready b'iled, 'cause +I thought it might make out your supper." + +"Thank you, Captain; you must stay and take some with us." + +"Wal', me and the children have pooty much done our supper," said the +Captain. "We made a real fust-rate chowder down there to the cove; but +I'll jist stay and see what the Cap'n's luck is. Massy!" he added, as he +looked in at the door, "if you hain't got the minister there! Wal', now, +I come jist as I be," he added, with a glance down at his clothes. + +"Never mind, Captain," said Mr. Sewell; "I'm in my fishing-clothes, so +we're even." + +As to little Mara, she had run down to the beach, and stood so near the +sea, that every dash of the tide-wave forced her little feet to tread an +inch backward, stretching out her hands eagerly toward the schooner, +which was standing straight toward the small wharf, not far from their +door. Already she could see on deck figures moving about, and her sharp +little eyes made out a small personage in a red shirt that was among the +most active. Soon all the figures grew distinct, and she could see her +grandfather's gray head, and alert, active form, and could see, by the +signs he made, that he had perceived the little blowy figure that stood, +with hair streaming in the wind, like some flower bent seaward. + +And now they are come nearer, and Moses shouts and dances on the deck, +and the Captain and Mrs. Pennel come running from the house down to the +shore, and a few minutes more, and all are landed safe and sound, and +little Mara is carried up to the house in her grandfather's arms, while +Captain Kittridge stops to have a few moments' gossip with Ben Halliday +and Tom Scranton before they go to their own resting-places. + +Meanwhile Moses loses not a moment in boasting of his heroic exploits to +Mara. + +"Oh, Mara! you've no idea what times we've had! I can fish equal to any +of 'em, and I can take in sail and tend the helm like anything, and I +know all the names of everything; and you ought to have seen us catch +fish! Why, they bit just as fast as we could throw; and it was just +throw and bite,--throw and bite,--throw and bite; and my hands got +blistered pulling in, but I didn't mind it,--I was determined no one +should beat me." + +"Oh! did you blister your hands?" said Mara, pitifully. + +"Oh, to be sure! Now, you girls think that's a dreadful thing, but we +men don't mind it. My hands are getting so hard, you've no idea. And, +Mara, we caught a great shark." + +"A shark!--oh, how dreadful! Isn't he dangerous?" + +"Dangerous! I guess not. We served him out, I tell you. He'll never eat +any more people, I tell you, the old wretch!" + +"But, poor shark, it isn't his fault that he eats people. He was made +so," said Mara, unconsciously touching a deep theological mystery. + +"Well, I don't know but he was," said Moses; "but sharks that we catch +never eat any more, I'll bet you." + +"Oh, Moses, did you see any icebergs?" + +"Icebergs! yes; we passed right by one,--a real grand one." + +"Were there any bears on it?" + +"Bears! No; we didn't see any." + +"Captain Kittridge says there are white bears live on 'em." + +"Oh, Captain Kittridge," said Moses, with a toss of superb contempt; "if +you're going to believe all _he_ says, you've got your hands full." + +"Why, Moses, you don't think he tells lies?" said Mara, the tears +actually starting in her eyes. "I think he is _real_ good, and tells +nothing but the truth." + +"Well, well, you are young yet," said Moses, turning away with an air of +easy grandeur, "and only a girl besides," he added. + +Mara was nettled at this speech. First, it pained her to have her +child's faith shaken in anything, and particularly in her good old +friend, the Captain; and next, she felt, with more force than ever she +did before, the continual disparaging tone in which Moses spoke of her +girlhood. + +"I'm sure," she said to herself, "he oughtn't to feel so about girls and +women. There was Deborah was a prophetess, and judged Israel; and there +was Egeria,--she taught Numa Pompilius all his wisdom." + +But it was not the little maiden's way to speak when anything thwarted +or hurt her, but rather to fold all her feelings and thoughts inward, as +some insects, with fine gauzy wings, draw them under a coat of horny +concealment. Somehow, there was a shivering sense of disappointment in +all this meeting with Moses. She had dwelt upon it, and fancied so much, +and had so many things to say to him; and he had come home so +self-absorbed and glorious, and seemed to have had so little need of or +thought for her, that she felt a cold, sad sinking at her heart; and +walking away very still and white, sat down demurely by her +grandfather's knee. + +"Well, so my little girl is glad grandfather's come," he said, lifting +her fondly in his arms, and putting her golden head under his coat, as +he had been wont to do from infancy; "grandpa thought a great deal about +his little Mara." + +The small heart swelled against his. Kind, faithful old grandpa! how +much more he thought about her than Moses; and yet she had thought so +much of Moses. And there he sat, this same ungrateful Moses, bright-eyed +and rosy-cheeked, full of talk and gayety, full of energy and vigor, as +ignorant as possible of the wound he had given to the little loving +heart that was silently brooding under her grandfather's +butternut-colored sea-coat. Not only was he ignorant, but he had not +even those conditions within himself which made knowledge possible. All +that there was developed of him, at present, was a fund of energy, +self-esteem, hope, courage, and daring, the love of action, life, and +adventure; his life was in the outward and present, not in the inward +and reflective; he was a true ten-year old boy, in its healthiest and +most animal perfection. What she was, the small pearl with the golden +hair, with her frail and high-strung organization, her sensitive nerves, +her half-spiritual fibres, her ponderings, and marvels, and dreams, her +power of love, and yearning for self-devotion, our readers may, perhaps, +have seen. But if ever two children, or two grown people, thus +organized, are thrown into intimate relations, it follows, from the very +laws of their being, that one must hurt the other, simply by being +itself; one must always hunger for what the other has not to give. + +It was a merry meal, however, when they all sat down to the tea-table +once more, and Mara by her grandfather's side, who often stopped what he +was saying to stroke her head fondly. Moses bore a more prominent part +in the conversation than he had been wont to do before this voyage, and +all seemed to listen to him with a kind of indulgence elders often +accord to a handsome, manly boy, in the first flush of some successful +enterprise. That ignorant confidence in one's self and one's future, +which comes in life's first dawn, has a sort of mournful charm in +experienced eyes, who know how much it all amounts to. + +Gradually, little Mara quieted herself with listening to and admiring +him. It is not comfortable to have any heart-quarrel with one's +cherished idol, and everything of the feminine nature, therefore, can +speedily find fifty good reasons for seeing one's self in the wrong and +one's graven image in the right; and little Mara soon had said to +herself, without words, that, of course, Moses couldn't be expected to +think as much of her as she of him. He was handsomer, cleverer, and had +a thousand other things to do and to think of--he was a boy, in short, +and going to be a glorious man and sail all over the world, while she +could only hem handkerchiefs and knit stockings, and sit at home and +wait for him to come back. This was about the _resume_ of life as it +appeared to the little one, who went on from the moment worshiping her +image with more undivided idolatry than ever, hoping that by and by he +would think more of her. + +Mr. Sewell appeared to study Moses carefully and thoughtfully, and +encouraged the wild, gleeful frankness which he had brought home from +his first voyage, as a knowing jockey tries the paces of a high-mettled +colt. + +"Did you get any time to read?" he interposed once, when the boy stopped +in his account of their adventures. + +"No, sir," said Moses; "at least," he added, blushing very deeply, "I +didn't feel like reading. I had so much to do, and there was so much to +see." + +"It's all new to him now," said Captain Pennel; "but when he comes to +being, as I've been, day after day, with nothing but sea and sky, he'll +be glad of a book, just to break the sameness." + +"Laws, yes," said Captain Kittridge; "sailor's life ain't all +apple-pie, as it seems when a boy first goes on a summer trip with his +daddy--not by no manner o' means." + +"But," said Mara, blushing and looking very eagerly at Mr. Sewell, +"Moses has read a great deal. He read the Roman and the Grecian history +through before he went away, and knows all about them." + +"Indeed!" said Mr. Sewell, turning with an amused look towards the tiny +little champion; "do you read them, too, my little maid?" + +"Yes, indeed," said Mara, her eyes kindling; "I have read them a great +deal since Moses went away--them and the Bible." + +Mara did not dare to name her new-found treasure--there was something so +mysterious about that, that she could not venture to produce it, except +on the score of extreme intimacy. + +"Come, sit by me, little Mara," said the minister, putting out his hand; +"you and I must be friends, I see." + +Mr. Sewell had a certain something of mesmeric power in his eyes which +children seldom resisted; and with a shrinking movement, as if both +attracted and repelled, the little girl got upon his knee. + +"So you like the Bible and Roman history?" he said to her, making a +little aside for her, while a brisk conversation was going on between +Captain Kittridge and Captain Pennel on the fishing bounty for the year. + +"Yes, sir," said Mara, blushing in a very guilty way. + +"And which do you like the best?" + +"I don't know, sir; I sometimes think it is the one, and sometimes the +other." + +"Well, what pleases you in the Roman history?" + +"Oh, I like that about Quintus Curtius." + +"Quintus Curtius?" said Mr. Sewell, pretending not to remember. + +"Oh, don't you remember him? why, there was a great gulf opened in the +Forum, and the Augurs said that the country would not be saved unless +some one would offer himself up for it, and so he jumped right in, all +on horseback. I think that was grand. I should like to have done that," +said little Mara, her eyes blazing out with a kind of starry light which +they had when she was excited. + +"And how would you have liked it, if you had been a Roman girl, and +Moses were Quintus Curtius? would you like to have him give himself up +for the good of the country?" + +"Oh, no, no!" said Mara, instinctively shuddering. + +"Don't you think it would be very grand of him?" + +"Oh, yes, sir." + +"And shouldn't we wish our friends to do what is brave and grand?" + +"Yes, sir; but then," she added, "it would be so dreadful _never_ to see +him any more," and a large tear rolled from the great soft eyes and fell +on the minister's hand. + +"Come, come," thought Mr. Sewell, "this sort of experimenting is too +bad--too much nerve here, too much solitude, too much pine-whispering +and sea-dashing are going to the making up of this little piece of +workmanship." + +"Tell me," he said, motioning Moses to sit by him, "how _you_ like the +Roman history." + +"I like it first-rate," said Moses. "The Romans were such smashers, and +beat everybody; nobody could stand against them; and I like Alexander, +too--I think he was splendid." + +"True boy," said Mr. Sewell to himself, "unreflecting brother of the +wind and the sea, and all that is vigorous and active--no precocious +development of the moral here." + +"Now you have come," said Mr. Sewell, "I will lend you another book." + +"Thank you, sir; I love to read them when I'm at home--it's so still +here. I should be dull if I didn't." + +Mara's eyes looked eagerly attentive. Mr. Sewell noticed their hungry +look when a book was spoken of. + +"And you must read it, too, my little girl," he said. + +"Thank you, sir," said Mara; "I always want to read everything Moses +does." + +"What book is it?" said Moses. + +"It is called Plutarch's 'Lives,'" said the minister; "it has more +particular accounts of the men you read about in history." + +"Are there any lives of women?" said Mara. + +"No, my dear," said Mr. Sewell; "in the old times, women did not get +their lives written, though I don't doubt many of them were much better +worth writing than the men's." + +"I should like to be a great general," said Moses, with a toss of his +head. + +"The way to be great lies through books, now, and not through battles," +said the minister; "there is more done with pens than swords; so, if you +want to do anything, you must read and study." + +"Do you think of giving this boy a liberal education?" said Mr. Sewell +some time later in the evening, after Moses and Mara were gone to bed. + +"Depends on the boy," said Zephaniah. "I've been up to Brunswick, and +seen the fellows there in the college. With a good many of 'em, going to +college seems to be just nothing but a sort of ceremony; they go because +they're sent, and don't learn anything more'n they can help. That's what +I call waste of time and money." + +"But don't you think Moses shows some taste for reading and study?" + +"Pretty well, pretty well!" said Zephaniah; "jist keep him a little +hungry; not let him get all he wants, you see, and he'll bite the +sharper. If I want to catch cod, I don't begin with flingin' over a +barrel o' bait. So with the boys, jist bait 'em with a book here and a +book there, and kind o' let 'em feel their own way, and then, if nothin' +will do but a fellow must go to college, give in to him--that'd be _my_ +way." + +"And a very good one, too!" said Mr. Sewell. "I'll see if I can't bait +my hook, so as to make Moses take after Latin this winter. I shall have +plenty of time to teach him." + +"Now, there's Mara!" said the Captain, his face becoming phosphorescent +with a sort of mild radiance of pleasure as it usually was when he spoke +of her; "she's real sharp set after books; she's ready to fly out of her +little skin at the sight of one." + +"That child thinks too much, and feels too much, and knows too much for +her years!" said Mr. Sewell. "If she were a boy, and you would take her +away cod-fishing, as you have Moses, the sea-winds would blow away some +of the thinking, and her little body would grow stout, and her mind less +delicate and sensitive. But she's a woman," he said, with a sigh, "and +they are all alike. We can't do much for them, but let them come up as +they will and make the best of it." + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +THE NATURAL AND THE SPIRITUAL + + +"Emily," said Mr. Sewell, "did you ever take much notice of that little +Mara Lincoln?" + +"No, brother; why?" + +"Because I think her a very uncommon child." + +"She is a pretty little creature," said Miss Emily, "but that is all I +know; modest--blushing to her eyes when a stranger speaks to her." + +"She has wonderful eyes," said Mr. Sewell; "when she gets excited, they +grow so large and so bright, it seems almost unnatural." + +"Dear me! has she?" said Miss Emily, in a tone of one who had been +called upon to do something about it. "Well?" she added, inquiringly. + +"That little thing is only seven years old," said Mr. Sewell; "and she +is thinking and feeling herself all into mere spirit--brain and nerves +all active, and her little body so frail. She reads incessantly, and +thinks over and over what she reads." + +"Well?" said Miss Emily, winding very swiftly on a skein of black silk, +and giving a little twitch, every now and then, to a knot to make it +subservient. + +It was commonly the way when Mr. Sewell began to talk with Miss Emily, +that she constantly answered him with the manner of one who expects some +immediate, practical proposition to flow from every train of thought. +Now Mr. Sewell was one of the reflecting kind of men, whose thoughts +have a thousand meandering paths, that lead nowhere in particular. His +sister's brisk little "Well's?" and "Ah's!" and "Indeed's!" were +sometimes the least bit in the world annoying. + +"What is to be done?" said Miss Emily; "shall we speak to Mrs. Pennel?" + +"Mrs. Pennel would know nothing about her." + +"How strangely you talk!--who should, if she doesn't?" + +"I mean, she wouldn't understand the dangers of her case." + +"Dangers! Do you think she has any disease? She seems to be a healthy +child enough, I'm sure. She has a lovely color in her cheeks." + +Mr. Sewell seemed suddenly to become immersed in a book he was reading. + +"There now," said Miss Emily, with a little tone of pique, "that's the +way you always do. You begin to talk with me, and just as I get +interested in the conversation, you take up a book. It's too bad." + +"Emily," said Mr. Sewell, laying down his book, "I think I shall begin +to give Moses Pennel Latin lessons this winter." + +"Why, what do you undertake that for?" said Miss Emily. "You have enough +to do without that, I'm sure." + +"He is an uncommonly bright boy, and he interests me." + +"Now, brother, you needn't tell me; there is some mystery about the +interest you take in that child, _you know_ there is." + +"I am fond of children," said Mr. Sewell, dryly. + +"Well, but you don't take as much interest in other boys. I never heard +of your teaching any of them Latin before." + +"Well, Emily, he is an uncommonly interesting child, and the +providential circumstances under which he came into our neighborhood"-- + +"Providential fiddlesticks!" said Miss Emily, with heightened color, +"_I_ believe you knew that boy's mother." + +This sudden thrust brought a vivid color into Mr. Sewell's cheeks. To be +interrupted so unceremoniously, in the midst of so very proper and +ministerial a remark, was rather provoking, and he answered, with some +asperity,-- + +"And suppose I had, Emily, and supposing there were any painful subject +connected with this past event, you might have sufficient forbearance +not to try to make me speak on what I do not wish to talk of." + +Mr. Sewell was one of your gentle, dignified men, from whom Heaven +deliver an inquisitive female friend! If such people would only get +angry, and blow some unbecoming blast, one might make something of them; +but speaking, as they always do, from the serene heights of immaculate +propriety, one gets in the wrong before one knows it, and has nothing +for it but to beg pardon. Miss Emily had, however, a feminine resource: +she began to cry--wisely confining herself to the simple eloquence of +tears and sobs. Mr. Sewell sat as awkwardly as if he had trodden on a +kitten's toe, or brushed down a china cup, feeling as if he were a +great, horrid, clumsy boor, and his poor little sister a martyr. + +"Come, Emily," he said, in a softer tone, when the sobs subsided a +little. + +But Emily didn't "come," but went at it with a fresh burst. Mr. Sewell +had a vision like that which drowning men are said to have, in which all +Miss Emily's sisterly devotions, stocking-darnings, account-keepings, +nursings and tendings, and infinite self-sacrifices, rose up before him: +and there she was--crying! + +"I'm sorry I spoke harshly, Emily. Come, come; that's a good girl." + +"I'm a silly fool," said Miss Emily, lifting her head, and wiping the +tears from her merry little eyes, as she went on winding her silk. + +"Perhaps he will tell me now," she thought, as she wound. + +But he didn't. + +"What I was going to say, Emily," said her brother, "was, that I thought +it would be a good plan for little Mara to come sometimes with Moses; +and then, by observing her more particularly, you might be of use to +her; her little, active mind needs good practical guidance like yours." + +Mr. Sewell spoke in a gentle, flattering tone, and Miss Emily was +flattered; but she soon saw that she had gained nothing by the whole +breeze, except a little kind of dread, which made her inwardly resolve +never to touch the knocker of his fortress again. But she entered into +her brother's scheme with the facile alacrity with which she usually +seconded any schemes of his proposing. + +"I might teach her painting and embroidery," said Miss Emily, glancing, +with a satisfied air, at a framed piece of her own work which hung over +the mantelpiece, revealing the state of the fine arts in this country, +as exhibited in the performances of well-instructed young ladies of that +period. Miss Emily had performed it under the tuition of a celebrated +teacher of female accomplishments. It represented a white marble +obelisk, which an inscription, in legible India ink letters, stated to +be "Sacred to the memory of Theophilus Sewell," etc. This obelisk stood +in the midst of a ground made very green by an embroidery of different +shades of chenille and silk, and was overshadowed by an embroidered +weeping-willow. Leaning on it, with her face concealed in a plentiful +flow of white handkerchief, was a female figure in deep mourning, +designed to represent the desolate widow. A young girl, in a very black +dress, knelt in front of it, and a very lugubrious-looking young man, +standing bolt upright on the other side, seemed to hold in his hand one +end of a wreath of roses, which the girl was presenting, as an +appropriate decoration for the tomb. The girl and gentleman were, of +course, the young Theophilus and Miss Emily, and the appalling grief +conveyed by the expression of their faces was a triumph of the pictorial +art. + +Miss Emily had in her bedroom a similar funeral trophy, sacred to the +memory of her deceased mother,--besides which there were, framed and +glazed, in the little sitting-room, two embroidered shepherdesses +standing with rueful faces, in charge of certain animals of an uncertain +breed between sheep and pigs. The poor little soul had mentally resolved +to make Mara the heiress of all the skill and knowledge of the arts by +which she had been enabled to consummate these marvels. + +"She is naturally a lady-like little thing," she said to herself, "and +if I know anything of accomplishments, she shall have them." + +Just about the time that Miss Emily came to this resolution, had she +been clairvoyant, she might have seen Mara sitting very quietly, busy in +the solitude of her own room with a little sprig of partridge-berry +before her, whose round green leaves and brilliant scarlet berries she +had been for hours trying to imitate, as appeared from the scattered +sketches and fragments around her. In fact, before Zephaniah started on +his spring fishing, he had caught her one day very busy at work of the +same kind, with bits of charcoal, and some colors compounded out of wild +berries; and so out of his capacious pocket, after his return, he drew a +little box of water-colors and a lead-pencil and square of India-rubber, +which he had bought for her in Portland on his way home. + +Hour after hour the child works, so still, so fervent, so +earnest,--going over and over, time after time, her simple, ignorant +methods to make it "look like," and stopping, at times, to give the true +artist's sigh, as the little green and scarlet fragment lies there +hopelessly, unapproachably perfect. Ignorantly to herself, the hands of +the little pilgrim are knocking at the very door where Giotto and +Cimabue knocked in the innocent child-life of Italian art. + +"Why won't it look round?" she said to Moses, who had come in behind +her. + +"Why, Mara, did you do these?" said Moses, astonished; "why, how well +they are done! I should know in a minute what they were meant for." + +Mara flushed up at being praised by Moses, but heaved a deep sigh as she +looked back. + +"It's so pretty, that sprig," she said; "if I only could make it just +like"-- + +"Why, nobody expects _that_," said Moses, "it's like enough, if people +only know what you mean it for. But come, now, get your bonnet, and come +with me in the boat. Captain Kittridge has just brought down our new +one, and I'm going to take you over to Eagle Island, and we'll take our +dinner and stay all day; mother says so." + +"Oh, how nice!" said the little girl, running cheerfully for her +sun-bonnet. + +At the house-door they met Mrs. Pennel, with a little closely covered +tin pail. + +"Here's your dinner, children; and, Moses, mind and take good care of +her." + +"Never fear _me_ mother, I've been to the Banks; there wasn't a man +there could manage a boat better than I could." + +"Yes, grandmother," said Mara, "you ought to see how strong his arms +are; I believe he will be like Samson one of these days if he keeps +on." + +So away they went. It was a glorious August forenoon, and the sombre +spruces and shaggy hemlocks that dipped and rippled in the waters were +penetrated to their deepest recesses with the clear brilliancy of the +sky,--a true northern sky, without a cloud, without even a softening +haze, defining every outline, revealing every minute point, cutting with +sharp decision the form of every promontory and rock, and distant +island. + +The blue of the sea and the blue of the sky were so much the same, that +when the children had rowed far out, the little boat seemed to float +midway, poised in the centre of an azure sphere, with a firmament above +and a firmament below. Mara leaned dreamily over the side of the boat, +and drew her little hands through the waters as they rippled along to +the swift oars' strokes, and she saw as the waves broke, and divided and +shivered around the boat, a hundred little faces, with brown eyes and +golden hair, gleaming up through the water, and dancing away over +rippling waves, and thought that so the sea-nymphs might look who came +up from the coral caves when they ring the knell of drowned people. +Moses sat opposite to her, with his coat off, and his heavy black curls +more wavy and glossy than ever, as the exercise made them damp with +perspiration. + +Eagle Island lay on the blue sea, a tangled thicket of +evergreens,--white pine, spruce, arbor vitae, and fragrant silver firs. A +little strip of white beach bound it, like a silver setting to a gem. +And there Moses at length moored his boat, and the children landed. The +island was wholly solitary, and there is something to children quite +delightful in feeling that they have a little lonely world all to +themselves. Childhood is itself such an enchanted island, separated by +mysterious depths from the mainland of nature, life, and reality. + +Moses had subsided a little from the glorious heights on which he +seemed to be in the first flush of his return, and he and Mara, in +consequence, were the friends of old time. It is true he thought himself +quite a man, but the manhood of a boy is only a tiny masquerade,--a +fantastic, dreamy prevision of real manhood. It was curious that Mara, +who was by all odds the most precociously developed of the two, never +thought of asserting herself a woman; in fact, she seldom thought of +herself at all, but dreamed and pondered of almost everything else. + +"I declare," said Moses, looking up into a thick-branched, rugged old +hemlock, which stood all shaggy, with heavy beards of gray moss drooping +from its branches, "there's an eagle's nest up there; I mean to go and +see." And up he went into the gloomy embrace of the old tree, crackling +the dead branches, wrenching off handfuls of gray moss, rising higher +and higher, every once in a while turning and showing to Mara his +glowing face and curly hair through a dusky green frame of boughs, and +then mounting again. "I'm coming to it," he kept exclaiming. + +Meanwhile his proceedings seemed to create a sensation among the +feathered house-keepers, one of whom rose and sailed screaming away into +the air. In a moment after there was a swoop of wings, and two eagles +returned and began flapping and screaming about the head of the boy. + +Mara, who stood at the foot of the tree, could not see clearly what was +going on, for the thickness of the boughs; she only heard a great +commotion and rattling of the branches, the scream of the birds, and the +swooping of their wings, and Moses's valorous exclamations, as he seemed +to be laying about him with a branch which he had broken off. + +At last he descended victorious, with the eggs in his pocket. Mara stood +at the foot of the tree, with her sun-bonnet blown back, her hair +streaming, and her little arms upstretched, as if to catch him if he +fell. + +"Oh, I was so afraid!" she said, as he set foot on the ground. + +"Afraid? Pooh! Who's afraid? Why, you might know the old eagles couldn't +beat me." + +"Ah, well, I know how strong you are; but, you know, I couldn't help it. +But the poor birds,--do hear 'em scream. Moses, don't you suppose they +feel bad?" + +"No, they're only mad, to think they couldn't beat me. I beat them just +as the Romans used to beat folks,--I played their nest was a city, and I +spoiled it." + +"I shouldn't want to spoil cities!" said Mara. + +"That's 'cause you are a girl,--I'm a man, and men always like war; I've +taken one city this afternoon, and mean to take a great many more." + +"But, Moses, do you think war is right?" + +"Right? why, yes, to be sure; if it ain't, it's a pity; for it's all +that has ever been done in this world. In the Bible, or out, certainly +it's right. I wish I had a gun now, I'd stop those old eagles' +screeching." + +"But, Moses, we shouldn't want any one to come and steal all our things, +and then shoot us." + +"How long you do think about things!" said Moses, impatient at her +pertinacity. "I am older than you, and when I tell you a thing's right, +you ought to believe it. Besides, don't you take hens' eggs every day, +in the barn? How do you suppose the hens like that?" + +This was a home-thrust, and for the moment threw the little casuist off +the track. She carefully folded up the idea, and laid it away on the +inner shelves of her mind till she could think more about it. Pliable as +she was to all outward appearances, the child had her own still, +interior world, where all her little notions and opinions stood up crisp +and fresh, like flowers that grow in cool, shady places. If anybody too +rudely assailed a thought or suggestion she put forth, she drew it back +again into this quiet inner chamber, and went on. Reader, there are +some women of this habit; and there is no independence and pertinacity +of opinion like that of these seemingly soft, quiet creatures, whom it +is so easy to silence, and so difficult to convince. Mara, little and +unformed as she yet was, belonged to the race of those spirits to whom +is deputed the office of the angel in the Apocalypse, to whom was given +the golden rod which measured the New Jerusalem. Infant though she was, +she had ever in her hands that invisible measuring-rod, which she was +laying to the foundations of all actions and thoughts. There may, +perhaps, come a time when the saucy boy, who now steps so superbly, and +predominates so proudly in virtue of his physical strength and daring, +will learn to tremble at the golden measuring-rod, held in the hand of a +woman. + +"Howbeit, that is not first which is spiritual, but that which is +natural." Moses is the type of the first unreflecting stage of +development, in which are only the out-reachings of active faculties, +the aspirations that tend toward manly accomplishments. Seldom do we +meet sensitiveness of conscience or discriminating reflection as the +indigenous growth of a very vigorous physical development. Your true +healthy boy has the breezy, hearty virtues of a Newfoundland dog, the +wild fullness of life of the young race-colt. Sentiment, sensibility, +delicate perceptions, spiritual aspirations, are plants of later growth. + +But there are, both of men and women, beings born into this world in +whom from childhood the spiritual and the reflective predominate over +the physical. In relation to other human beings, they seem to be +organized much as birds are in relation to other animals. They are the +artists, the poets, the unconscious seers, to whom the purer truths of +spiritual instruction are open. Surveying man merely as an animal, these +sensitively organized beings, with their feebler physical powers, are +imperfect specimens of life. Looking from the spiritual side, they seem +to have a noble strength, a divine force. The types of this latter class +are more commonly among women than among men. Multitudes of them pass +away in earlier years, and leave behind in many hearts the anxious +wonder, why they came so fair only to mock the love they kindled. They +who live to maturity are the priests and priestesses of the spiritual +life, ordained of God to keep the balance between the rude but absolute +necessities of physical life and the higher sphere to which that must at +length give place. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +LESSONS + + +Moses felt elevated some inches in the world by the gift of a new Latin +grammar, which had been bought for him in Brunswick. It was a step +upward in life; no graduate from a college ever felt more ennobled. + +"Wal', now, I tell ye, Moses Pennel," said Miss Roxy, who, with her +press-board and big flat-iron, was making her autumn sojourn in the +brown house, "I tell ye Latin ain't just what you think 'tis, steppin' +round so crank; you must remember what the king of Israel said to +Benhadad, king of Syria." + +"I don't remember; what did he say?" + +"I remember," said the soft voice of Mara; "he said, 'Let not him that +putteth on the harness boast as him that putteth it off.'" + +"Good for you, Mara," said Miss Roxy; "if some other folks read their +Bibles as much as you do, they'd know more." + +Between Moses and Miss Roxy there had always been a state of sub-acute +warfare since the days of his first arrival, she regarding him as an +unhopeful interloper, and he regarding her as a grim-visaged, +interfering gnome, whom he disliked with all the intense, unreasoning +antipathy of childhood. + +"I hate that old woman," he said to Mara, as he flung out of the door. + +"Why, Moses, what for?" said Mara, who never could comprehend hating +anybody. + +"I do hate her, and Aunt Ruey, too. They are two old scratching cats; +they hate me, and I hate them; they're always trying to bring me down, +and I won't be brought down." + +Mara had sufficient instinctive insight into the feminine role in the +domestic concert not to adventure a direct argument just now in favor of +her friends, and therefore she proposed that they should sit down +together under a cedar hard by, and look over the first lesson. + +"Miss Emily invited me to go over with you," she said, "and I should +like so much to hear you recite." + +Moses thought this very proper, as would any other male person, young or +old, who has been habitually admired by any other female one. He did not +doubt that, as in fishing and rowing, and all other things he had +undertaken as yet, he should win himself distinguished honors. + +"See here," he said; "Mr. Sewell told me I might go as far as I liked, +and I mean to take all the declensions to begin with; there's five of +'em, and I shall learn them for the first lesson; then I shall take the +adjectives next, and next the verbs, and so in a fortnight get into +reading." + +Mara heaved a sort of sigh. She wished she had been invited to share +this glorious race; but she looked on admiring when Moses read, in a +loud voice, "Penna, pennae, pennae, pennam," etc. + +"There now, I believe I've got it," he said, handing Mara the book; and +he was perfectly astonished to find that, with the book withdrawn, he +boggled, and blundered, and stumbled ingloriously. In vain Mara softly +prompted, and looked at him with pitiful eyes as he grew red in the face +with his efforts to remember. + +"Confound it all!" he said, with an angry flush, snatching back the +book; "it's more trouble than it's worth." + +Again he began the repetition, saying it very loud and plain; he said it +over and over till his mind wandered far out to sea, and while his +tongue repeated "penna, pennae," he was counting the white sails of the +fishing-smacks, and thinking of pulling up codfish at the Banks. + +"There now, Mara, try me," he said, and handed her the book again; "I'm +sure I _must_ know it now." + +But, alas! with the book the sounds glided away; and "penna" and +"pennam" and "pennis" and "pennae" were confusedly and indiscriminately +mingled. He thought it must be Mara's fault; she didn't read right, or +she told him just as he was going to say it, or she didn't tell him +right; or was he a fool? or had he lost his senses? + +That first declension has been a valley of humiliation to many a sturdy +boy--to many a bright one, too; and often it is, that the more full of +thought and vigor the mind is, the more difficult it is to narrow it +down to the single dry issue of learning those sounds. Heinrich Heine +said the Romans would never have found time to conquer the world, if +they had had to learn their own language; but that, luckily for them, +they were born into the knowledge of what nouns form their accusatives +in "um." + +Long before Moses had learned the first declension, Mara knew it by +heart; for her intense anxiety for him, and the eagerness and zeal with +which she listened for each termination, fixed them in her mind. +Besides, she was naturally of a more quiet and scholar-like turn than +he,--more intellectually developed. Moses began to think, before that +memorable day was through, that there was some sense in Aunt Roxy's +quotation of the saying of the King of Israel, and materially to +retrench his expectations as to the time it might take to master the +grammar; but still, his pride and will were both committed, and he +worked away in this new sort of labor with energy. + +It was a fine, frosty November morning, when he rowed Mara across the +bay in a little boat to recite his first lesson to Mr. Sewell. + +Miss Emily had provided a plate of seed-cake, otherwise called cookies, +for the children, as was a kindly custom of old times, when the little +people were expected. Miss Emily had a dim idea that she was to do +something for Mara in her own department, while Moses was reciting his +lesson; and therefore producing a large sampler, displaying every form +and variety of marking-stitch, she began questioning the little girl, in +a low tone, as to her proficiency in that useful accomplishment. + +Presently, however, she discovered that the child was restless and +uneasy, and that she answered without knowing what she was saying. The +fact was that she was listening, with her whole soul in her eyes, and +feeling through all her nerves, every word Moses was saying. She knew +all the critical places, where he was likely to go wrong; and when at +last, in one place, he gave the wrong termination, she involuntarily +called out the right one, starting up and turning towards them. In a +moment she blushed deeply, seeing Mr. Sewell and Miss Emily both looking +at her with surprise. + +"Come here, pussy," said Mr. Sewell, stretching out his hand to her. +"Can you say this?" + +"I believe I could, sir." + +"Well, try it." + +She went through without missing a word. Mr. Sewell then, for curiosity, +heard her repeat all the other forms of the lesson. She had them +perfectly. + +"Very well, my little girl," he said, "have you been studying, too?" + +"I heard Moses say them so often," said Mara, in an apologetic manner, +"I couldn't help learning them." + +"Would you like to recite with Moses every day?" + +"Oh, yes, sir, so much." + +"Well, you shall. It is better for him to have company." + +Mara's face brightened, and Miss Emily looked with a puzzled air at her +brother. + +"So," she said, when the children had gone home, "I thought you wanted +me to take Mara under my care. I was going to begin and teach her some +marking stitches, and you put her up to studying Latin. I don't +understand you." + +"Well, Emily, the fact is, the child has a natural turn for study, that +no child of her age ought to have; and I have done just as people always +will with such children; there's no sense in it, but I wanted to do it. +You can teach her marking and embroidery all the same; it would break +her little heart, now, if I were to turn her back." + +"I do not see of what use Latin can be to a woman." + +"Of what use is embroidery?" + +"Why, that is an accomplishment." + +"Ah, indeed!" said Mr. Sewell, contemplating the weeping willow and +tombstone trophy with a singular expression, which it was lucky for Miss +Emily's peace she did not understand. The fact was, that Mr. Sewell had, +at one period of his life, had an opportunity of studying and observing +minutely some really fine works of art, and the remembrance of them +sometimes rose up to his mind, in the presence of the _chefs-d'oeuvre_ +on which his sister rested with so much complacency. It was a part of +his quiet interior store of amusement to look at these bits of Byzantine +embroidery round the room, which affected him always with a subtle sense +of drollery. + +"You see, brother," said Miss Emily, "it is far better for women to be +accomplished than learned." + +"You are quite right in the main," said Mr. Sewell, "only you must let +me have my own way just for once. One can't be consistent always." + +So another Latin grammar was bought, and Moses began to feel a secret +respect for his little companion, that he had never done before, when +he saw how easily she walked through the labyrinths which at first so +confused him. Before this, the comparison had been wholly in points +where superiority arose from physical daring and vigor; now he became +aware of the existence of another kind of strength with which he had not +measured himself. Mara's opinion in their mutual studies began to assume +a value in his eyes that her opinions on other subjects had never done, +and she saw and felt, with a secret gratification, that she was becoming +more to him through their mutual pursuit. To say the truth, it required +this fellowship to inspire Moses with the patience and perseverance +necessary for this species of acquisition. His active, daring +temperament little inclined him to patient, quiet study. For anything +that could be done by two hands, he was always ready; but to hold hands +still and work silently in the inner forces was to him a species of +undertaking that seemed against his very nature; but then he would do +it--he would not disgrace himself before Mr. Sewell, and let a girl +younger than himself outdo him. + +But the thing, after all, that absorbed more of Moses's thoughts than +all his lessons was the building and rigging of a small schooner, at +which he worked assiduously in all his leisure moments. He had dozens of +blocks of wood, into which he had cut anchor moulds; and the melting of +lead, the running and shaping of anchors, the whittling of masts and +spars took up many an hour. Mara entered into all those things readily, +and was too happy to make herself useful in hemming the sails. + +When the schooner was finished, they built some ways down by the sea, +and invited Sally Kittridge over to see it launched. + +"There!" he said, when the little thing skimmed down prosperously into +the sea and floated gayly on the waters, "when I'm a man, I'll have a +big ship; I'll build her, and launch her, and command her, all myself; +and I'll give you and Sally both a passage in it, and we'll go off to +the East Indies--we'll sail round the world!" + +None of the three doubted the feasibility of this scheme; the little +vessel they had just launched seemed the visible prophecy of such a +future; and how pleasant it would be to sail off, with the world all +before them, and winds ready to blow them to any port they might wish! + +The three children arranged some bread and cheese and doughnuts on a +rock on the shore, to represent the collation that was usually spread in +those parts at a ship launch, and felt quite like grown people--acting +life beforehand in that sort of shadowy pantomime which so delights +little people. Happy, happy days--when ships can be made with a +jack-knife and anchors run in pine blocks, and three children together +can launch a schooner, and the voyage of the world can all be made in +one sunny Saturday afternoon! + +"Mother says you are going to college," said Sally to Moses. + +"Not I, indeed," said Moses; "as soon as I get old enough, I'm going up +to Umbagog among the lumberers, and I'm going to cut real, splendid +timber for my ship, and I'm going to get it on the stocks, and have it +built to suit myself." + +"What will you call her?" said Sally. + +"I haven't thought of that," said Moses. + +"Call her the Ariel," said Mara. + +"What! after the spirit you were telling us about?" said Sally. + +"Ariel is a pretty name," said Moses. "But what is that about a spirit?" + +"Why," said Sally, "Mara read us a story about a ship that was wrecked, +and a spirit called Ariel, that sang a song about the drowned +mariners." + +Mara gave a shy, apprehensive glance at Moses, to see if this allusion +called up any painful recollections. + +No; instead of this, he was following the motions of his little schooner +on the waters with the briskest and most unconcerned air in the world. + +"Why didn't you ever show me that story, Mara?" said Moses. + +Mara colored and hesitated; the real reason she dared not say. + +"Why, she read it to father and me down by the cove," said Sally, "the +afternoon that you came home from the Banks; I remember how we saw you +coming in; don't you, Mara?" + +"What have you done with it?" said Moses. + +"I've got it at home," said Mara, in a faint voice; "I'll show it to +you, if you want to see it; there are such beautiful things in it." + +That evening, as Moses sat busy, making some alterations in his darling +schooner, Mara produced her treasure, and read and explained to him the +story. He listened with interest, though without any of the extreme +feeling which Mara had thought possible, and even interrupted her once +in the middle of the celebrated-- + + "Full fathom five thy father lies," + +by asking her to hold up the mast a minute, while he drove in a peg to +make it rake a little more. He was, evidently, thinking of no drowned +father, and dreaming of no possible sea-caves, but acutely busy in +fashioning a present reality; and yet he liked to hear Mara read, and, +when she had done, told her that he thought it was a pretty--quite a +pretty story, with such a total absence of recognition that the story +had any affinities with his own history, that Mara was quite astonished. + +She lay and thought about him hours, that night, after she had gone to +bed; and he lay and thought about a new way of disposing a pulley for +raising a sail, which he determined to try the effect of early in the +morning. + +What was the absolute truth in regard to the boy? Had he forgotten the +scenes of his early life, the strange catastrophe that cast him into his +present circumstances? To this we answer that all the efforts of Nature, +during the early years of a healthy childhood, are bent on effacing and +obliterating painful impressions, wiping out from each day the sorrows +of the last, as the daily tide effaces the furrows on the seashore. The +child that broods, day after day, over some fixed idea, is so far forth +not a healthy one. It is Nature's way to make first a healthy animal, +and then develop in it gradually higher faculties. We have seen our two +children unequally matched hitherto, because unequally developed. There +will come a time, by and by in the history of the boy, when the haze of +dreamy curiosity will steam up likewise from his mind, and vague +yearnings, and questionings, and longings possess and trouble him, but +it must be some years hence. + + * * * * * + +Here for a season we leave both our child friends, and when ten years +have passed over their heads,--when Moses shall be twenty, and Mara +seventeen,--we will return again to tell their story, for then there +will be one to tell. Let us suppose in the interval, how Moses and Mara +read Virgil with the minister, and how Mara works a shepherdess with +Miss Emily, which astonishes the neighborhood,--but how by herself she +learns, after divers trials, to paint partridge, and checkerberry, and +trailing arbutus,--how Moses makes better and better ships, and Sally +grows up a handsome girl, and goes up to Brunswick to the high +school,--how Captain Kittridge tells stories, and Miss Roxy and Miss +Ruey nurse and cut and make and mend for the still rising +generation,--how there are quiltings and tea-drinkings and prayer +meetings and Sunday sermons,--how Zephaniah and Mary Pennel grow old +gradually and graciously, as the sun rises and sets, and the eternal +silver tide rises and falls around our little gem, Orr's Island. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +SALLY + + +"Now, where's Sally Kittridge! There's the clock striking five, and +nobody to set the table. Sally, I say! Sally!" + +"Why, Mis' Kittridge," said the Captain, "Sally's gone out more'n an +hour ago, and I expect she's gone down to Pennel's to see Mara; 'cause, +you know, she come home from Portland to-day." + +"Well, if she's come home, I s'pose I may as well give up havin' any +good of Sally, for that girl fairly bows down to Mara Lincoln and +worships her." + +"Well, good reason," said the Captain. "There ain't a puttier creature +breathin'. I'm a'most a mind to worship her myself." + +"Captain Kittridge, you ought to be ashamed of yourself, at your age, +talking as you do." + +"Why, laws, mother, I don't feel my age," said the frisky Captain, +giving a sort of skip. "It don't seem more'n yesterday since you and I +was a-courtin', Polly. What a life you did lead me in them days! I think +you kep' me on the anxious seat a pretty middlin' spell." + +"I do wish you wouldn't talk so. You ought to be ashamed to be triflin' +round as you do. Come, now, can't you jest tramp over to Pennel's and +tell Sally I want her?" + +"Not I, mother. There ain't but two gals in two miles square here, and I +ain't a-goin' to be the feller to shoo 'em apart. What's the use of +bein' gals, and young, and putty, if they can't get together and talk +about their new gownds and the fellers? That ar's what gals is for." + +"I do wish you wouldn't talk in that way before Sally, father, for her +head is full of all sorts of vanity now; and as to Mara, I never did see +a more slack-twisted, flimsy thing than she's grown up to be. Now +Sally's learnt to do something, thanks to me. She can brew, and she can +make bread and cake and pickles, and spin, and cut, and make. But as to +Mara, what does she do? Why, she paints pictur's. Mis' Pennel was +a-showin' on me a blue-jay she painted, and I was a-thinkin' whether she +could brile a bird fit to be eat if she tried; and she don't know the +price of nothin'," continued Mrs. Kittridge, with wasteful profusion of +negatives. + +"Well," said the Captain, "the Lord makes some things jist to be looked +at. Their work is to be putty, and that ar's Mara's sphere. It never +seemed to me she was cut out for hard work; but she's got sweet ways and +kind words for everybody, and it's as good as a psalm to look at her." + +"And what sort of a wife'll she make, Captain Kittridge?" + +"A real sweet, putty one," said the Captain, persistently. + +"Well, as to beauty, I'd rather have our Sally any day," said Mrs. +Kittridge; "and she looks strong and hearty, and seems to be good for +use." + +"So she is, so she is," said the Captain, with fatherly pride. "Sally's +the very image of her ma at her age--black eyes, black hair, tall and +trim as a spruce-tree, and steps off as if she had springs in her heels. +I tell you, the feller'll have to be spry that catches her. There's two +or three of 'em at it, I see; but Sally won't have nothin' to say to +'em. I hope she won't, yet awhile." + +"Sally is a girl that has as good an eddication as money can give," +said Mrs. Kittridge. "If I'd a-had her advantages at her age, I should +a-been a great deal more'n I am. But we ha'n't spared nothin' for Sally; +and when nothin' would do but Mara must be sent to Miss Plucher's school +over in Portland, why, I sent Sally too--for all she's our seventh +child, and Pennel hasn't but the one." + +"You forget Moses," said the Captain. + +"Well, he's settin' up on his own account, I guess. They did talk o' +giving him college eddication; but he was so unstiddy, there weren't no +use in trying. A real wild ass's colt he was." + +"Wal', wal', Moses was in the right on't. He took the cross-lot track +into life," said the Captain. "Colleges is well enough for your smooth, +straight-grained lumber, for gen'ral buildin'; but come to fellers +that's got knots, and streaks, and cross-grains, like Moses Pennel, and +the best way is to let 'em eddicate 'emselves, as he's a-doin'. He's cut +out for the sea, plain enough, and he'd better be up to Umbagog, cuttin' +timber for his ship, than havin' rows with tutors, and blowin' the roof +off the colleges, as one o' them 'ere kind o' fellers is apt to when he +don't have work to use up his steam. Why, mother, there's more gas got +up in them Brunswick buildin's, from young men that are spilin' for hard +work, than you could shake a stick at! But Mis' Pennel told me yesterday +she was 'spectin' Moses home to-day." + +"Oho! that's at the bottom of Sally's bein' up there," said Mrs. +Kittridge. + +"Mis' Kittridge," said the Captain, "I take it you ain't the woman as +would expect a daughter of your bringin' up to be a-runnin' after any +young chap, be he who he may," said the Captain. + +Mrs. Kittridge for once was fairly silenced by this home-thrust; +nevertheless, she did not the less think it quite possible, from all +that she knew of Sally; for although that young lady professed great +hardness of heart and contempt for all the young male generation of her +acquaintance, yet she had evidently a turn for observing their +ways--probably purely in the way of philosophical inquiry. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +EIGHTEEN + + +In fact, at this very moment our scene-shifter changes the picture. Away +rolls the image of Mrs. Kittridge's kitchen, with its sanded floor, its +scoured rows of bright pewter platters, its great, deep fireplace, with +wide stone hearth, its little looking-glass with a bit of asparagus +bush, like a green mist, over it. _Exeunt_ the image of Mrs. Kittridge, +with her hands floury from the bread she has been moulding, and the dry, +ropy, lean Captain, who has been sitting tilting back in a +splint-bottomed chair,--and the next scene comes rolling in. It is a +chamber in the house of Zephaniah Pennel, whose windows present a blue +panorama of sea and sky. Through two windows you look forth into the +blue belt of Harpswell Bay, bordered on the farther edge by Harpswell +Neck, dotted here and there with houses, among which rises the little +white meeting-house, like a mother-bird among a flock of chickens. The +third window, on the other side of the room, looks far out to sea, where +only a group of low, rocky islands interrupts the clear sweep of the +horizon line, with its blue infinitude of distance. + +The furniture of this room, though of the barest and most frigid +simplicity, is yet relieved by many of those touches of taste and fancy +which the indwelling of a person of sensibility and imagination will +shed off upon the physical surroundings. The bed was draped with a white +spread, embroidered with a kind of knotted tracery, the working of which +was considered among the female accomplishments of those days, and over +the head of it was a painting of a bunch of crimson and white trillium, +executed with a fidelity to Nature that showed the most delicate gifts +of observation. Over the mantelpiece hung a painting of the Bay of +Genoa, which had accidentally found a voyage home in Zephaniah Pennel's +sea-chest, and which skillful fingers had surrounded with a frame +curiously wrought of moss and sea-shells. Two vases of India china stood +on the mantel, filled with spring flowers, crowfoot, anemones, and +liverwort, with drooping bells of the twin-flower. The looking-glass +that hung over the table in one corner of the room was fancifully webbed +with long, drooping festoons of that gray moss which hangs in such +graceful wreaths from the boughs of the pines in the deep forest shadows +of Orr's Island. On the table below was a collection of books: a whole +set of Shakespeare which Zephaniah Pennel had bought of a Portland +bookseller; a selection, in prose and verse, from the best classic +writers, presented to Mara Lincoln, the fly-leaf said, by her sincere +friend, Theophilus Sewell; a Virgil, much thumbed, with an old, worn +cover, which, however, some adroit fingers had concealed under a coating +of delicately marbled paper;--there was a Latin dictionary, a set of +Plutarch's Lives, the Mysteries of Udolpho, and Sir Charles Grandison, +together with Edwards on the Affections, and Boston's Fourfold +State;--there was an inkstand, curiously contrived from a sea-shell, +with pens and paper in that phase of arrangement which betokened +frequency of use; and, lastly, a little work-basket, containing a long +strip of curious and delicate embroidery, in which the needle yet +hanging showed that the work was in progress. + +By a table at the sea-looking window sits our little Mara, now grown to +the maturity of eighteen summers, but retaining still unmistakable signs +of identity with the little golden-haired, dreamy, excitable, fanciful +"Pearl" of Orr's _Island_. + +She is not quite of a middle height, with something beautiful and +child-like about the moulding of her delicate form. We still see those +sad, wistful, hazel eyes, over which the lids droop with a dreamy +languor, and whose dark lustre contrasts singularly with the golden hue +of the abundant hair which waves in a thousand rippling undulations +around her face. The impression she produces is not that of paleness, +though there is no color in her cheek; but her complexion has everywhere +that delicate pink tinting which one sees in healthy infants, and with +the least emotion brightens into a fluttering bloom. Such a bloom is on +her cheek at this moment, as she is working away, copying a bunch of +scarlet rock-columbine which is in a wine-glass of water before her; +every few moments stopping and holding her work at a distance, to +contemplate its effect. At this moment there steps behind her chair a +tall, lithe figure, a face with a rich Spanish complexion, large black +eyes, glowing cheeks, marked eyebrows, and lustrous black hair arranged +in shining braids around her head. It is our old friend, Sally +Kittridge, whom common fame calls the handsomest girl of all the region +round Harpswell, Maquoit, and Orr's Island. In truth, a wholesome, +ruddy, blooming creature she was, the sight of whom cheered and warmed +one like a good fire in December; and she seemed to have enough and to +spare of the warmest gifts of vitality and joyous animal life. She had a +well-formed mouth, but rather large, and a frank laugh which showed all +her teeth sound--and a fortunate sight it was, considering that they +were white and even as pearls; and the hand that she laid upon Mara's at +this moment, though twice as large as that of the little artist, was yet +in harmony with her vigorous, finely developed figure. + +"Mara Lincoln," she said, "you are a witch, a perfect little witch, at +painting. How you can make things look so like, I don't see. Now, I +could paint the things we painted at Miss Plucher's; but then, dear me! +they didn't look at all like flowers. One needed to write under them +what they were made for." + +"Does this look like to you, Sally?" said Mara. "I wish it would to me. +Just see what a beautiful clear color that flower is. All I can do, I +can't make one like it. My scarlet and yellows sink dead into the +paper." + +"Why, I think your flowers are wonderful! You are a real genius, that's +what you are! I am only a common girl; I can't do things as you can." + +"You can do things a thousand times more useful, Sally. I don't pretend +to compare with you in the useful arts, and I am only a bungler in +ornamental ones. Sally, I feel like a useless little creature. If I +could go round as you can, and do business, and make bargains, and push +ahead in the world, I should feel that I was good for something; but +somehow I can't." + +"To be sure you can't," said Sally, laughing. "I should like to see you +try it." + +"Now," pursued Mara, in a tone of lamentation, "I could no more get into +a carriage and drive to Brunswick as you can, than I could fly. I can't +drive, Sally--something is the matter with me; and the horses always +know it the minute I take the reins; they always twitch their ears and +stare round into the chaise at me, as much as to say, 'What! you there?' +and I feel sure they never will mind me. And then how you can make those +wonderful bargains you do, I can't see!--you talk up to the clerks and +the men, and somehow you talk everybody round; but as for me, if I only +open my mouth in the humblest way to dispute the price, everybody puts +me down. I always tremble when I go into a store, and people talk to me +just as if I was a little girl, and once or twice they have made me buy +things that I knew I didn't want, just because they will talk me down." + +"Oh, Mara, Mara," said Sally, laughing till the tears rolled down her +cheeks, "what do _you_ ever go a-shopping for?--of course you ought +always to send me. Why, look at this dress--real India chintz; do you +know I made old Pennywhistle's clerk up in Brunswick give it to me just +for the price of common cotton? You see there was a yard of it had got +faded by lying in the shop-window, and there were one or two holes and +imperfections in it, and you ought to have heard the talk I made! I +abused it to right and left, and actually at last I brought the poor +wretch to believe that he ought to be grateful to me for taking it off +his hands. Well, you see the dress I've made of it. The imperfections +didn't hurt it the least in the world as I managed it,--and the faded +breadth makes a good apron, so you see. And just so I got that red +spotted flannel dress I wore last winter. It was moth-eaten in one or +two places, and I made them let me have it at half-price;--made exactly +as good a dress. But after all, Mara, I can't trim a bonnet as you can, +and I can't come up to your embroidery, nor your lace-work, nor I can't +draw and paint as you can, and I can't sing like you; and then as to all +those things you talk with Mr. Sewell about, why they're beyond my +depth,--that's all I've got to say. Now, you are made to have poetry +written to you, and all that kind of thing one reads of in novels. +Nobody would ever think of writing poetry to me, now, or sending me +flowers and rings, and such things. If a fellow likes me, he gives me a +quince, or a big apple; but, then, Mara, there ain't any fellows round +here that are fit to speak to." + +"I'm sure, Sally, there always is a train following you everywhere, at +singing-school and Thursday lecture." + +"Yes--but what do I care for 'em?" said Sally, with a toss of her head. +"Why they follow me, I don't see. I don't do anything to make 'em, and I +tell 'em all that they tire me to death; and still they will hang +round. What is the reason, do you suppose?" + +"What can it be?" said Mara, with a quiet kind of arch drollery which +suffused her face, as she bent over her painting. + +"Well, you know I can't bear fellows--I think they are hateful." + +"What! even Tom Hiers?" said Mara, continuing her painting. + +"Tom Hiers! Do you suppose I care for him? He would insist on waiting on +me round all last winter, taking me over in his boat to Portland, and up +in his sleigh to Brunswick; but I didn't care for him." + +"Well, there's Jimmy Wilson, up at Brunswick." + +"What! that little snip of a clerk! You don't suppose I care for him, do +you?--only he almost runs his head off following me round when I go up +there shopping; he's nothing but a little dressed-up yard-stick! I never +saw a fellow yet that I'd cross the street to have another look at. By +the by, Mara, Miss Roxy told me Sunday that Moses was coming down from +Umbagog this week." + +"Yes, he is," said Mara; "we are looking for him every day." + +"You must want to see him. How long is it since you saw him?" + +"It is three years," said Mara. "I scarcely know what he is like now. I +was visiting in Boston when he came home from his three-years' voyage, +and he was gone into the lumbering country when I came back. He seems +almost a stranger to me." + +"He's pretty good-looking," said Sally. "I saw him on Sunday when he was +here, but he was off on Monday, and never called on old friends. Does he +write to you often?" + +"Not very," said Mara; "in fact, almost never; and when he does, there +is so little in his letters." + +"Well, I tell you, Mara, you must not expect fellows to write as girls +can. They don't do it. Now, our boys, when they write home, they tell +the latitude and longitude, and soil and productions, and such things. +But if you or I were only there, don't you think we should find +something more to say? Of course we should,--fifty thousand little +things that they never think of." + +Mara made no reply to this, but went on very intently with her painting. +A close observer might have noticed a suppressed sigh that seemed to +retreat far down into her heart. Sally did not notice it. + +What was in that sigh? It was the sigh of a long, deep, inner history, +unwritten and untold--such as are transpiring daily by thousands, and of +which we take no heed. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +REBELLION + + +We have introduced Mara to our readers as she appears in her seventeenth +year, at the time when she is expecting the return of Moses as a young +man of twenty; but we cannot do justice to the feelings which are roused +in her heart by this expectation, without giving a chapter or two to +tracing the history of Moses since we left him as a boy commencing the +study of the Latin grammar with Mr. Sewell. The reader must see the +forces that acted upon his early development, and what they have made of +him. + +It is common for people who write treatises on education to give forth +their rules and theories with a self-satisfied air, as if a human being +were a thing to be made up, like a batch of bread, out of a given number +of materials combined by an infallible recipe. Take your child, and do +thus and so for a given number of years, and he comes out a thoroughly +educated individual. + +But in fact, education is in many cases nothing more than a blind +struggle of parents and guardians with the evolutions of some strong, +predetermined character, individual, obstinate, unreceptive, and seeking +by an inevitable law of its being to develop itself and gain free +expression in its own way. Captain Kittridge's confidence that he would +as soon undertake a boy as a Newfoundland pup, is good for those whose +idea of what is to be done for a human being are only what would be done +for a dog, namely, give food, shelter, and world-room, and leave each to +act out his own nature without let or hindrance. + +But everybody takes an embryo human being with some plan of one's own +what it shall do or be. The child's future shall shape out some darling +purpose or plan, and fulfill some long unfulfilled expectation of the +parent. And thus, though the wind of every generation sweeps its hopes +and plans like forest-leaves, none are whirled and tossed with more +piteous moans than those which come out green and fresh to shade the +happy spring-time of the cradle. For the temperaments of children are +often as oddly unsuited to parents as if capricious fairies had been +filling cradles with changelings. + +A meek member of the Peace Society, a tender, devout, poetical +clergyman, receives an heir from heaven, and straightway devotes him to +the Christian ministry. But lo! the boy proves a young war-horse, +neighing for battle, burning for gunpowder and guns, for bowie-knives +and revolvers, and for every form and expression of physical force;--he +might make a splendid trapper, an energetic sea-captain, a bold, daring +military man, but his whole boyhood is full of rebukes and disciplines +for sins which are only the blind effort of the creature to express a +nature which his parent does not and cannot understand. So again, the +son that was to have upheld the old, proud merchant's time-honored firm, +that should have been mighty in ledgers and great upon 'Change, breaks +his father's heart by an unintelligible fancy for weaving poems and +romances. A father of literary aspirations, balked of privileges of +early education, bends over the cradle of his son with but one idea. +This child shall have the full advantages of regular college-training; +and so for years he battles with a boy abhorring study, and fitted only +for a life of out-door energy and bold adventure,--on whom Latin forms +and Greek quantities fall and melt aimless and useless, as snow-flakes +on the hide of a buffalo. Then the secret agonies,--the long years of +sorrowful watchings of those gentler nurses of humanity who receive the +infant into their bosom out of the void unknown, and strive to read its +horoscope through the mists of their prayers and tears!--what +perplexities,--what confusion! Especially is this so in a community +where the moral and religious sense is so cultivated as in New England, +and frail, trembling, self-distrustful mothers are told that the shaping +and ordering not only of this present life, but of an immortal destiny, +is in their hands. + +On the whole, those who succeed best in the rearing of children are the +tolerant and easy persons who instinctively follow nature and accept +without much inquiry whatever she sends; or that far smaller class, wise +to discern spirits and apt to adopt means to their culture and +development, who can prudently and carefully train every nature +according to its true and characteristic ideal. + +Zephaniah Pennel was a shrewd old Yankee, whose instincts taught him +from the first, that the waif that had been so mysteriously washed out +of the gloom of the sea into his family, was of some different class and +lineage from that which might have filled a cradle of his own, and of a +nature which he could not perfectly understand. So he prudently watched +and waited, only using restraint enough to keep the boy anchored in +society, and letting him otherwise grow up in the solitary freedom of +his lonely seafaring life. + +The boy was from childhood, although singularly attractive, of a moody, +fitful, unrestful nature,--eager, earnest, but unsteady,--with varying +phases of imprudent frankness and of the most stubborn and unfathomable +secretiveness. He was a creature of unreasoning antipathies and +attractions. As Zephaniah Pennel said of him, he was as full of hitches +as an old bureau drawer. His peculiar beauty, and a certain electrical +power of attraction, seemed to form a constant circle of protection and +forgiveness around him in the home of his foster-parents; and great as +was the anxiety and pain which he often gave them, they somehow never +felt the charge of him as a weariness. + +We left him a boy beginning Latin with Mr. Sewell in company with the +little Mara. This arrangement progressed prosperously for a time, and +the good clergyman, all whose ideas of education ran through the halls +of a college, began to have hopes of turning out a choice scholar. But +when the boy's ship of life came into the breakers of that narrow and +intricate channel which divides boyhood from manhood, the difficulties +that had always attended his guidance and management wore an intensified +form. How much family happiness is wrecked just then and there! How many +mothers' and sisters' hearts are broken in the wild and confused +tossings and tearings of that stormy transition! A whole new nature is +blindly upheaving itself, with cravings and clamorings, which neither +the boy himself nor often surrounding friends understand. + +A shrewd observer has significantly characterized the period as the time +when the boy wishes he were dead, and everybody else wishes so too. The +wretched, half-fledged, half-conscious, anomalous creature has all the +desires of the man, and none of the rights; has a double and triple +share of nervous edge and intensity in every part of his nature, and no +definitely perceived objects on which to bestow it,--and, of course, all +sorts of unreasonable moods and phases are the result. + +One of the most common signs of this period, in some natures, is the +love of contradiction and opposition,--a blind desire to go contrary to +everything that is commonly received among the older people. The boy +disparages the minister, quizzes the deacon, thinks the school-master an +ass, and doesn't believe in the Bible, and seems to be rather pleased +than otherwise with the shock and flutter that all these announcements +create among peaceably disposed grown people. No respectable hen that +ever hatched out a brood of ducks was more puzzled what to do with them +than was poor Mrs. Pennel when her adopted nursling came into this +state. Was he a boy? an immortal soul? a reasonable human being? or only +a handsome goblin sent to torment her? + +"What shall we do with him, father?" said she, one Sunday, to Zephaniah, +as he stood shaving before the little looking-glass in their bedroom. +"He can't be governed like a child, and he won't govern himself like a +man." + +Zephaniah stopped and strapped his razor reflectively. + +"We must cast out anchor and wait for day," he answered. "Prayer is a +long rope with a strong hold." + +It was just at this critical period of life that Moses Pennel was drawn +into associations which awoke the alarm of all his friends, and from +which the characteristic willfulness of his nature made it difficult to +attempt to extricate him. + +In order that our readers may fully understand this part of our history, +we must give some few particulars as to the peculiar scenery of Orr's +Island and the state of the country at this time. + +The coast of Maine, as we have elsewhere said, is remarkable for a +singular interpenetration of the sea with the land, forming amid its +dense primeval forests secluded bays, narrow and deep, into which +vessels might float with the tide, and where they might nestle unseen +and unsuspected amid the dense shadows of the overhanging forest. + +At this time there was a very brisk business done all along the coast of +Maine in the way of smuggling. Small vessels, lightly built and swift of +sail, would run up into these sylvan fastnesses, and there make their +deposits and transact their business so as entirely to elude the +vigilance of government officers. + +It may seem strange that practices of this kind should ever have +obtained a strong foothold in a community peculiar for its rigid +morality and its orderly submission to law; but in this case, as in many +others, contempt of law grew out of weak and unworthy legislation. The +celebrated embargo of Jefferson stopped at once the whole trade of New +England, and condemned her thousand ships to rot at the wharves, and +caused the ruin of thousands of families. + +The merchants of the country regarded this as a flagrant, high-handed +piece of injustice, expressly designed to cripple New England commerce, +and evasions of this unjust law found everywhere a degree of sympathy, +even in the breasts of well-disposed and conscientious people. In +resistance to the law, vessels were constantly fitted out which ran upon +trading voyages to the West Indies and other places; and although the +practice was punishable as smuggling, yet it found extensive connivance. +From this beginning smuggling of all kinds gradually grew up in the +community, and gained such a foothold that even after the repeal of the +embargo it still continued to be extensively practiced. Secret +depositories of contraband goods still existed in many of the lonely +haunts of islands off the coast of Maine. Hid in deep forest shadows, +visited only in the darkness of the night, were these illegal stores of +merchandise. And from these secluded resorts they found their way, no +one knew or cared to say how, into houses for miles around. + +There was no doubt that the practice, like all other illegal ones, was +demoralizing to the community, and particularly fatal to the character +of that class of bold, enterprising young men who would be most likely +to be drawn into it. + +Zephaniah Pennel, who was made of a kind of straight-grained, +uncompromising oaken timber such as built the Mayflower of old, had +always borne his testimony at home and abroad against any violations of +the laws of the land, however veiled under the pretext of righting a +wrong or resisting an injustice, and had done what he could in his +neighborhood to enable government officers to detect and break up these +unlawful depositories. This exposed him particularly to the hatred and +ill-will of the operators concerned in such affairs, and a plot was laid +by a few of the most daring and determined of them to establish one of +their depositories on Orr's Island, and to implicate the family of +Pennel himself in the trade. This would accomplish two purposes, as they +hoped,--it would be a mortification and defeat to him,--a revenge which +they coveted; and it would, they thought, insure his silence and +complicity for the strongest reasons. + +The situation and characteristics of Orr's Island peculiarly fitted it +for the carrying out of a scheme of this kind, and for this purpose we +must try to give our readers a more definite idea of it. + +The traveler who wants a ride through scenery of more varied and +singular beauty than can ordinarily be found on the shores of any land +whatever, should start some fine clear day along the clean sandy road, +ribboned with strips of green grass, that leads through the flat +pitch-pine forests of Brunswick toward the sea. As he approaches the +salt water, a succession of the most beautiful and picturesque lakes +seems to be lying softly cradled in the arms of wild, rocky forest +shores, whose outlines are ever changing with the windings of the road. + +At a distance of about six or eight miles from Brunswick he crosses an +arm of the sea, and comes upon the first of the interlacing group of +islands which beautifies the shore. A ride across this island is a +constant succession of pictures, whose wild and solitary beauty entirely +distances all power of description. The magnificence of the evergreen +forests,--their peculiar air of sombre stillness,--the rich +intermingling ever and anon of groves of birch, beech, and oak, in +picturesque knots and tufts, as if set for effect by some skillful +landscape-gardener,--produce a sort of strange dreamy wonder; while the +sea, breaking forth both on the right hand and the left of the road into +the most romantic glimpses, seems to flash and glitter like some strange +gem which every moment shows itself through the framework of a new +setting. Here and there little secluded coves push in from the sea, +around which lie soft tracts of green meadow-land, hemmed in and guarded +by rocky pine-crowned ridges. In such sheltered spots may be seen neat +white houses, nestling like sheltered doves in the beautiful solitude. + +When one has ridden nearly to the end of Great Island, which is about +four miles across, he sees rising before him, from the sea, a bold +romantic point of land, uplifting a crown of rich evergreen and forest +trees over shores of perpendicular rock. This is Orr's Island. + +It was not an easy matter in the days of our past experience to guide a +horse and carriage down the steep, wild shores of Great Island to the +long bridge that connects it with Orr's. The sense of wild seclusion +reaches here the highest degree; and one crosses the bridge with a +feeling as if genii might have built it, and one might be going over it +to fairy-land. From the bridge the path rises on to a high granite +ridge, which runs from one end of the island to the other, and has been +called the Devil's Back, with that superstitious generosity which seems +to have abandoned all romantic places to so undeserving an owner. + +By the side of this ridge of granite is a deep, narrow chasm, running a +mile and a half or two miles parallel with the road, and veiled by the +darkest and most solemn shadows of the primeval forest. Here scream the +jays and the eagles, and fish-hawks make their nests undisturbed; and +the tide rises and falls under black branches of evergreen, from which +depend long, light festoons of delicate gray moss. The darkness of the +forest is relieved by the delicate foliage and the silvery trunks of +the great white birches, which the solitude of centuries has allowed to +grow in this spot to a height and size seldom attained elsewhere. + +It was this narrow, rocky cove that had been chosen by the smuggler +Atkinson and his accomplices as a safe and secluded resort for their +operations. He was a seafaring man of Bath, one of that class who always +prefer uncertain and doubtful courses to those which are safe and +reputable. He was possessed of many of those traits calculated to make +him a hero in the eyes of young men; was dashing, free, and frank in his +manners, with a fund of humor and an abundance of ready anecdote which +made his society fascinating; but he concealed beneath all these +attractions a character of hard, grasping, unscrupulous selfishness, and +an utter destitution of moral principle. + +Moses, now in his sixteenth year, and supposed to be in a general way +doing well, under the care of the minister, was left free to come and go +at his own pleasure, unwatched by Zephaniah, whose fishing operations +often took him for weeks from home. Atkinson hung about the boy's path, +engaging him first in fishing or hunting enterprises; plied him with +choice preparations of liquor, with which he would enhance the hilarity +of their expeditions; and finally worked on his love of adventure and +that impatient restlessness incident to his period of life to draw him +fully into his schemes. Moses lost all interest in his lessons, often +neglecting them for days at a time--accounting for his negligence by +excuses which were far from satisfactory. When Mara would expostulate +with him about this, he would break out upon her with a fierce +irritation. Was he always going to be tied to a girl's apron-string? He +was tired of study, and tired of old Sewell, whom he declared an old +granny in a white wig, who knew nothing of the world. He wasn't going to +college--it was altogether too slow for him--he was going to see life +and push ahead for himself. + +Mara's life during this time was intensely wearing. A frail, slender, +delicate girl of thirteen, she carried a heart prematurely old with the +most distressing responsibility of mature life. Her love for Moses had +always had in it a large admixture of that maternal and care-taking +element which, in some shape or other, qualities the affection of woman +to man. Ever since that dream of babyhood, when the vision of a pale +mother had led the beautiful boy to her arms, Mara had accepted him as +something exclusively her own, with an intensity of ownership that +seemed almost to merge her personal identity with his. She felt, and +saw, and enjoyed, and suffered in him, and yet was conscious of a higher +nature in herself, by which unwillingly he was often judged and +condemned. His faults affected her with a kind of guilty pain, as if +they were her own; his sins were borne bleeding in her heart in silence, +and with a jealous watchfulness to hide them from every eye but hers. +She busied herself day and night interceding and making excuses for him, +first to her own sensitive moral nature, and then with everybody around, +for with one or another he was coming into constant collision. She felt +at this time a fearful load of suspicion, which she dared not express to +a human being. + +Up to this period she had always been the only confidant of Moses, who +poured into her ear without reserve all the good and the evil of his +nature, and who loved her with all the intensity with which he was +capable of loving anything. Nothing so much shows what a human being is +in moral advancement as the quality of his love. Moses Pennel's love was +egotistic, exacting, tyrannical, and capricious--sometimes venting +itself in expressions of a passionate fondness, which had a savor of +protecting generosity in them, and then receding to the icy pole of +surly petulance. For all that, there was no resisting the magnetic +attraction with which in his amiable moods he drew those whom he liked +to himself. + +Such people are not very wholesome companions for those who are +sensitively organized and predisposed to self-sacrificing love. They +keep the heart in a perpetual freeze and thaw, which, like the American +northern climate, is so particularly fatal to plants of a delicate +habit. They could live through the hot summer and the cold winter, but +they cannot endure the three or four months when it freezes one day and +melts the next,--when all the buds are started out by a week of genial +sunshine, and then frozen for a fortnight. These fitful persons are of +all others most engrossing, because you are always sure in their good +moods that they are just going to be angels,--an expectation which no +number of disappointments seems finally to do away. Mara believed in +Moses's future as she did in her own existence. He was going to do +something great and good,--that she was certain of. He would be a +splendid man! Nobody, she thought, knew him as she did; nobody could +know how good and generous he was _sometimes_, and how frankly he would +confess his faults, and what noble aspirations he had! + +But there was no concealing from her watchful sense that Moses was +beginning to have secrets from her. He was cloudy and murky; and at some +of the most harmless inquiries in the world, would flash out with a +sudden temper, as if she had touched some sore spot. Her bedroom was +opposite to his; and she became quite sure that night after night, while +she lay thinking of him, she heard him steal down out of the house +between two and three o'clock, and not return till a little before +day-dawn. Where he went, and with whom, and what he was doing, was to +her an awful mystery,--and it was one she dared not share with a human +being. If she told her kind old grandfather, she feared that any +inquiry from him would only light as a spark on that inflammable spirit +of pride and insubordination that was rising within him, and bring on an +instantaneous explosion. Mr. Sewell's influence she could hope little +more from; and as to poor Mrs. Pennel, such communications would only +weary and distress her, without doing any manner of good. There was, +therefore, only that one unfailing Confidant--the Invisible Friend to +whom the solitary child could pour out her heart, and whose inspirations +of comfort and guidance never fail to come again in return to true +souls. + +One moonlight night, as she lay thus praying, her senses, sharpened by +watching, discerned a sound of steps treading under her window, and then +a low whistle. Her heart beat violently, and she soon heard the door of +Moses's room open, and then the old chamber-stairs gave forth those +inconsiderate creaks and snaps that garrulous old stairs always will +when anybody is desirous of making them accomplices in a night-secret. +Mara rose, and undrawing her curtain, saw three men standing before the +house, and saw Moses come out and join them. Quick as thought she threw +on her clothes and wrapping her little form in a dark cloak, with a +hood, followed them out. She kept at a safe distance behind them,--so +far back as just to keep them in sight. They never looked back, and +seemed to say but little till they approached the edge of that deep belt +of forest which shrouds so large a portion of the island. She hurried +along, now nearer to them lest they should be lost to view in the deep +shadows, while they went on crackling and plunging through the dense +underbrush. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +THE TEMPTER + + +It was well for Mara that so much of her life had been passed in wild +forest rambles. She looked frail as the rays of moonbeam which slid down +the old white-bearded hemlocks, but her limbs were agile and supple as +steel; and while the party went crashing on before, she followed with +such lightness that the slight sound of her movements was entirely lost +in the heavy crackling plunges of the party. Her little heart was +beating fast and hard; but could any one have seen her face, as it now +and then came into a spot of moonshine, they might have seen it fixed in +a deadly expression of resolve and determination. She was going after +_him_--no matter where; she was resolved to know who and what it was +that was leading him away, as her heart told her, to no good. Deeper and +deeper into the shadows of the forest they went, and the child easily +kept up with them. + +Mara had often rambled for whole solitary days in this lonely wood, and +knew all its rocks and dells the whole three miles to the long bridge at +the other end of the island. But she had never before seen it under the +solemn stillness of midnight moonlight, which gives to the most familiar +objects such a strange, ghostly charm. After they had gone a mile into +the forest, she could see through the black spruces silver gleams of the +sea, and hear, amid the whirr and sway of the pine-tops, the dash of the +ever restless tide which pushed up the long cove. It was at the full, as +she could discern with a rapid glance of her practiced eye, expertly +versed in the knowledge of every change of the solitary nature around. + +And now the party began to plunge straight down the rocky ledge of the +Devil's Back, on which they had been walking hitherto, into the deep +ravine where lay the cove. It was a scrambling, precipitous way, over +perpendicular walls of rock, whose crevices furnished anchoring-places +for grand old hemlocks or silver-birches, and whose rough sides, +leathery with black flaps of lichen, were all tangled and interlaced +with thick netted bushes. The men plunged down laughing, shouting, and +swearing at their occasional missteps, and silently as moonbeam or +thistledown the light-footed shadow went down after them. + +She suddenly paused behind a pile of rock, as, through an opening +between two great spruces, the sea gleamed out like a sheet of +looking-glass set in a black frame. And here the child saw a small +vessel swinging at anchor, with the moonlight full on its slack sails, +and she could hear the gentle gurgle and lick of the green-tongued waves +as they dashed under it toward the rocky shore. + +Mara stopped with a beating heart as she saw the company making for the +schooner. The tide is high; will they go on board and sail away with him +where she cannot follow? What could she do? In an ecstasy of fear she +kneeled down and asked God not to let him go,--to give her at least one +more chance to save him. + +For the pure and pious child had heard enough of the words of these men, +as she walked behind them, to fill her with horror. She had never before +heard an oath, but there came back from these men coarse, brutal tones +and words of blasphemy that froze her blood with horror. And Moses was +going with them! She felt somehow as if they must be a company of fiends +bearing him to his ruin. + +For some time she kneeled there watching behind the rock, while Moses +and his companions went on board the little schooner. She had no +feeling of horror at the loneliness of her own situation, for her +solitary life had made every woodland thing dear and familiar to her. +She was cowering down, on a loose, spongy bed of moss, which was all +threaded through and through with the green vines and pale pink blossoms +of the mayflower, and she felt its fragrant breath streaming up in the +moist moonlight. As she leaned forward to look through a rocky crevice, +her arms rested on a bed of that brittle white moss she had often +gathered with so much admiration, and a scarlet rock-columbine, such as +she loved to paint, brushed her cheek,--and all these mute fair things +seemed to strive to keep her company in her chill suspense of +watchfulness. Two whippoorwills, from a clump of silvery birches, kept +calling to each other in melancholy iteration, while she stayed there +still listening, and knowing by an occasional sound of laughing, or the +explosion of some oath, that the men were not yet gone. At last they all +appeared again, and came to a cleared place among the dry leaves, quite +near to the rock where she was concealed, and kindled a fire which they +kept snapping and crackling by a constant supply of green resinous +hemlock branches. + +The red flame danced and leaped through the green fuel, and leaping +upward in tongues of flame, cast ruddy bronze reflections on the old +pine-trees with their long branches waving with boards of white +moss,--and by the firelight Mara could see two men in sailor's dress +with pistols in their belts, and the man Atkinson, whom she had +recollected as having seen once or twice at her grandfather's. She +remembered how she had always shrunk from him with a strange instinctive +dislike, half fear, half disgust, when he had addressed her with that +kind of free admiration which men of his class often feel themselves at +liberty to express to a pretty girl of her early age. He was a man that +might have been handsome, had it not been for a certain strange +expression of covert wickedness. It was as if some vile evil spirit, +walking, as the Scriptures say, through dry places, had lighted on a +comely man's body, in which he had set up housekeeping, making it look +like a fair house abused by an unclean owner. + +As Mara watched his demeanor with Moses, she could think only of a +loathsome black snake that she had once seen in those solitary +rocks;--she felt as if his handsome but evil eye were charming him with +an evil charm to his destruction. + +"Well, Mo, my boy," she heard him say,--slapping Moses on the +shoulder,--"this is something like. We'll have a 'tempus,' as the +college fellows say,--put down the clams to roast, and I'll mix the +punch," he said, setting over the fire a tea-kettle which they brought +from the ship. + +After their preparations were finished, all sat down to eat and drink. +Mara listened with anxiety and horror to a conversation such as she +never heard or conceived before. It is not often that women hear men +talk in the undisguised manner which they use among themselves; but the +conversation of men of unprincipled lives, and low, brutal habits, +unchecked by the presence of respectable female society, might well +convey to the horror-struck child a feeling as if she were listening at +the mouth of hell. Almost every word was preceded or emphasized by an +oath; and what struck with a death chill to her heart was, that Moses +swore too, and seemed to show that desperate anxiety to seem _au fait_ +in the language of wickedness, which boys often do at that age, when +they fancy that to be ignorant of vice is a mark of disgraceful +greenness. Moses evidently was bent on showing that he was not +green,--ignorant of the pure ear to which every such word came like the +blast of death. + +He drank a great deal, too, and the mirth among them grew furious and +terrific. Mara, horrified and shocked as she was, did not, however, lose +that intense and alert presence of mind, natural to persons in whom +there is moral strength, however delicate be their physical frame. She +felt at once that these men were playing upon Moses; that they had an +object in view; that they were flattering and cajoling him, and leading +him to drink, that they might work out some fiendish purpose of their +own. The man called Atkinson related story after story of wild +adventure, in which sudden fortunes had been made by men who, he said, +were not afraid to take "the short cut across lots." He told of +piratical adventures in the West Indies,--of the fun of chasing and +overhauling ships,--and gave dazzling accounts of the treasures found on +board. It was observable that all these stories were told on the line +between joke and earnest,--as frolics, as specimens of good fun, and +seeing life, etc. + +At last came a suggestion,--What if they should start off together some +fine day, "just for a spree," and try a cruise in the West Indies, to +see what they could pick up? They had arms, and a gang of fine, +whole-souled fellows. Moses had been tied to Ma'am Pennel's apron-string +long enough. And "hark ye," said one of them, "Moses, they say old +Pennel has lots of dollars in that old sea-chest of his'n. It would be a +kindness to him to invest them for him in an adventure." + +Moses answered with a streak of the boy innocence which often remains +under the tramping of evil men, like ribbons of green turf in the middle +of roads:-- + +"You don't know Father Pennel,--why, he'd no more come into it than"-- + +A perfect roar of laughter cut short this declaration, and Atkinson, +slapping Moses on the back, said,-- + +"By ----, Mo! you are the jolliest green dog! I shall die a-laughing of +your innocence some day. Why, my boy, can't you see? Pennel's money can +be invested without asking him." + +"Why, he keeps it locked," said Moses. + +"And supposing you pick the lock?" + +"Not I, indeed," said Moses, making a sudden movement to rise. + +Mara almost screamed in her ecstasy, but she had sense enough to hold +her breath. + +"Ho! see him now," said Atkinson, lying back, and holding his sides +while he laughed, and rolled over; "you can get off anything on that +muff,--any hoax in the world,--he's so soft! Come, come, my dear boy, +sit down. I was only seeing how wide I could make you open those great +black eyes of your'n,--that's all." + +"You'd better take care how you joke with me," said Moses, with that +look of gloomy determination which Mara was quite familiar with of old. +It was the rallying effort of a boy who had abandoned the first outworks +of virtue to make a stand for the citadel. And Atkinson, like a prudent +besieger after a repulse, returned to lie on his arms. + +He began talking volubly on other subjects, telling stories, and singing +songs, and pressing Moses to drink. + +Mara was comforted to see that he declined drinking,--that he looked +gloomy and thoughtful, in spite of the jokes of his companions; but she +trembled to see, by the following conversation, how Atkinson was +skillfully and prudently making apparent to Moses the extent to which he +had him in his power. He seemed to Mara like an ugly spider skillfully +weaving his web around a fly. She felt cold and faint; but within her +there was a heroic strength. + +She was not going to faint; she would make herself bear up. She was +going to do something to get Moses out of this snare,--but what? At last +they rose. + +"It is past three o'clock," she heard one of them say. + +"I say, Mo," said Atkinson, "you must make tracks for home, or you won't +be in bed when Mother Pennel calls you." + +The men all laughed at this joke, as they turned to go on board the +schooner. + +When they were gone, Moses threw himself down and hid his face in his +hands. He knew not what pitying little face was looking down upon him +from the hemlock shadows, what brave little heart was determined to save +him. He was in one of those great crises of agony that boys pass through +when they first awake from the fun and frolic of unlawful enterprises to +find themselves sold under sin, and feel the terrible logic of evil +which constrains them to pass from the less to greater crime. He felt +that he was in the power of bad, unprincipled, heartless men, who, if he +refused to do their bidding, had the power to expose him. All he had +been doing would come out. His kind old foster-parents would know it. +Mara would know it. Mr. Sewell and Miss Emily would know the secrets of +his life that past month. He felt as if they were all looking at him +now. He had disgraced himself,--had sunk below his education,--had been +false to all his better knowledge and the past expectations of his +friends, living a mean, miserable, dishonorable life,--and now the +ground was fast sliding from under him, and the next plunge might be +down a precipice from which there would be no return. What he had done +up to this hour had been done in the roystering, inconsiderate +gamesomeness of boyhood. It had been represented to himself only as +"sowing wild oats," "having steep times," "seeing a little of life," and +so on; but this night he had had propositions of piracy and robbery made +to him, and he had not dared to knock down the man that made them,--had +not dared at once to break away from his company. He must meet him +again,--must go on with him, or--he groaned in agony at the thought. + +It was a strong indication of that repressed, considerate habit of mind +which love had wrought in the child, that when Mara heard the boy's sobs +rising in the stillness, she did not, as she wished to, rush out and +throw her arms around his neck and try to comfort him. + +But she felt instinctively that she must not do this. She must not let +him know that she had discovered his secret by stealing after him thus +in the night shadows. She knew how nervously he had resented even the +compassionate glances she had cast upon him in his restless, turbid +intervals during the past few weeks, and the fierceness with which he +had replied to a few timid inquiries. No,--though her heart was breaking +for him, it was a shrewd, wise little heart, and resolved not to spoil +all by yielding to its first untaught impulses. She repressed herself as +the mother does who refrains from crying out when she sees her +unconscious little one on the verge of a precipice. + +When Moses rose and moodily began walking homeward, she followed at a +distance. She could now keep farther off, for she knew the way through +every part of the forest, and she only wanted to keep within sound of +his footsteps to make sure that he was going home. When he emerged from +the forest into the open moonlight, she sat down in its shadows and +watched him as he walked over the open distance between her and the +house. He went in; and then she waited a little longer for him to be +quite retired. She thought he would throw himself on the bed, and then +she could steal in after him. So she sat there quite in the shadows. + +The grand full moon was riding high and calm in the purple sky, and +Harpswell Bay on the one hand, and the wide, open ocean on the other, +lay all in a silver shimmer of light. There was not a sound save the +plash of the tide, now beginning to go out, and rolling and rattling +the pebbles up and down as it came and went, and once in a while the +distant, mournful intoning of the whippoorwill. There were silent lonely +ships, sailing slowly to and fro far out to sea, turning their fair +wings now into bright light and now into shadow, as they moved over the +glassy stillness. Mara could see all the houses on Harpswell Neck and +the white church as clear as in the daylight. It seemed to her some +strange, unearthly dream. + +As she sat there, she thought over her whole little life, all full of +one thought, one purpose, one love, one prayer, for this being so +strangely given to her out of that silent sea, which lay so like a still +eternity around her,--and she revolved again what meant the vision of +her childhood. Did it not mean that she was to watch over him and save +him from some dreadful danger? That poor mother was lying now silent and +peaceful under the turf in the little graveyard not far off, and _she_ +must care for her boy. + +A strong motherly feeling swelled out the girl's heart,--she felt that +she _must_, she would, somehow save that treasure which had so +mysteriously been committed to her. So, when she thought she had given +time enough for Moses to be quietly asleep in his room, she arose and +ran with quick footsteps across the moonlit plain to the house. + +The front-door was standing wide open, as was always the innocent +fashion in these regions, with a half-angle of moonlight and shadow +lying within its dusky depths. Mara listened a moment,--no sound: he had +gone to bed then. "Poor boy," she said, "I hope he is asleep; how he +must feel, poor fellow! It's all the fault of those dreadful men!" said +the little dark shadow to herself, as she stole up the stairs past his +room as guiltily as if she were the sinner. Once the stairs creaked, and +her heart was in her mouth, but she gained her room and shut and bolted +the door. She kneeled down by her little white bed, and thanked God +that she had come in safe, and then prayed him to teach her what to do +next. She felt chilly and shivering, and crept into bed, and lay with +her great soft brown eyes wide open, intently thinking what she should +do. + +Should she tell her grandfather? Something instinctively said No; that +the first word from him which showed Moses he was detected would at once +send him off with those wicked men. "He would never, never bear to have +this known," she said. Mr. Sewell?--ah, that was worse. She herself +shrank from letting him know what Moses had been doing; she could not +bear to lower him so much in his eyes. He could not make allowances, she +thought. He is good, to be sure, but he is so old and grave, and doesn't +know how much Moses has been tempted by these dreadful men; and then +perhaps he would tell Miss Emily, and they never would want Moses to +come there any more. + +"What shall I do?" she said to herself. "I must get somebody to help me +or tell me what to do. I can't tell grandmamma; it would only make her +ill, and she wouldn't know what to do any more than I. Ah, I know what I +will do,--I'll tell Captain Kittridge; he was always so kind to me; and +he has been to sea and seen all sorts of men, and Moses won't care so +much perhaps to have him know, because the Captain is such a funny man, +and don't take everything so seriously. Yes, that's it. I'll go right +down to the cove in the morning. God will bring me through, I know He +will;" and the little weary head fell back on the pillow asleep. And as +she slept, a smile settled over her face, perhaps a reflection from the +face of her good angel, who always beholdeth the face of our Father in +Heaven. + + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +A FRIEND IN NEED + + +Mara was so wearied with her night walk and the agitation she had been +through, that once asleep she slept long after the early breakfast hour +of the family. She was surprised on awaking to hear the slow old clock +downstairs striking eight. She hastily jumped up and looked around with +a confused wonder, and then slowly the events of the past night came +back upon her like a remembered dream. She dressed herself quickly, and +went down to find the breakfast things all washed and put away, and Mrs. +Pennel spinning. + +"Why, dear heart," said the old lady, "how came you to sleep so?--I +spoke to you twice, but I could not make you hear." + +"Has Moses been down, grandma?" said Mara, intent on the sole thought in +her heart. + +"Why, yes, dear, long ago,--and cross enough he was; that boy does get +to be a trial,--but come, dear, I've saved some hot cakes for you,--sit +down now and eat your breakfast." + +Mara made a feint of eating what her grandmother with fond officiousness +would put before her, and then rising up she put on her sun-bonnet and +started down toward the cove to find her old friend. + +The queer, dry, lean old Captain had been to her all her life like a +faithful kobold or brownie, an unquestioning servant of all her gentle +biddings. She dared tell him anything without diffidence or +shamefacedness; and she felt that in this trial of her life he might +have in his sea-receptacle some odd old amulet or spell that should be +of power to help her. Instinctively she avoided the house, lest Sally +should see and fly out and seize her. She took a narrow path through the +cedars down to the little boat cove where the old Captain worked so +merrily ten years ago, in the beginning of our story, and where she +found him now, with his coat off, busily planing a board. + +"Wal', now,--if this 'ere don't beat all!" he said, looking up and +seeing her; "why, you're looking after Sally, I s'pose? She's up to the +house." + +"No, Captain Kittridge, I'm come to see _you_." + +"You _be_?" said the Captain, "I swow! if I ain't a lucky feller. But +what's the matter?" he said, suddenly observing her pale face and the +tears in her eyes. "Hain't nothin' bad happened,--hes there?" + +"Oh! Captain Kittridge, something dreadful; and nobody but you can help +me." + +"Want to know, now!" said the Captain, with a grave face. "Well, come +here, now, and sit down, and tell me all about it. Don't you cry, +there's a good girl! Don't, now." + +Mara began her story, and went through with it in a rapid and agitated +manner; and the good Captain listened in a fidgety state of interest, +occasionally relieving his mind by interjecting "Do tell, now!" "I +swan,--if that ar ain't too bad." + +"That ar's rediculous conduct in Atkinson. He ought to be talked to," +said the Captain, when she had finished, and then he whistled and put a +shaving in his mouth, which he chewed reflectively. + +"Don't you be a mite worried, Mara," he said. "You did a great deal +better to come to me than to go to Mr. Sewell or your grand'ther either; +'cause you see these 'ere wild chaps they'll take things from me they +wouldn't from a church-member or a minister. Folks mustn't pull 'em up +with _too_ short a rein,--they must kind o' flatter 'em off. But that ar +Atkinson's too rediculous for anything; and if he don't mind, I'll serve +him out. I know a thing or two about him that I shall shake over his +head if he don't behave. Now I don't think so much of smugglin' as some +folks," said the Captain, lowering his voice to a confidential tone. "I +reely don't, now; but come to goin' off piratin',--and tryin' to put a +young boy up to robbin' his best friends,--why, there ain't no kind o' +sense in that. It's p'ison mean of Atkinson. I shall tell him so, and I +shall talk to Moses." + +"Oh! I'm afraid to have you," said Mara, apprehensively. + +"Why, chickabiddy," said the old Captain, "you don't understand me. I +ain't goin' at him with no sermons,--I shall jest talk to him this way: +Look here now, Moses, I shall say, there's Badger's ship goin' to sail +in a fortnight for China, and they want likely fellers aboard, and I've +got a hundred dollars that I'd like to send on a venture; if you'll take +it and go, why, we'll share the profits. I shall talk like that, you +know. Mebbe I sha'n't let him know what I know, and mebbe I shall; jest +tip him a wink, you know; it depends on circumstances. But bless you, +child, these 'ere fellers ain't none of 'em 'fraid o' me, you see, +'cause they know I know the ropes." + +"And can you make that horrid man let him alone?" said Mara, fearfully. + +"Calculate I can. 'Spect if I's to tell Atkinson a few things I know, +he'd be for bein' scase in our parts. Now, you see, I hain't minded +doin' a small bit o' trade now and then with them ar fellers myself; but +this 'ere," said the Captain, stopping and looking extremely disgusted, +"why, it's contemptible, it's rediculous!" + +"Do you think I'd better tell grandpapa?" said Mara. + +"Don't worry your little head. I'll step up and have a talk with Pennel, +this evening. He knows as well as I that there is times when chaps must +be seen to, and no remarks made. Pennel knows that ar. Why, now, Mis' +Kittridge thinks our boys turned out so well all along of her bringin' +up, and I let her think so; keeps her sort o' in spirits, you see. But +Lord bless ye, child, there's been times with Job, and Sam, and Pass, +and Dass, and Dile, and all on 'em finally, when, if I hadn't jest +pulled a rope here and turned a screw there, and said nothin' to nobody, +they'd a-been all gone to smash. I never told Mis' Kittridge none o' +their didos; bless you, 'twouldn't been o' no use. I never told _them_, +neither; but I jest kind o' worked 'em off, you know; and they's all +putty 'spectable men now, as men go, you know; not like Parson Sewell, +but good, honest mates and ship-masters,--kind o' middlin' people, you +know. It takes a good many o' sich to make up a world, d'ye see." + +"But oh, Captain Kittridge, did any of them use to swear?" said Mara, in +a faltering voice. + +"Wal', they did, consid'able," said the Captain;--then seeing the +trembling of Mara's lip, he added,-- + +"Ef you could a-found this 'ere out any other way, it's most a pity +you'd a-heard him; 'cause he wouldn't never have let out afore you. It +don't do for gals to hear the fellers talk when they's alone, 'cause +fellers,--wal', you see, fellers will be fellers, partic'larly when +they're young. Some on 'em, they never gits over it all their lives +finally." + +"But oh! Captain Kittridge, that talk last night was so dreadfully +wicked! and Moses!--oh, it was dreadful to hear him!" + +"Wal', yes, it was," said the Captain, consolingly; "but don't you cry, +and don't you break your little heart. I expect he'll come all right, +and jine the church one of these days; 'cause there's old Pennel, he +prays,--fact now, I think there's consid'able in some people's prayers, +and he's one of the sort. And you pray, too; and I'm quite sure the good +Lord _must_ hear you. I declare sometimes I wish you'd jest say a good +word to Him for me; I should like to get the hang o' things a little +better than I do, somehow, I reely should. I've gi'n up swearing years +ago. Mis' Kittridge, she broke me o' that, and now I don't never go +further than 'I vum' or 'I swow,' or somethin' o' that sort; but you see +I'm old;--Moses is young; but then he's got eddication and friends, and +he'll come all right. Now you jest see ef he don't!" + +This miscellaneous budget of personal experiences and friendly +consolation which the good Captain conveyed to Mara may possibly make +you laugh, my reader, but the good, ropy brown man was doing his best to +console his little friend; and as Mara looked at him he was almost +glorified in her eyes--he had power to save Moses, and he would do it. +She went home to dinner that day with her heart considerably lightened. +She refrained, in a guilty way, from even looking at Moses, who was +gloomy and moody. + +Mara had from nature a good endowment of that kind of innocent hypocrisy +which is needed as a staple in the lives of women who bridge a thousand +awful chasms with smiling, unconscious looks, and walk, singing and +scattering flowers, over abysses of fear, while their hearts are dying +within them. + +She talked more volubly than was her wont with Mrs. Pennel, and with her +old grandfather; she laughed and seemed in more than usual spirits, and +only once did she look up and catch the gloomy eye of Moses. It had that +murky, troubled look that one may see in the eye of a boy when those +evil waters which cast up mire and dirt have once been stirred in his +soul. They fell under her clear glance, and he made a rapid, impatient +movement, as if it hurt him to be looked at. The evil spirit in boy or +man cannot bear the "touch of celestial temper;" and the sensitiveness +to eyebeams is one of the earliest signs of conscious, inward guilt. + +Mara was relieved, as he flung out of the house after dinner, to see the +long, dry figure of Captain Kittridge coming up and seizing Moses by the +button. From the window she saw the Captain assuming a confidential air +with him; and when they had talked together a few moments, she saw Moses +going with great readiness after him down the road to his house. + +In less than a fortnight, it was settled Moses was to sail for China, +and Mara was deep in the preparations for his outfit. Once she would +have felt this departure as the most dreadful trial of her life. Now it +seemed to her a deliverance for him, and she worked with a cheerful +alacrity, which seemed to Moses more than was proper, considering _he_ +was going away. + +For Moses, like many others of his sex, boy or man, had quietly settled +in his own mind that the whole love of Mara's heart was to be his, to +have and to hold, to use and to draw on, when and as he liked. He +reckoned on it as a sort of inexhaustible, uncounted treasure that was +his own peculiar right and property, and therefore he felt abused at +what he supposed was a disclosure of some deficiency on her part. + +"You seem to be very glad to be rid of me," he said to her in a bitter +tone one day, as she was earnestly busy in her preparations. + +Now the fact was, that Moses had been assiduously making himself +disagreeable to Mara for the fortnight past, by all sorts of unkind +sayings and doings; and he knew it too; yet he felt a right to feel very +much abused at the thought that she could possibly want him to be going. +If she had been utterly desolate about it, and torn her hair and sobbed +and wailed, he would have asked what she could be crying about, and +begged not to be bored with scenes; but as it was, this cheerful +composure was quite unfeeling. + +Now pray don't suppose Moses to be a monster of an uncommon species. We +take him to be an average specimen of a boy of a certain kind of +temperament in the transition period of life. Everything is chaos +within; the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the +flesh, and "light and darkness, and mind and dust, and passion and pure +thoughts, mingle and contend," without end or order. He wondered at +himself sometimes that he could say such cruel things as he did to his +faithful little friend--to one whom, after all, he did love and trust +before all other human beings. + +There is no saying why it is that a man or a boy, not radically +destitute of generous comprehensions, will often cruelly torture and +tyrannize over a woman whom he both loves and reveres, who stands in his +soul in his best hours as the very impersonation of all that is good and +beautiful. It is as if some evil spirit at times possessed him, and +compelled him to utter words which were felt at the moment to be mean +and hateful. Moses often wondered at himself, as he lay awake nights, +how he could have said and done the things he had, and felt miserably +resolved to make it up somehow before he went away; but he did not. + +He could not say, "Mara, I have done wrong," though he every day meant +to do it, and sometimes sat an hour in her presence, feeling murky and +stony, as if possessed by a dumb spirit; then he would get up and fling +stormily out of the house. + +Poor Mara wondered if he really would go without one kind word. She +thought of all the years they had been together, and how he had been her +only thought and love. What had become of her brother?--the Moses that +once she used to know--frank, careless, not ill-tempered, and who +sometimes seemed to love her and think she was the best little girl in +the world? Where was he gone to--this friend and brother of her +childhood, and would he never come back? + +At last came the evening before his parting; the sea-chest was all made +up and packed; and Mara's fingers had been busy with everything, from +more substantial garments down to all those little comforts and nameless +conveniences that only a woman knows how to improvise. Mara thought +certainly she should get a few kind words, as Moses looked it over. But +he only said, "All right;" and then added that "there was a button off +one of the shirts." Mara's busy fingers quickly replaced it, and Moses +was annoyed at the tear that fell on the button. What was she crying for +now? He knew very well, but he felt stubborn and cruel. Afterwards he +lay awake many a night in his berth, and acted this last scene over +differently. He took Mara in his arms and kissed her; he told her she +was his best friend, his good angel, and that he was not worthy to kiss +the hem of her garment; but the next day, when he thought of writing a +letter to her, he didn't, and the good mood passed away. Boys do not +acquire an ease of expression in letter-writing as early as girls, and a +voyage to China furnished opportunities few and far between of sending +letters. + +Now and then, through some sailing ship, came missives which seemed to +Mara altogether colder and more unsatisfactory than they would have done +could she have appreciated the difference between a boy and a girl in +power of epistolary expression; for the power of really representing +one's heart on paper, which is one of the first spring flowers of early +womanhood, is the latest blossom on the slow-growing tree of manhood. To +do Moses justice, these seeming cold letters were often written with a +choking lump in his throat, caused by thinking over his many sins +against his little good angel; but then that past account was so long, +and had so much that it pained him to think of, that he dashed it all +off in the shortest fashion, and said to himself, "One of these days +when I see her I'll make it all up." + +No man--especially one that is living a rough, busy, out-of-doors +life--can form the slightest conception of that veiled and secluded life +which exists in the heart of a sensitive woman, whose sphere is narrow, +whose external diversions are few, and whose mind, therefore, acts by a +continual introversion upon itself. They know nothing how their careless +words and actions are pondered and turned again in weary, quiet hours of +fruitless questioning. What did he mean by this? and what did he intend +by that?--while he, the careless buffalo, meant nothing, or has +forgotten what it was, if he did. Man's utter ignorance of woman's +nature is a cause of a great deal of unsuspected cruelty which he +practices toward her. + +Mara found one or two opportunities of writing to Moses; but her letters +were timid and constrained by a sort of frosty, discouraged sense of +loneliness; and Moses, though he knew he had no earthly right to expect +this to be otherwise, took upon him to feel as an abused individual, +whom nobody loved--whose way in the world was destined to be lonely and +desolate. So when, at the end of three years, he arrived suddenly at +Brunswick in the beginning of winter, and came, all burning with +impatience, to the home at Orr's Island, and found that Mara had gone to +Boston on a visit, he resented it as a personal slight. + +He might have inquired why she should expect him, and whether her whole +life was to be spent in looking out of the window to watch for him. He +might have remembered that he had warned her of his approach by no +letter. But no. "Mara didn't care for him--she had forgotten all about +him--she was having a good time in Boston, just as likely as not with +some train of admirers, and he had been tossing on the stormy ocean, and +she had thought nothing of it." How many things he had meant to say! He +had never felt so good and so affectionate. He would have confessed all +the sins of his life to her, and asked her pardon--and she wasn't there! + +Mrs. Pennel suggested that he might go to Boston after her. + +No, he was not going to do that. He would not intrude on her pleasures +with the memory of a rough, hard-working sailor. He was alone in the +world, and had his own way to make, and so best go at once up among +lumbermen, and cut the timber for the ship that was to carry Caesar and +his fortunes. + +When Mara was informed by a letter from Mrs. Pennel, expressed in the +few brief words in which that good woman generally embodied her +epistolary communications, that Moses had been at home, and gone to +Umbagog without seeing her, she felt at her heart only a little closer +stricture of cold, quiet pain, which had become a habit of her inner +life. + +"He did not love her--he was cold and selfish," said the inner voice. +And faintly she pleaded, in answer, "He is a man--he has seen the +world--and has so much to do and think of, no wonder." + +In fact, during the last three years that had parted them, the great +change of life had been consummated in both. They had parted boy and +girl; they would meet man and woman. The time of this meeting had been +announced. + +And all this is the history of that sigh, so very quiet that Sally +Kittridge never checked the rattling flow of her conversation to observe +it. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +THE BEGINNING OF THE STORY + + +We have in the last three chapters brought up the history of our +characters to the time when our story opens, when Mara and Sally +Kittridge were discussing the expected return of Moses. Sally was +persuaded by Mara to stay and spend the night with her, and did so +without much fear of what her mother would say when she returned; for +though Mrs. Kittridge still made bustling demonstrations of authority, +it was quite evident to every one that the handsome grown-up girl had +got the sceptre into her own hands, and was reigning in the full +confidence of being, in one way or another, able to bring her mother +into all her views. + +So Sally stayed--to have one of those long night-talks in which girls +delight, in the course of which all sorts of intimacies and confidences, +that shun the daylight, open like the night-blooming cereus in strange +successions. One often wonders by daylight at the things one says very +naturally in the dark. + +So the two girls talked about Moses, and Sally dilated upon his +handsome, manly air the one Sunday that he had appeared in Harpswell +meeting-house. + +"He didn't know me at all, if you'll believe it," said Sally. "I was +standing with father when he came out, and he shook hands with him, and +looked at me as if I'd been an entire stranger." + +"I'm not in the least surprised," said Mara; "you're grown so and +altered." + +"Well, now, you'd hardly know him, Mara," said Sally. "He is a man--a +real man; everything about him is different; he holds up his head in +such a proud way. Well, he always did that when he was a boy; but when +he speaks, he has such a deep voice! How boys do alter in a year or +two!" + +"Do you think I have altered much, Sally?" said Mara; "at least, do you +think _he_ would think so?" + +"Why, Mara, you and I have been together so much, I can't tell. We don't +notice what goes on before us every day. I really should like to see +what Moses Pennel will think when he sees you. At any rate, he can't +order you about with such a grand air as he used to when you were +younger." + +"I think sometimes he has quite forgotten about me," said Mara. + +"Well, if I were you, I should put him in mind of myself by one or two +little ways," said Sally. "I'd plague him and tease him. I'd lead him +such a life that he couldn't forget me,--that's what I would." + +"I don't doubt you would, Sally; and he might like you all the better +for it. But you know that sort of thing isn't my way. People must act in +character." + +"Do you know, Mara," said Sally, "I always thought Moses was hateful in +his treatment of you? Now I'd no more marry that fellow than I'd walk +into the fire; but it would be a just punishment for his sins to have to +marry me! Wouldn't I serve him out, though!" + +With which threat of vengeance on her mind Sally Kittridge fell asleep, +while Mara lay awake pondering,--wondering if Moses would come +to-morrow, and what he would be like if he did come. + +The next morning as the two girls were wiping breakfast dishes in a room +adjoining the kitchen, a step was heard on the kitchen-floor, and the +first that Mara knew she found herself lifted from the floor in the +arms of a tall dark-eyed young man, who was kissing her just as if he +had a right to. She knew it must be Moses, but it seemed strange as a +dream, for all she had tried to imagine it beforehand. + +He kissed her over and over, and then holding her off at arm's length, +said, "Why, Mara, you have grown to be a beauty!" + +"And what was she, I'd like to know, when you went away, Mr. Moses?" +said Sally, who could not long keep out of a conversation. "She was +handsome when you were only a great ugly boy." + +"Thank you, Miss Sally!" said Moses, making a profound bow. + +"Thank me for what?" said Sally, with a toss. + +"For your intimation that I am a handsome young man now," said Moses, +sitting with his arm around Mara, and her hand in his. + +And in truth he was as handsome now for a man as he was in the promise +of his early childhood. All the oafishness and surly awkwardness of the +half-boy period was gone. His great black eyes were clear and confident: +his dark hair clustering in short curls round his well-shaped head; his +black lashes, and fine form, and a certain confident ease of manner, set +him off to the greatest advantage. + +Mara felt a peculiar dreamy sense of strangeness at this brother who was +not a brother,--this Moses so different from the one she had known. The +very tone of his voice, which when he left had the uncertain cracked +notes which indicate the unformed man, were now mellowed and settled. +Mara regarded him shyly as he talked, blushed uneasily, and drew away +from his arm around her, as if this handsome, self-confident young man +were being too familiar. In fact, she made apology to go out into the +other room to call Mrs. Pennel. + +Moses looked after her as she went with admiration. "What a little woman +she has grown!" he said, naively. + +"And what did you expect she would grow?" said Sally. "You didn't expect +to find her a girl in short clothes, did you?" + +"Not exactly, Miss Sally," said Moses, turning his attention to her; +"and some other people are changed too." + +"Like enough," said Sally, carelessly. "I should think so, since +somebody never spoke a word to one the Sunday he was at meeting." + +"Oh, you remember that, do you? On my word, Sally"-- + +"Miss Kittridge, if you please, sir," said Sally, turning round with the +air of an empress. + +"Well, then, Miss Kittridge," said Moses, making a bow; "now let me +finish my sentence. I never dreamed who you were." + +"Complimentary," said Sally, pouting. + +"Well, hear me through," said Moses; "you had grown so handsome, Miss +Kittridge." + +"Oh! that indeed! I suppose you mean to say I was a fright when you +left?" + +"Not at all--not at all," said Moses; "but handsome things may grow +handsomer, you know." + +"I don't like flattery," said Sally. + +"I never flatter, Miss Kittridge," said Moses. + +Our young gentleman and young lady of Orr's Island went through with +this customary little lie of civilized society with as much gravity as +if they were practicing in the court of Versailles,--she looking out +from the corner of her eye to watch the effect of her words, and he +laying his hand on his heart in the most edifying gravity. They +perfectly understood one another. + +But, says the reader, seems to me Sally Kittridge does all the talking! +So she does,--so she always will,--for it is her nature to be bright, +noisy, and restless; and one of these girls always overcrows a timid and +thoughtful one, and makes her, for the time, seem dim and faded, as does +rose color when put beside scarlet. + +Sally was a born coquette. It was as natural for her to want to flirt +with every man she saw, as for a kitten to scamper after a pin-ball. +Does the kitten care a fig for the pin-ball, or the dry leaves, which +she whisks, and frisks, and boxes, and pats, and races round and round +after? No; it's nothing but kittenhood; every hair of her fur is alive +with it. Her sleepy green eyes, when she pretends to be dozing, are full +of it; and though she looks wise a moment, and seems resolved to be a +discreet young cat, let but a leaf sway--off she goes again, with a +frisk and a rap. So, though Sally had scolded and flounced about Moses's +inattention to Mara in advance, she contrived even in this first +interview to keep him talking with nobody but herself;--not because she +wanted to draw him from Mara, or meant to; not because she cared a pin +for him; but because it was her nature, as a frisky young cat. And Moses +let himself be drawn, between bantering and contradicting, and jest and +earnest, at some moments almost to forget that Mara was in the room. + +She took her sewing and sat with a pleased smile, sometimes breaking +into the lively flow of conversation, or eagerly appealed to by both +parties to settle some rising quarrel. + +Once, as they were talking, Moses looked up and saw Mara's head, as a +stray sunbeam falling upon the golden hair seemed to make a halo around +her face. Her large eyes were fixed upon him with an expression so +intense and penetrative, that he felt a sort of wincing uneasiness. +"What makes you look at me so, Mara?" he said, suddenly. + +A bright flush came in her cheek as she answered, "I didn't know I was +looking. It all seems so strange to me. I am trying to make out who and +what you are." + +"It's not best to look too deep," Moses said, laughing, but with a +slight shade of uneasiness. + +When Sally, late in the afternoon, declared that she must go home, she +couldn't stay another minute, Moses rose to go with her. + +"What are you getting up for?" she said to Moses, as he took his hat. + +"To go home with you, to be sure." + +"Nobody asked you to," said Sally. + +"I'm accustomed to asking myself," said Moses. + +"Well, I suppose I must have you along," said Sally. "Father will be +glad to see you, of course." + +"You'll be back to tea, Moses," said Mara, "will you not? Grandfather +will be home, and want to see you." + +"Oh, I shall be right back," said Moses, "I have a little business to +settle with Captain Kittridge." + +But Moses, however, did stay at tea with Mrs. Kittridge, who looked +graciously at him through the bows of her black horn spectacles, having +heard her liege lord observe that Moses was a smart chap, and had done +pretty well in a money way. + +How came he to stay? Sally told him every other minute to go; and then +when he had got fairly out of the door, called him back to tell him that +there was something she had heard about him. And Moses of course came +back; wanted to know what it was; and couldn't be told, it was a secret; +and then he would be ordered off, and reminded that he promised to go +straight home; and then when he got a little farther off she called +after him a second time, to tell him that he would be very much +surprised if he knew how she found it out, etc., etc.,--till at last tea +being ready, there was no reason why he shouldn't have a cup. And so it +was sober moonrise before Moses found himself going home. + +"Hang that girl!" he said to himself; "don't she know what she's about, +though?" + +There our hero was mistaken. Sally never did know what she was +about,--had no plan or purpose more than a blackbird; and when Moses was +gone laughed to think how many times she had made him come back. + +"Now, confound it all," said Moses, "I care more for our little Mara +than a dozen of her; and what have I been fooling all this time +for?--now Mara will think I don't love her." + +And, in fact, our young gentleman rather set his heart on the sensation +he was going to make when he got home. It is flattering, after all, to +feel one's power over a susceptible nature; and Moses, remembering how +entirely and devotedly Mara had loved him all through childhood, never +doubted but he was the sole possessor of uncounted treasure in her +heart, which he could develop at his leisure and use as he pleased. He +did not calculate for one force which had grown up in the meanwhile +between them,--and that was the power of womanhood. He did not know the +intensity of that kind of pride, which is the very life of the female +nature, and which is most vivid and vigorous in the most timid and +retiring. + +Our little Mara was tender, self-devoting, humble, and religious, but +she was woman after all to the tips of her fingers,--quick to feel +slights, and determined with the intensest determination, that no man +should wrest from her one of those few humble rights and privileges, +which Nature allows to woman. Something swelled and trembled in her when +she felt the confident pressure of that bold arm around her waist,--like +the instinct of a wild bird to fly. Something in the deep, manly voice, +the determined, self-confident air, aroused a vague feeling of defiance +and resistance in her which she could scarcely explain to herself. Was +he to assume a right to her in this way without even asking? When he +did not come to tea nor long after, and Mrs. Pennel and her grandfather +wondered, she laughed, and said gayly,-- + +"Oh, he knows he'll have time enough to see me. Sally seems more like a +stranger." + +But when Moses came home after moonrise, determined to go and console +Mara for his absence, he was surprised to hear the sound of a rapid and +pleasant conversation, in which a masculine and feminine voice were +intermingled in a lively duet. Coming a little nearer, he saw Mara +sitting knitting in the doorway, and a very good-looking young man +seated on a stone at her feet, with his straw hat flung on the ground, +while he was looking up into her face, as young men often do into pretty +faces seen by moonlight. Mara rose and introduced Mr. Adams of Boston to +Mr. Moses Pennel. + +Moses measured the young man with his eye as if he could have shot him +with a good will. And his temper was not at all bettered as he observed +that he had the easy air of a man of fashion and culture, and learned by +a few moments of the succeeding conversation, that the acquaintance had +commenced during Mara's winter visit to Boston. + +"I was staying a day or two at Mr. Sewell's," he said, carelessly, "and +the night was so fine I couldn't resist the temptation to row over." + +It was now Moses's turn to listen to a conversation in which he could +bear little part, it being about persons and places and things +unfamiliar to him; and though he could give no earthly reason why the +conversation was not the most proper in the world,--yet he found that it +made him angry. + +In the pauses, Mara inquired, prettily, how he found the Kittridges, and +reproved him playfully for staying, in despite of his promise to come +home. Moses answered with an effort to appear easy and playful, that +there was no reason, it appeared, to hurry on her account, since she +had been so pleasantly engaged. + +"That is true," said Mara, quietly; "but then grandpapa and grandmamma +expected you, and they have gone to bed, as you know they always do +after tea." + +"They'll keep till morning, I suppose," said Moses, rather gruffly. + +"Oh yes; but then as you had been gone two or three months, naturally +they wanted to see a little of you at first." + +The stranger now joined in the conversation, and began talking with +Moses about his experiences in foreign parts, in a manner which showed a +man of sense and breeding. Moses had a jealous fear of people of +breeding,--an apprehension lest they should look down on one whose life +had been laid out of the course of their conventional ideas; and +therefore, though he had sufficient ability and vigor of mind to acquit +himself to advantage in this conversation, it gave him all the while a +secret uneasiness. After a few moments, he rose up moodily, and saying +that he was very much fatigued, he went into the house to retire. + +Mr. Adams rose to go also, and Moses might have felt in a more Christian +frame of mind, had he listened to the last words of the conversation +between him and Mara. + +"Do you remain long in Harpswell?" she asked. + +"That depends on circumstances," he replied. "If I do, may I be +permitted to visit you?" + +"As a friend--yes," said Mara; "I shall always be happy to see you." + +"No more?" + +"No more," replied Mara. + +"I had hoped," he said, "that you would reconsider." + +"It is impossible," said she; and soft voices can pronounce that word, +_impossible_, in a very fateful and decisive manner. + +"Well, God bless you, then, Miss Lincoln," he said, and was gone. + +Mara stood in the doorway and saw him loosen his boat from its moorings +and float off in the moonlight, with a long train of silver sparkles +behind. + +A moment after Moses was looking gloomily over her shoulder. + +"Who is that puppy?" he said. + +"He is not a puppy, but a very fine young man," said Mara. + +"Well, that very fine young man, then?" + +"I thought I told you. He is a Mr. Adams of Boston, and a distant +connection of the Sewells. I met him when I was visiting at Judge +Sewell's in Boston." + +"You seemed to be having a very pleasant time together?" + +"We were," said Mara, quietly. + +"It's a pity I came home as I did. I'm sorry I interrupted you," said +Moses, with a sarcastic laugh. + +"You didn't interrupt us; he had been here almost two hours." + +Now Mara saw plainly enough that Moses was displeased and hurt, and had +it been in the days of her fourteenth summer, she would have thrown her +arms around his neck, and said, "Moses, I don't care a fig for that man, +and I love you better than all the world." But this the young lady of +eighteen would not do; so she wished him good-night very prettily, and +pretended not to see anything about it. + +Mara was as near being a saint as human dust ever is; but--she was a +woman saint; and therefore may be excused for a little gentle +vindictiveness. She was, in a merciful way, rather glad that Moses had +gone to bed dissatisfied, and rather glad that he did not know what she +might have told him--quite resolved that he should not know at present. +Was he to know that she liked nobody so much as him? Not he, unless he +loved her more than all the world, and said so first. Mara was resolved +upon that. He might go where he liked--flirt with whom he liked--come +back as late as he pleased; never would she, by word or look, give him +reason to think she cared. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +DESIRES AND DREAMS + + +Moses passed rather a restless and uneasy night on his return to the +home-roof which had sheltered his childhood. All his life past, and all +his life expected, seemed to boil and seethe and ferment in his +thoughts, and to go round and round in never-ceasing circles before him. + +Moses was _par excellence_ proud, ambitious, and willful. These words, +generally supposed to describe positive vices of the mind, in fact are +only the overaction of certain very valuable portions of our nature, +since one can conceive all three to raise a man immensely in the scale +of moral being, simply by being applied to right objects. He who is too +proud even to admit a mean thought--who is ambitious only of ideal +excellence--who has an inflexible will only in the pursuit of truth and +righteousness--may be a saint and a hero. + +But Moses was neither a saint nor a hero, but an undeveloped chaotic +young man, whose pride made him sensitive and restless; whose ambition +was fixed on wealth and worldly success; whose willfulness was for the +most part a blind determination to compass his own points, with the +leave of Providence or without. There was no God in his estimate of +life--and a sort of secret unsuspected determination at the bottom of +his heart that there should be none. He feared religion, from a +suspicion which he entertained that it might hamper some of his future +schemes. He did not wish to put himself under its rules, lest he might +find them in some future time inconveniently strict. + +With such determinations and feelings, the Bible--necessarily an +excessively uninteresting book to him--he never read, and satisfied +himself with determining in a general way that it was not worth reading, +and, as was the custom with many young men in America at that period, +announced himself as a skeptic, and seemed to value himself not a little +on the distinction. Pride in skepticism is a peculiar distinction of +young men. It takes years and maturity to make the discovery that the +power of faith is nobler than the power of doubt; and that there is a +celestial wisdom in the ingenuous propensity to trust, which belongs to +honest and noble natures. Elderly skeptics generally regard their +unbelief as a misfortune. + +Not that Moses was, after all, without "the angel in him." He had a good +deal of the susceptibility to poetic feeling, the power of vague and +dreamy aspiration, the longing after the good and beautiful, which is +God's witness in the soul. A noble sentiment in poetry, a fine scene in +nature, had power to bring tears in his great dark eyes, and he had, +under the influence of such things, brief inspired moments in which he +vaguely longed to do, or be, something grand or noble. But this, +however, was something apart from the real purpose of his life,--a sort +of voice crying in the wilderness,--to which he gave little heed. +Practically, he was determined with all his might, to have a good time +in this life, whatever another might be,--if there were one; and that he +would do it by the strength of his right arm. Wealth he saw to be the +lamp of Aladdin, which commanded all other things. And the pursuit of +wealth was therefore the first step in his programme. + +As for plans of the heart and domestic life, Moses was one of that very +common class who had more desire to be loved than power of loving. His +cravings and dreams were not for somebody to be devoted to, but for +somebody who should be devoted to him. And, like most people who +possess this characteristic, he mistook it for an affectionate +disposition. + +Now the chief treasure of his heart had always been his little sister +Mara, chiefly from his conviction that he was the one absorbing thought +and love of her heart. He had never figured life to himself otherwise +than with Mara at his side, his unquestioning, devoted friend. Of course +he and his plans, his ways and wants, would always be in the future, as +they always had been, her sole thought. These sleeping partnerships in +the interchange of affection, which support one's heart with a basis of +uncounted wealth, and leave one free to come and go, and buy and sell, +without exaction or interference, are a convenience certainly, and the +loss of them in any way is like the sudden breaking of a bank in which +all one's deposits are laid. + +It had never occurred to Moses how or in what capacity he should always +stand banker to the whole wealth of love that there was in Mara's heart, +and what provision he should make on his part for returning this +incalculable debt. But the interview of this evening had raised a new +thought in his mind. Mara, as he saw that day, was no longer a little +girl in a pink sun-bonnet. She was a woman,--a little one, it is true, +but every inch a woman,--and a woman invested with a singular poetic +charm of appearance, which, more than beauty, has the power of awakening +feeling in the other sex. + +He felt in himself, in the experience of that one day, that there was +something subtle and veiled about her, which set the imagination at +work; that the wistful, plaintive expression of her dark eyes, and a +thousand little shy and tremulous movements of her face, affected him +more than the most brilliant of Sally Kittridge's sprightly sallies. +Yes, there would be people falling in love with her fast enough, he +thought even here, where she is as secluded as a pearl in an +oyster-shell,--it seems means were found to come after her,--and then +all the love of her heart, that priceless love, would go to another. + +Mara would be absorbed in some one else, would love some one else, as he +knew she could, with heart and soul and mind and strength. When he +thought of this, it affected him much as it would if one were turned out +of a warm, smiling apartment into a bleak December storm. What should he +do, if that treasure which he had taken most for granted in all his +valuations of life should suddenly be found to belong to another? Who +was this fellow that seemed so free to visit her, and what had passed +between them? Was Mara in love with him, or going to be? There is no +saying how the consideration of this question enhanced in our hero's +opinion both her beauty and all her other good qualities. + +Such a brave little heart! such a good, clear little head! and such a +pretty hand and foot! She was always so cheerful, so unselfish, so +devoted! When had he ever seen her angry, except when she had taken up +some childish quarrel of his, and fought for him like a little Spartan? +Then she was pious, too. She was born religious, thought our hero, who, +in common with many men professing skepticism for their own particular +part, set a great value on religion in that unknown future person whom +they are fond of designating in advance as "my wife." Yes, Moses meant +his wife should be pious, and pray for him, while he did as he pleased. + +"Now there's that witch of a Sally Kittridge," he said to himself; "I +wouldn't have such a girl for a wife. Nothing to her but foam and +frisk,--no heart more than a bobolink! But isn't she amusing? By George! +isn't she, though?" + +"But," thought Moses, "it's time I settled this matter who is to be my +wife. I won't marry till I'm rich,--that's flat. My wife isn't to rub +and grub. So at it I must go to raise the wind. I wonder if old Sewell +really does know anything about my parents. Miss Emily would have it +that there was some mystery that he had the key of; but I never could +get any thing from him. He always put me off in such a smooth way that I +couldn't tell whether he did or he didn't. But, now, supposing I have +relatives, family connections, then who knows but what there may be +property coming to me? That's an idea worth looking after, surely." + +There's no saying with what vividness ideas and images go through one's +wakeful brain when the midnight moon is making an exact shadow of your +window-sash, with panes of light, on your chamber-floor. How vividly we +all have loved and hated and planned and hoped and feared and desired +and dreamed, as we tossed and turned to and fro upon such watchful, +still nights. In the stillness, the tide upon one side of the Island +replied to the dash on the other side in unbroken symphony, and Moses +began to remember all the stories gossips had told him of how he had +floated ashore there, like a fragment of tropical seaweed borne landward +by a great gale. He positively wondered at himself that he had never +thought of it more, and the more he meditated, the more mysterious and +inexplicable he felt. Then he had heard Miss Roxy once speaking +something about a bracelet, he was sure he had; but afterwards it was +hushed up, and no one seemed to know anything about it when he inquired. +But in those days he was a boy,--he was nobody,--now he was a young man. +He could go to Mr. Sewell, and demand as his right a fair answer to any +questions he might ask. If he found, as was quite likely, that there was +nothing to be known, his mind would be thus far settled,--he should +trust only to his own resources. + +So far as the state of the young man's finances were concerned, it +would be considered in those simple times and regions an auspicious +beginning of life. The sum intrusted to him by Captain Kittridge had +been more than doubled by the liberality of Zephaniah Pennel, and Moses +had traded upon it in foreign parts with a skill and energy that brought +a very fair return, and gave him, in the eyes of the shrewd, thrifty +neighbors, the prestige of a young man who was marked for success in the +world. + +He had already formed an advantageous arrangement with his grandfather +and Captain Kittridge, by which a ship was to be built, which he should +command, and thus the old Saturday afternoon dream of their childhood be +fulfilled. As he thought of it, there arose in his mind a picture of +Mara, with her golden hair and plaintive eyes and little white hands, +reigning as a fairy queen in the captain's cabin, with a sort of wish to +carry her off and make sure that no one else ever should get her from +him. + +But these midnight dreams were all sobered down by the plain +matter-of-fact beams of the morning sun, and nothing remained of +immediate definite purpose except the resolve, which came strongly upon +Moses as he looked across the blue band of Harpswell Bay, that he would +go that morning and have a talk with Mr. Sewell. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +MISS EMILY + + +Miss Roxy Toothache was seated by the window of the little keeping-room +where Miss Emily Sewell sat on every-day occasions. Around her were the +insignia of her power and sway. Her big tailor's goose was heating +between Miss Emily's bright brass fire-irons; her great pin-cushion was +by her side, bristling with pins of all sizes, and with broken needles +thriftily made into pins by heads of red sealing-wax, and with needles +threaded with all varieties of cotton, silk, and linen; her scissors +hung martially by her side; her black bombazette work-apron was on; and +the expression of her iron features was that of deep responsibility, for +she was making the minister a new Sunday vest! + +The good soul looks not a day older than when we left her, ten years +ago. Like the gray, weather-beaten rocks of her native shore, her strong +features had an unchangeable identity beyond that of anything fair and +blooming. There was of course no chance for a gray streak in her stiff, +uncompromising mohair frisette, which still pushed up her cap-border +bristlingly as of old, and the clear, high winds and bracing atmosphere +of that rough coast kept her in an admirable state of preservation. + +Miss Emily had now and then a white hair among her soft, pretty brown +ones, and looked a little thinner; but the round, bright spot of bloom +on each cheek was there just as of yore,--and just as of yore she was +thinking of her brother, and filling her little head with endless +calculations to keep him looking fresh and respectable, and his +housekeeping comfortable and easy, on very limited means. She was now +officiously and anxiously attending on Miss Roxy, who was in the midst +of the responsible operation which should conduce greatly to this end. + +"Does that twist work well?" she said, nervously; "because I believe +I've got some other upstairs in my India box." + +Miss Roxy surveyed the article; bit a fragment off, as if she meant to +taste it; threaded a needle and made a few cabalistical stitches; and +then pronounced, _ex cathedra_, that it would do. Miss Emily gave a sigh +of relief. After buttons and tapes and linings, and various other items +had been also discussed, the conversation began to flow into general +channels. + +"Did you know Moses Pennel had got home from Umbagog?" said Miss Roxy. + +"Yes. Captain Kittridge told brother so this morning. I wonder he +doesn't call over to see us." + +"Your brother took a sight of interest in that boy," said Miss Roxy. "I +was saying to Ruey, this morning, that if Moses Pennel ever did turn out +well, he ought to have a large share of the credit." + +"Brother always did feel a peculiar interest in him; it was such a +strange providence that seemed to cast in his lot among us," said Miss +Emily. + +"As sure as you live, there he is a-coming to the front door," said Miss +Roxy. + +"Dear me," said Miss Emily, "and here I have on this old faded chintz. +Just so sure as one puts on any old rag, and thinks nobody will come, +company is sure to call." + +"Law, I'm sure I shouldn't think of calling him company," said Miss +Roxy. + +A rap at the door put an end to this conversation, and very soon Miss +Emily introduced our hero into the little sitting-room, in the midst of +a perfect stream of apologies relating to her old dress and the +littered condition of the sitting-room, for Miss Emily held to the +doctrine of those who consider any sign of human occupation and +existence in a room as being disorder--however reputable and respectable +be the cause of it. + +"Well, really," she said, after she had seated Moses by the fire, "how +time does pass, to be sure; it don't seem more than yesterday since you +used to come with your Latin books, and now here you are a grown man! I +must run and tell Mr. Sewell. He will be so glad to see you." + +Mr. Sewell soon appeared from his study in morning-gown and slippers, +and seemed heartily responsive to the proposition which Moses soon made +to him to have some private conversation with him in his study. + +"I declare," said Miss Emily, as soon as the study-door had closed upon +her brother and Moses, "what a handsome young man he is! and what a +beautiful way he has with him!--so deferential! A great many young men +nowadays seem to think nothing of their minister; but he comes to seek +advice. Very proper. It isn't every young man that appreciates the +privilege of having elderly friends. I declare, what a beautiful couple +he and Mara Lincoln would make! Don't Providence seem in a peculiar way +to have designed them for each other?" + +"I hope not," said Miss Roxy, with her grimmest expression. + +"You don't! Why not?" + +"I never liked him," said Miss Roxy, who had possessed herself of her +great heavy goose, and was now thumping and squeaking it emphatically on +the press-board. "She's a thousand times too good for Moses +Pennel,"--thump. "I ne'er had no faith in him,"--thump. "He's dreffle +unstiddy,"--thump. "He's handsome, but he knows it,"--thump. "He won't +never love nobody so much as he does himself,"--thump, _fortissimo con +spirito_. + +"Well, really now, Miss Roxy, you mustn't always remember the sins of +his youth. Boys must sow their wild oats. He was unsteady for a while, +but now everybody says he's doing well; and as to his knowing he's +handsome, and all that, I don't see as he does. See how polite and +deferential he was to us all, this morning; and he spoke so handsomely +to you." + +"I don't want none of his politeness," said Miss Roxy, inexorably; "and +as to Mara Lincoln, she might have better than him any day. Miss Badger +was a-tellin' Captain Brown, Sunday noon, that she was very much admired +in Boston." + +"So she was," said Miss Emily, bridling. "I never reveal secrets, or I +might tell something,--but there has been a young man,--but I promised +not to speak of it, and I sha'n't." + +"If you mean Mr. Adams," said Miss Roxy, "you needn't worry about +keepin' that secret, 'cause that ar was all talked over atween meetin's +a-Sunday noon; for Mis' Kittridge she used to know his aunt Jerushy, her +that married Solomon Peters, and Mis' Captain Badger she says that he +has a very good property, and is a professor in the Old South church in +Boston." + +"Dear me," said Miss Emily, "how things do get about!" + +"People will talk, there ain't no use trying to help it," said Miss +Roxy; "but it's strongly borne in on my mind that it ain't Adams, nor 't +ain't Moses Pennel that's to marry her. I've had peculiar exercises of +mind about that ar child,--well I have;" and Miss Roxy pulled a large +spotted bandanna handkerchief out of her pocket, and blew her nose like +a trumpet, and then wiped the withered corners of her eyes, which were +humid as some old Orr's Island rock wet with sea-spray. + +Miss Emily had a secret love of romancing. It was one of the +recreations of her quiet, monotonous life to build air-castles, which +she furnished regardless of expense, and in which she set up at +housekeeping her various friends and acquaintances, and she had always +been bent on weaving a romance on the history of Mara and Moses Pennel. +The good little body had done her best to second Mr. Sewell's attempts +toward the education of the children. It was little busy Miss Emily who +persuaded honest Zephaniah and Mary Pennel that talents such as Mara's +ought to be cultivated, and that ended in sending her to Miss Plucher's +school in Portland. There her artistic faculties were trained into +creating funereal monuments out of chenille embroidery, fully equal to +Miss Emily's own; also to painting landscapes, in which the ground and +all the trees were one unvarying tint of blue-green; and also to +creating flowers of a new and particular construction, which, as Sally +Kittridge remarked, were pretty, but did not look like anything in +heaven or earth. Mara had obediently and patiently done all these +things; and solaced herself with copying flowers and birds and +landscapes as near as possible like nature, as a recreation from these +more dignified toils. + +Miss Emily also had been the means of getting Mara invited to Boston, +where she saw some really polished society, and gained as much knowledge +of the forms of artificial life as a nature so wholly and strongly +individual could obtain. So little Miss Emily regarded Mara as her +godchild, and was intent on finishing her up into a romance in real +life, of which a handsome young man, who had been washed ashore in a +shipwreck, should be the hero. + +What would she have said could she have heard the conversation that was +passing in her brother's study? Little could she dream that the mystery, +about which she had timidly nibbled for years, was now about to be +unrolled;--but it was even so. But, upon what she does not see, good +reader, you and I, following invisibly on tiptoe, will make our +observations. + +When Moses was first ushered into Mr. Sewell's study, and found himself +quite alone, with the door shut, his heart beat so that he fancied the +good man must hear it. He knew well what he wanted and meant to say, but +he found in himself all that shrinking and nervous repugnance which +always attends the proposing of any decisive question. + +"I thought it proper," he began, "that I should call and express my +sense of obligation to you, sir, for all the kindness you showed me when +a boy. I'm afraid in those thoughtless days I did not seem to appreciate +it so much as I do now." + +As Moses said this, the color rose in his cheeks, and his fine eyes grew +moist with a sort of subdued feeling that made his face for the moment +more than usually beautiful. + +Mr. Sewell looked at him with an expression of peculiar interest, which +seemed to have something almost of pain in it, and answered with a +degree of feeling more than he commonly showed,-- + +"It has been a pleasure to me to do anything I could for you, my young +friend. I only wish it could have been more. I congratulate you on your +present prospects in life. You have perfect health; you have energy and +enterprise; you are courageous and self-reliant, and, I trust, your +habits are pure and virtuous. It only remains that you add to all this +that fear of the Lord which is the beginning of wisdom." + +Moses bowed his head respectfully, and then sat silent a moment, as if +he were looking through some cloud where he vainly tried to discover +objects. + +Mr. Sewell continued, gravely,-- + +"You have the greatest reason to bless the kind Providence which has +cast your lot in such a family, in such a community. I have had some +means in my youth of comparing other parts of the country with our New +England, and it is my opinion that a young man could not ask a better +introduction into life than the wholesome nurture of a Christian family +in our favored land." + +"Mr. Sewell," said Moses, raising his head, and suddenly looking him +straight in the eyes, "do you know anything of my family?" + +The question was so point-blank and sudden, that for a moment Mr. Sewell +made a sort of motion as if he dodged a pistol-shot, and then his face +assumed an expression of grave thoughtfulness, while Moses drew a long +breath. It was out,--the question had been asked. + +"My son," replied Mr. Sewell, "it has always been my intention, when you +had arrived at years of discretion, to make you acquainted with all that +I know or suspect in regard to your life. I trust that when I tell you +all I do know, you will see that I have acted for the best in the +matter. It has been my study and my prayer to do so." + +Mr. Sewell then rose, and unlocking the cabinet, of which we have before +made mention, in his apartment, drew forth a very yellow and time-worn +package of papers, which he untied. From these he selected one which +enveloped an old-fashioned miniature case. + +"I am going to show you," he said, "what only you and my God know that I +possess. I have not looked at it now for ten years, but I have no doubt +that it is the likeness of your mother." + +Moses took it in his hand, and for a few moments there came a mist over +his eyes,--he could not see clearly. He walked to the window as if +needing a clearer light. + +What he saw was a painting of a beautiful young girl, with large +melancholy eyes, and a clustering abundance of black, curly hair. The +face was of a beautiful, clear oval, with that warm brunette tint in +which the Italian painters delight. The black eyebrows were strongly +and clearly defined, and there was in the face an indescribable +expression of childish innocence and shyness, mingled with a kind of +confiding frankness, that gave the picture the charm which sometimes +fixes itself in faces for which we involuntarily make a history. She was +represented as simply attired in a white muslin, made low in the neck, +and the hands and arms were singularly beautiful. The picture, as Moses +looked at it, seemed to stand smiling at him with a childish grace,--a +tender, ignorant innocence which affected him deeply. + +"My young friend," said Mr. Sewell, "I have written all that I know of +the original of this picture, and the reasons I have for thinking her +your mother. + +"You will find it all in this paper, which, if I had been providentially +removed, was to have been given you in your twenty-first year. You will +see in the delicate nature of the narrative that it could not properly +have been imparted to you till you had arrived at years of +understanding. I trust when you know all that you will be satisfied with +the course I have pursued. You will read it at your leisure, and after +reading I shall be happy to see you again." + +Moses took the package, and after exchanging salutations with Mr. +Sewell, hastily left the house and sought his boat. + +When one has suddenly come into possession of a letter or paper in which +is known to be hidden the solution of some long-pondered secret, of the +decision of fate with regard to some long-cherished desire, who has not +been conscious of a sort of pain,--an unwillingness at once to know what +is therein? We turn the letter again and again, we lay it by and return +to it, and defer from moment to moment the opening of it. So Moses did +not sit down in the first retired spot to ponder the paper. He put it +in the breast pocket of his coat, and then, taking up his oars, rowed +across the bay. He did not land at the house, but passed around the +south point of the Island, and rowed up the other side to seek a +solitary retreat in the rocks, which had always been a favorite with him +in his early days. + +The shores of the Island, as we have said, are a precipitous wall of +rock, whose long, ribbed ledges extend far out into the sea. At high +tide these ledges are covered with the smooth blue sea quite up to the +precipitous shore. There was a place, however, where the rocky shore +shelved over, forming between two ledges a sort of grotto, whose smooth +floor of shells and many-colored pebbles was never wet by the rising +tide. It had been the delight of Moses when a boy, to come here and +watch the gradual rise of the tide till the grotto was entirely cut off +from all approach, and then to look out in a sort of hermit-like +security over the open ocean that stretched before him. Many an hour he +had sat there and dreamed of all the possible fortunes that might be +found for him when he should launch away into that blue smiling +futurity. + +It was now about half-tide, and Moses left his boat and made his way +over the ledge of rocks toward his retreat. They were all shaggy and +slippery with yellow seaweeds, with here and there among them wide +crystal pools, where purple and lilac and green mosses unfolded their +delicate threads, and thousands of curious little shell-fish were +tranquilly pursuing their quiet life. The rocks where the pellucid water +lay were in some places crusted with barnacles, which were opening and +shutting the little white scaly doors of their tiny houses, and drawing +in and out those delicate pink plumes which seem to be their nerves of +enjoyment. Moses and Mara had rambled and played here many hours of +their childhood, amusing themselves with catching crabs and young +lobsters and various little fish for these rocky aquariums, and then +studying at their leisure their various ways. Now he had come hither a +man, to learn the secret of his life. + +Moses stretched himself down on the clean pebbly shore of the grotto, +and drew forth Mr. Sewell's letter. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +DOLORES + + +Mr. Sewell's letter ran as follows:-- + +MY DEAR YOUNG FRIEND,--It has always been my intention when you arrived +at years of maturity to acquaint you with some circumstances which have +given me reason to conjecture your true parentage, and to let you know +what steps I have taken to satisfy my own mind in relation to these +conjectures. In order to do this, it will be necessary for me to go back +to the earlier years of my life, and give you the history of some +incidents which are known to none of my most intimate friends. I trust I +may rely on your honor that they will ever remain as secrets with you. + +I graduated from Harvard University in ----. At the time I was suffering +somewhat from an affection of the lungs, which occasioned great alarm to +my mother, many of whose family had died of consumption. In order to +allay her uneasiness, and also for the purpose of raising funds for the +pursuit of my professional studies, I accepted a position as tutor in +the family of a wealthy gentleman at St. Augustine, in Florida. + +I cannot do justice to myself,--to the motives which actuated me in the +events which took place in this family, without speaking with the most +undisguised freedom of the character of all the parties with whom I was +connected. + +Don Jose Mendoza was a Spanish gentleman of large property, who had +emigrated from the Spanish West Indies to Florida, bringing with him an +only daughter, who had been left an orphan by the death of her mother +at a very early age. He brought to this country a large number of +slaves;--and shortly after his arrival, married an American lady: a +widow with three children. By her he had four other children. And thus +it will appear that the family was made up of such a variety of elements +as only the most judicious care could harmonize. But the character of +the father and mother was such that judicious care was a thing not to be +expected of either. + +Don Jose was extremely ignorant and proud, and had lived a life of the +grossest dissipation. Habits of absolute authority in the midst of a +community of a very low moral standard had produced in him all the worst +vices of despots. He was cruel, overbearing, and dreadfully passionate. +His wife was a woman who had pretensions to beauty, and at times could +make herself agreeable, and even fascinating, but she was possessed of a +temper quite as violent and ungoverned as his own. + +Imagine now two classes of slaves, the one belonging to the mistress, +and the other brought into the country by the master, and each animated +by a party spirit and jealousy;--imagine children of different +marriages, inheriting from their parents violent tempers and stubborn +wills, flattered and fawned on by slaves, and alternately petted or +stormed at, now by this parent and now by that, and you will have some +idea of the task which I undertook in being tutor in this family. + +I was young and fearless in those days, as you are now, and the +difficulties of the position, instead of exciting apprehension, only +awakened the spirit of enterprise and adventure. + +The whole arrangements of the household, to me fresh from the simplicity +and order of New England, had a singular and wild sort of novelty which +was attractive rather than otherwise. I was well recommended in the +family by an influential and wealthy gentleman of Boston, who +represented my family, as indeed it was, as among the oldest and most +respectable of Boston, and spoke in such terms of me, personally, as I +should not have ventured to use in relation to myself. When I arrived, I +found that two or three tutors, who had endeavored to bear rule in this +tempestuous family, had thrown up the command after a short trial, and +that the parents felt some little apprehension of not being able to +secure the services of another,--a circumstance which I did not fail to +improve in making my preliminary arrangements. I assumed an air of grave +hauteur, was very exacting in all my requisitions and stipulations, and +would give no promise of doing more than to give the situation a +temporary trial. I put on an air of supreme indifference as to my +continuance, and acted in fact rather on the assumption that I should +confer a favor by remaining. + +In this way I succeeded in obtaining at the outset a position of more +respect and deference than had been enjoyed by any of my predecessors. I +had a fine apartment, a servant exclusively devoted to me, a horse for +riding, and saw myself treated among the servants as a person of +consideration and distinction. + +Don Jose and his wife both had in fact a very strong desire to retain my +services, when after the trial of a week or two, it was found that I +really could make their discordant and turbulent children to some extent +obedient and studious during certain portions of the day; and in fact I +soon acquired in the whole family that ascendancy which a well-bred +person who respects himself, and can keep his temper, must have over +passionate and undisciplined natures. + +I became the receptacle of the complaints of all, and a sort of +confidential adviser. Don Jose imparted to me with more frankness than +good taste his chagrins with regard to his wife's indolence, +ill-temper, and bad management, and his wife in turn omitted no +opportunity to vent complaints against her husband for similar reasons. +I endeavored, to the best of my ability, to act a friendly part by both. +It never was in my nature to see anything that needed to be done without +trying to do it, and it was impossible to work at all without becoming +so interested in my work as to do far more than I had agreed to do. I +assisted Don Jose about many of his affairs; brought his neglected +accounts into order; and suggested from time to time arrangements which +relieved the difficulties which had been brought on by disorder and +neglect. In fact, I became, as he said, quite a necessary of life to +him. + +In regard to the children, I had a more difficult task. The children of +Don Jose by his present wife had been systematically stimulated by the +negroes into a chronic habit of dislike and jealousy toward her children +by a former husband. On the slightest pretext, they were constantly +running to their father with complaints; and as the mother warmly +espoused the cause of her first children, criminations and +recriminations often convulsed the whole family. + +In ill-regulated families in that region, the care of the children is +from the first in the hands of half-barbarized negroes, whose power of +moulding and assimilating childish minds is peculiar, so that the +teacher has to contend constantly with a savage element in the children +which seems to have been drawn in with the mother's milk. It is, in a +modified way, something the same result as if the child had formed its +manners in Dahomey or on the coast of Guinea. In the fierce quarrels +which were carried on between the children of this family, I had +frequent occasion to observe this strange, savage element, which +sometimes led to expressions and actions which would seem incredible in +civilized society. + +The three children by Madame Mendoza's former husband were two girls of +sixteen and eighteen and a boy of fourteen. The four children of the +second marriage consisted of three boys and a daughter,--the eldest +being not more than thirteen. + +The natural capacity of all the children was good, although, from +self-will and indolence, they had grown up in a degree of ignorance +which could not have been tolerated except in a family living an +isolated plantation life in the midst of barbarized dependents. Savage +and untaught and passionate as they were, the work of teaching them was +not without its interest to me. A power of control was with me a natural +gift; and then that command of temper which is the common attribute of +well-trained persons in the Northern states, was something so singular +in this family as to invest its possessor with a certain awe; and my +calm, energetic voice, and determined manner, often acted as a charm on +their stormy natures. + +But there was one member of the family of whom I have not yet +spoken,--and yet all this letter is about her,--the daughter of Don Jose +by his first marriage. Poor Dolores! poor child! God grant she may have +entered into his rest! + +I need not describe her. You have seen her picture. And in the wild, +rude, discordant family, she always reminded me of the words, "a lily +among thorns." She was in her nature unlike all the rest, and, I may +say, unlike any one I ever saw. She seemed to live a lonely kind of life +in this disorderly household, often marked out as the object of the +spites and petty tyrannies of both parties. She was regarded with bitter +hatred and jealousy by Madame Mendoza, who was sure to visit her with +unsparing bitterness and cruelty after the occasional demonstrations of +fondness she received from her father. Her exquisite beauty and the +gentle softness of her manners made her such a contrast to her sisters +as constantly excited their ill-will. Unlike them all, she was +fastidiously neat in her personal habits, and orderly in all the little +arrangements of life. + +She seemed to me in this family to be like some shy, beautiful pet +creature in the hands of rude, unappreciated owners, hunted from quarter +to quarter, and finding rest only by stealth. Yet she seemed to have no +perception of the harshness and cruelty with which she was treated. She +had grown up with it; it was the habit of her life to study peaceable +methods of averting or avoiding the various inconveniences and +annoyances of her lot, and secure to herself a little quiet. + +It not unfrequently happened, amid the cabals and storms which shook the +family, that one party or the other took up and patronized Dolores for a +while, more, as it would appear, out of hatred for the other than any +real love to her. At such times it was really affecting to see with what +warmth the poor child would receive these equivocal demonstrations of +good-will--the nearest approaches to affection which she had ever +known--and the bitterness with which she would mourn when they were +capriciously withdrawn again. With a heart full of affection, she +reminded me of some delicate, climbing plant trying vainly to ascend the +slippery side of an inhospitable wall, and throwing its neglected +tendrils around every weed for support. + +Her only fast, unfailing friend was her old negro nurse, or Mammy, as +the children called her. This old creature, with the cunning and +subtlety which had grown up from years of servitude, watched and waited +upon the interests of her little mistress, and contrived to carry many +points for her in the confused household. Her young mistress was her one +thought and purpose in living. She would have gone through fire and +water to serve her; and this faithful, devoted heart, blind and +ignorant though it were, was the only unfailing refuge and solace of the +poor hunted child. + +Dolores, of course, became my pupil among the rest. Like the others, she +had suffered by the neglect and interruptions in the education of the +family, but she was intelligent and docile, and learned with a +surprising rapidity. It was not astonishing that she should soon have +formed an enthusiastic attachment to me, as I was the only intelligent, +cultivated person she had ever seen, and treated her with unvarying +consideration and delicacy. The poor thing had been so accustomed to +barbarous words and manners that simple politeness and the usages of +good society seemed to her cause for the most boundless gratitude. + +It is due to myself, in view of what follows, to say that I was from the +first aware of the very obvious danger which lay in my path in finding +myself brought into close and daily relations with a young creature so +confiding, so attractive, and so singularly circumstanced. I knew that +it would be in the highest degree dishonorable to make the slightest +advances toward gaining from her that kind of affection which might +interfere with her happiness in such future relations as her father +might arrange for her. According to the European fashion, I know that +Dolores was in her father's hands, to be disposed of for life according +to his pleasure, as absolutely as if she had been one of his slaves. I +had every reason to think that his plans on this subject were matured, +and only waited for a little more teaching and training on my part, and +her fuller development in womanhood, to be announced to her. + +In looking back over the past, therefore, I have not to reproach myself +with any dishonest and dishonorable breach of trust; for I was from the +first upon my guard, and so much so that even the jealousy my other +scholars never accused me of partiality. I was not in the habit of +giving very warm praise, and was in my general management anxious +rather to be just than conciliatory, knowing that with the kind of +spirits I had to deal with, firmness and justice went farther than +anything else. If I approved Dolores oftener than the rest, it was seen +to be because she never failed in a duty; if I spent more time with her +lessons, it was because her enthusiasm for study led her to learn longer +ones and study more things; but I am sure there was never a look or a +word toward her that went beyond the proprieties of my position. + +But yet I could not so well guard my heart. I was young and full of +feeling. She was beautiful; and more than that, there was something in +her Spanish nature at once so warm and simple, so artless and yet so +unconsciously poetic, that her presence was a continual charm. How well +I remember her now,--all her little ways,--the movements of her pretty +little hands,--the expression of her changeful face as she recited to +me,--the grave, rapt earnestness with which she listened to all my +instructions! + +I had not been with her many weeks before I felt conscious that it was +her presence that charmed the whole house, and made the otherwise +perplexing and distasteful details of my situation agreeable. I had a +dim perception that this growing passion was a dangerous thing for +myself; but was it a reason, I asked, why I should relinquish a position +in which I felt that I was useful, and when I could do for this lovely +child what no one else could do? I call her a child,--she always +impressed me as such,--though she was in her sixteenth year and had the +early womanly development of Southern climates. She seemed to me like +something frail and precious, needing to be guarded and cared for; and +when reason told me that I risked my own happiness in holding my +position, love argued on the other hand that I was her only friend, and +that I should be willing to risk something myself for the sake of +protecting and shielding her. For there was no doubt that my presence in +the family was a restraint upon the passions which formerly vented +themselves so recklessly on her, and established a sort of order in +which she found more peace than she had ever known before. + +For a long time in our intercourse I was in the habit of looking on +myself as the only party in danger. It did not occur to me that this +heart, so beautiful and so lonely, might, in the want of all natural and +appropriate objects of attachment, fasten itself on me unsolicited, from +the mere necessity of loving. She seemed to me so much too beautiful, +too perfect, to belong to a lot in life like mine, that I could not +suppose it possible this could occur without the most blameworthy +solicitation on my part; and it is the saddest and most affecting proof +to me how this poor child had been starved for sympathy and love, that +she should have repaid such cold services as mine with such an entire +devotion. At first her feelings were expressed openly toward me, with +the dutiful air of a good child. She placed flowers on my desk in the +morning, and made quaint little nosegays in the Spanish fashion, which +she gave me, and busied her leisure with various ingenious little +knick-knacks of fancy work, which she brought me. I treated them all as +the offerings of a child while with her, but I kept them sacredly in my +own room. To tell the truth, I have some of the poor little things now. + +But after a while I could not help seeing how she loved me; and then I +felt as if I ought to go; but how could I? The pain to myself I could +have borne; but how could I leave her to all the misery of her bleak, +ungenial position? She, poor thing, was so unconscious of what I +knew,--for I was made clear-sighted by love. I tried the more strictly +to keep to the path I had marked out for myself, but I fear I did not +always do it; in fact, many things seemed to conspire to throw us +together. The sisters, who were sometimes invited out to visit on +neighboring estates, were glad enough to dispense with the presence and +attractions of Dolores, and so she was frequently left at home to study +with me in their absence. As to Don Jose, although he always treated me +with civility, yet he had such an ingrained and deep-rooted idea of his +own superiority of position, that I suppose he would as soon have +imagined the possibility of his daughter's falling in love with one of +his horses. I was a great convenience to him. I had a knack of governing +and carrying points in his family that it had always troubled and +fatigued him to endeavor to arrange,--and that was all. So that my +intercourse with Dolores was as free and unwatched, and gave me as many +opportunities of enjoying her undisturbed society, as heart could +desire. + +At last came the crisis, however. After breakfast one morning, Don Jose +called Dolores into his library and announced to her that he had +concluded for her a treaty of marriage, and expected her husband to +arrive in a few days. He expected that this news would be received by +her with the glee with which a young girl hears of a new dress or of a +ball-ticket, and was quite confounded at the grave and mournful silence +in which she received it. She said no word, made no opposition, but went +out from the room and shut herself up in her own apartment, and spent +the day in tears and sobs. + +Don Jose, who had rather a greater regard for Dolores than for any +creature living, and who had confidently expected to give great delight +by the news he had imparted, was quite confounded by this turn of +things. If there had been one word of either expostulation or argument, +he would have blazed and stormed in a fury of passion; but as it was, +this broken-hearted submission, though vexatious, was perplexing. He +sent for me, and opened his mind, and begged me to talk with Dolores +and show her the advantages of the alliance, which the poor foolish +child, he said, did not seem to comprehend. The man was immensely rich, +and had a splendid estate in Cuba. It was a most desirable thing. + +I ventured to inquire whether his person and manners were such as would +be pleasing to a young girl, and could gather only that he was a man of +about fifty, who had been most of his life in the military service, and +was now desirous of making an establishment for the repose of his latter +days, at the head of which he would place a handsome and tractable +woman, and do well by her. + +I represented that it would perhaps be safer to say no more on the +subject until Dolores had seen him, and to this he agreed. Madame +Mendoza was very zealous in the affair, for the sake of getting clear of +the presence of Dolores in the family, and her sisters laughed at her +for her dejected appearance. They only wished, they said, that so much +luck might happen to them. For myself, I endeavored to take as little +notice as possible of the affair, though what I felt may be conjectured. +I knew,--I was perfectly certain,--that Dolores loved me as I loved her. +I knew that she had one of those simple and unworldly natures which +wealth and splendor could not satisfy, and whose life would lie entirely +in her affections. Sometimes I violently debated with myself whether +honor required me to sacrifice her happiness as well as my own, and I +felt the strongest temptation to ask her to be my wife and fly with me +to the Northern states, where I did not doubt my ability to make for her +a humble and happy home. + +But the sense of honor is often stronger than all reasoning, and I felt +that such a course would be the betrayal of a trust; and I determined at +least to command myself till I should see the character of the man who +was destined to be her husband. + +Meanwhile the whole manner of Dolores was changed. She maintained a +stony, gloomy silence, performed all her duties in a listless way, and +occasionally, when I commented on anything in her lessons or exercises, +would break into little flashes of petulance, most strange and unnatural +in her. Sometimes I could feel that she was looking at me earnestly, but +if I turned my eyes toward her, hers were instantly averted; but there +was in her eyes a peculiar expression at times, such as I have seen in +the eye of a hunted animal when it turned at bay,--a sort of desperate +resistance,--which, taken in connection with her fragile form and lovely +face, produced a mournful impression. + +One morning I found Dolores sitting alone in the schoolroom, leaning her +head on her arms. She had on her wrist a bracelet of peculiar +workmanship, which she always wore,--the bracelet which was afterwards +the means of confirming her identity. She sat thus some moments in +silence, and then she raised her head and began turning this bracelet +round and round upon her arm, while she looked fixedly before her. At +last she spoke abruptly, and said,-- + +"Did I ever tell you that this was _my mother's_ hair? It is my mother's +hair,--and she was the only one that ever loved me; except poor old +Mammy, nobody else loves me,--nobody ever will." + +"My dear Miss Dolores," I began. + +"Don't call me dear," she said; "you don't care for me,--nobody +does,--papa doesn't, and I always loved him; everybody in the house +wants to get rid of me, whether I like to go or not. I have always tried +to be good and do all you wanted, and I should think _you_ might care +for me a little, but you don't." + +"Dolores," I said, "I do care for you more than I do for any one in the +world; I love you more than my own soul." + +These were the very words I never meant to say, but somehow they seemed +to utter themselves against my will. She looked at me for a moment as if +she could not believe her hearing, and then the blood flushed her face, +and she laid her head down on her arms. + +At this moment Madame Mendoza and the other girls came into the room in +a clamor of admiration about a diamond bracelet which had just arrived +as a present from her future husband. It was a splendid thing, and had +for its clasp his miniature, surrounded by the largest brilliants. + +The enthusiasm of the party even at this moment could not say anything +in favor of the beauty of this miniature, which, though painted on +ivory, gave the impression of a coarse-featured man, with a scar across +one eye. + +"No matter for the beauty," said one of the girls, "so long as it is set +with such diamonds." + +"Come, Dolores," said another, giving her the present, "pull off that +old hair bracelet, and try this on." + +Dolores threw the diamond bracelet from her with a vehemence so unlike +her gentle self as to startle every one. + +"I shall not take off my mother's bracelet for a gift from a man I never +knew," she said. "I hate diamonds. I wish those who like such things +might have them." + +"Was ever anything so odd?" said Madame Mendoza. + +"Dolores always was odd," said another of the girls; "nobody ever could +tell what she would like." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +HIDDEN THINGS + + +The next day Senor Don Guzman de Cardona arrived, and the whole house +was in a commotion of excitement. There was to be no school, and +everything was bustle and confusion. I passed my time in my own room in +reflecting severely upon myself for the imprudent words by which I had +thrown one more difficulty in the way of this poor harassed child. + +Dolores this day seemed perfectly passive in the hands of her mother and +sisters, who appeared disposed to show her great attention. She allowed +them to array her in her most becoming dress, and made no objection to +anything except removing the bracelet from her arm. "Nobody's gifts +should take the place of her mother's," she said, and they were obliged +to be content with her wearing of the diamond bracelet on the other arm. + +Don Guzman was a large, plethoric man, with coarse features and heavy +gait. Besides the scar I have spoken of, his face was adorned here and +there with pimples, which were not set down in the miniature. In the +course of the first hour's study, I saw him to be a man of much the same +stamp as Dolores's father--sensual, tyrannical, passionate. He seemed in +his own way to be much struck with the beauty of his intended wife, and +was not wanting in efforts to please her. All that I could see in her +was the settled, passive paleness of despair. She played, sang, +exhibited her embroidery and painting, at the command of Madame Mendoza, +with the air of an automaton; and Don Guzman remarked to her father on +the passive obedience as a proper and hopeful trait. Once only when he, +in presenting her a flower, took the liberty of kissing her cheek, did I +observe the flashing of her eye and a movement of disgust and +impatience, that she seemed scarcely able to restrain. + +The marriage was announced to take place the next week, and a holiday +was declared through the house. Nothing was talked of or discussed but +the _corbeille de mariage_ which the bridegroom had brought--the +dresses, laces, sets of jewels, and cashmere shawls. Dolores never had +been treated with such attention by the family in her life. She rose +immeasurably in the eyes of all as the future possessor of such wealth +and such an establishment as awaited her. Madame Mendoza had visions of +future visits in Cuba rising before her mind, and overwhelmed her +daughter-in-law with flatteries and caresses, which she received in the +same passive silence as she did everything else. + +For my own part, I tried to keep entirely by myself. I remained in my +room reading, and took my daily rides, accompanied by my servant--seeing +Dolores only at mealtimes, when I scarcely ventured to look at her. One +night, however, as I was walking through a lonely part of the garden, +Dolores suddenly stepped out from the shrubbery and stood before me. It +was bright moonlight, by which her face and person were distinctly +shown. How well I remember her as she looked then! She was dressed in +white muslin, as she was fond of being, but it had been torn and +disordered by the haste with which she had come through the shrubbery. +Her face was fearfully pale, and her great, dark eyes had an unnatural +brightness. She laid hold on my arm. + +"Look here," she said, "I saw you and came down to speak with you." + +She panted and trembled, so that for some moments she could not speak +another word. "I want to ask you," she gasped, after a pause, "whether I +heard you right? Did you say"-- + +"Yes, Dolores, you did. I did say what I had no right to say, like a +dishonorable man." + +"But is it true? Are you sure it is true?" she said, scarcely seeming to +hear my words. + +"God knows it is," said I despairingly. + +"Then why don't you save me? Why do you let them sell me to this +dreadful man? He don't love me--he never will. Can't you take me away?" + +"Dolores, I am a poor man. I cannot give you any of these splendors your +father desires for you." + +"Do you think I care for them? I love you more than all the world +together. And if you do really love me, why should we not be happy with +each other?" + +"Dolores," I said, with a last effort to keep calm, "I am much older +than you, and know the world, and ought not to take advantage of your +simplicity. You have been so accustomed to abundant wealth and all it +can give, that you cannot form an idea of what the hardships and +discomforts of marrying a poor man would be. You are unused to having +the least care, or making the least exertion for yourself. All the world +would say that I acted a very dishonorable part to take you from a +position which offers you wealth, splendor, and ease, to one of +comparative hardship. Perhaps some day you would think so yourself." + +While I was speaking, Dolores turned me toward the moonlight, and fixed +her great dark eyes piercingly upon me, as if she wanted to read my +soul. "Is that all?" she said; "is that the only reason?" + +"I do not understand you," said I. + +She gave me such a desolate look, and answered in a tone of utter +dejection, "Oh, I didn't know, but perhaps _you_ might not want me. All +the rest are so glad to sell me to anybody that will take me. But you +really do love me, don't you?" she added, laying her hand on mine. + +What answer I made I cannot say. I only know that every vestige of what +is called reason and common sense left me at that moment, and that there +followed an hour of delirium in which I--we both were _very_ happy--we +forgot everything but each other, and we arranged all our plans for +flight. There was fortunately a ship lying in the harbor of St. +Augustine, the captain of which was known to me. In course of a day or +two passage was taken, and my effects transported on board. Nobody +seemed to suspect us. Everything went on quietly up to the day before +that appointed for sailing. I took my usual rides, and did everything as +much as possible in my ordinary way, to disarm suspicion, and none +seemed to exist. The needed preparations went gayly forward. On the day +I mentioned, when I had ridden some distance from the house, a messenger +came post-haste after me. It was a boy who belonged specially to +Dolores. He gave me a little hurried note. I copy it:-- + + "Papa has found all out, and it is dreadful. No one else knows, and + he means to kill you when you come back. Do, if you love me, hurry + and get on board the ship. I shall never get over it, if evil comes + on you for my sake. I shall let them do what they please with me, if + God will only save _you_. I will try to be good. Perhaps if I bear + my trials well, he will let me die soon. That is all I ask. I love + you, and always shall, to death and after. + + DOLORES." + +There was the end of it all. I escaped on the ship. I read the marriage +in the paper. Incidentally I afterwards heard of her as living in Cuba, +but I never saw her again till I saw her in her coffin. Sorrow and +death had changed her so much that at first the sight of her awakened +only a vague, painful remembrance. The sight of the hair bracelet which +I had seen on her arm brought all back, and I felt sure that my poor +Dolores had strangely come to sleep her last sleep near me. + +Immediately after I became satisfied who you were, I felt a painful +degree of responsibility for the knowledge. I wrote at once to a friend +of mine in the neighborhood of St. Augustine, to find out any +particulars of the Mendoza family. I learned that its history had been +like that of many others in that region. Don Jose had died in a bilious +fever, brought on by excessive dissipation, and at his death the estate +was found to be so incumbered that the whole was sold at auction. The +slaves were scattered hither and thither to different owners, and Madame +Mendoza, with her children and remains of fortune, had gone to live in +New Orleans. + +Of Dolores he had heard but once since her marriage. A friend had +visited Don Guzman's estates in Cuba. He was living in great splendor, +but bore the character of a hard, cruel, tyrannical master, and an +overbearing man. His wife was spoken of as being in very delicate +health,--avoiding society and devoting herself to religion. + +I would here take occasion to say that it was understood when I went +into the family of Don Jose, that I should not in any way interfere with +the religious faith of the children, the family being understood to +belong to the Roman Catholic Church. There was so little like religion +of any kind in the family, that the idea of their belonging to any faith +savored something of the ludicrous. In the case of poor Dolores, +however, it was different. The earnestness of her nature would always +have made any religious form a reality to her. In her case I was glad to +remember that the Romish Church, amid many corruptions, preserves all +the essential beliefs necessary for our salvation, and that many holy +souls have gone to heaven through its doors. I therefore was only +careful to direct her principal attention to the more spiritual parts of +her own faith, and to dwell on the great themes which all Christian +people hold in common. + +Many of my persuasion would not have felt free to do this, but my +liberty of conscience in this respect was perfect. I have seen that if +you break the cup out of which a soul has been used to take the wine of +the gospel, you often spill the very wine itself. And after all, these +forms are but shadows of which the substance is Christ. + +I am free to say, therefore, that the thought that your poor mother was +devoting herself earnestly to religion, although after the forms of a +church with which I differ, was to me a source of great consolation, +because I knew that in that way alone could a soul like hers find peace. + +I have never rested from my efforts to obtain more information. A short +time before the incident which cast you upon our shore, I conversed with +a sea-captain who had returned from Cuba. He stated that there had been +an attempt at insurrection among the slaves of Don Guzman, in which a +large part of the buildings and out-houses of the estate had been +consumed by fire. On subsequent inquiry I learned that Don Guzman had +sold his estates and embarked for Boston with his wife and family, and +that nothing had subsequently been heard of him. + +Thus, my young friend, I have told you all that I know of those singular +circumstances which have cast your lot on our shores. I do not expect at +your time of life you will take the same view of this event that I do. +You may possibly--very probably will--consider it a loss not to have +been brought up as you might have been in the splendid establishment of +Don Guzman, and found yourself heir to wealth and pleasure without +labor or exertion. Yet I am quite sure in that case that your value as a +human being would have been immeasurably less. I think I have seen in +you the elements of passions, which luxury and idleness and the too +early possession of irresponsible power, might have developed with fatal +results. You have simply to reflect whether you would rather be an +energetic, intelligent, self-controlled man, capable of guiding the +affairs of life and of acquiring its prizes,--or to be the reverse of +all this, with its prizes bought for you by the wealth of parents. I +hope mature reflection will teach you to regard with gratitude that +disposition of the All-Wise, which cast your lot as it has been cast. + +Let me ask one thing in closing. I have written for you here many things +most painful for me to remember, because I wanted you to love and honor +the memory of your mother. I wanted that her memory should have +something such a charm for you as it has for me. With me, her image has +always stood between me and all other women; but I have never even +intimated to a living being that such a passage in my history ever +occurred,--no, not even to my sister, who is nearer to me than any other +earthly creature. + +In some respects I am a singular person in my habits, and having once +written this, you will pardon me if I observe that it will never be +agreeable to me to have the subject named between us. Look upon me +always as a friend, who would regard nothing as a hardship by which he +might serve the son of one so dear. + +I have hesitated whether I ought to add one circumstance more. I think I +will do so, trusting to your good sense not to give it any undue weight. + +I have never ceased making inquiries in Cuba, as I found opportunity, in +regard to your father's property, and late investigations have led me to +the conclusion that he left a considerable sum of money in the hands of +a notary, whose address I have, which, if your identity could be proved, +would come in course of law to you. I have written an account of all the +circumstances which, in my view, identify you as the son of Don Guzman +de Cardona, and had them properly attested in legal form. + +This, together with your mother's picture and the bracelet, I recommend +you to take on your next voyage, and to see what may result from the +attempt. How considerable the sum may be which will result from this, I +cannot say, but as Don Guzman's fortune was very large, I am in hopes it +may prove something worth attention. + +At any time you may wish to call, I will have all these things ready for +you. + + I am, with warm regard, + Your sincere friend, + THEOPHILUS SEWELL. + +When Moses had finished reading this letter, he laid it down on the +pebbles beside him, and, leaning back against a rock, looked moodily out +to sea. The tide had washed quite up to within a short distance of his +feet, completely isolating the little grotto where he sat from all the +surrounding scenery, and before him, passing and repassing on the blue +bright solitude of the sea, were silent ships, going on their wondrous +pathless ways to unknown lands. The letter had stirred all within him +that was dreamy and poetic: he felt somehow like a leaf torn from a +romance, and blown strangely into the hollow of those rocks. Something +too of ambition and pride stirred within him. He had been born an heir +of wealth and power, little as they had done for the happiness of his +poor mother; and when he thought he might have had these two wild horses +which have run away with so many young men, he felt, as young men all +do, an impetuous desire for their possession, and he thought as so many +do, "Give them to me, and I'll risk my character,--I'll risk my +happiness." + +The letter opened a future before him which was something to speculate +upon, even though his reason told him it was uncertain, and he lay there +dreamily piling one air-castle on another,--unsubstantial as the great +islands of white cloud that sailed through the sky and dropped their +shadows in the blue sea. + +It was late in the afternoon when he bethought him he must return home, +and so climbing from rock to rock he swung himself upward on to the +island, and sought the brown cottage. As he passed by the open window he +caught a glimpse of Mara sewing. He walked softly up to look in without +her seeing him. She was sitting with the various articles of his +wardrobe around her, quietly and deftly mending his linen, singing soft +snatches of an old psalm-tune. + +She seemed to have resumed quite naturally that quiet care of him and +his, which she had in all the earlier years of their life. He noticed +again her little hands,--they seemed a sort of wonder to him. Why had he +never seen, when a boy, how pretty they were? And she had such dainty +little ways of taking up and putting down things as she measured and +clipped; it seemed so pleasant to have her handling his things; it was +as if a good fairy were touching them, whose touch brought back peace. +But then, he thought, by and by she will do all this for some one else. +The thought made him angry. He really felt abused in anticipation. She +was doing all this for him just in sisterly kindness, and likely as not +thinking of somebody else whom she loved better all the time. It is +astonishing how cool and dignified this consideration made our hero as +he faced up to the window. He was, after all, in hopes she might blush, +and look agitated at seeing him suddenly; but she did not. The foolish +boy did not know the quick wits of a girl, and that all the while that +he had supposed himself so sly, and been holding his breath to observe, +Mara had been perfectly cognizant of his presence, and had been +schooling herself to look as unconscious and natural as possible. So she +did,--only saying,-- + +"Oh, Moses, is that you? Where have you been all day?" + +"Oh, I went over to see Parson Sewell, and get my pastoral lecture, you +know." + +"And did you stay to dinner?" + +"No; I came home and went rambling round the rocks, and got into our old +cave, and never knew how the time passed." + +"Why, then you've had no dinner, poor boy," said Mara, rising suddenly. +"Come in quick, you must be fed, or you'll get dangerous and eat +somebody." + +"No, no, don't get anything," said Moses, "it's almost supper-time, and +I'm not hungry." + +And Moses threw himself into a chair, and began abstractedly snipping a +piece of tape with Mara's very best scissors. + +"If you please, sir, don't demolish that; I was going to stay one of +your collars with it," said Mara. + +"Oh, hang it, I'm always in mischief among girls' things," said Moses, +putting down the scissors and picking up a bit of white wax, which with +equal unconsciousness, he began kneading in his hands, while he was +dreaming over the strange contents of the morning's letter. + +"I hope Mr. Sewell didn't say anything to make you look so very gloomy," +said Mara. + +"Mr. Sewell?" said Moses, starting; "no, he didn't; in fact, I had a +pleasant call there; and there was that confounded old sphinx of a Miss +Roxy there. Why don't she die? She must be somewhere near a hundred +years old by this time." + +"Never thought to ask her why she didn't die," said Mara; "but I presume +she has the best of reasons for living." + +"Yes, that's so," said Moses; "every old toadstool, and burdock, and +mullein lives and thrives and lasts; no danger of their dying." + +"You seem to be in a charitable frame of mind," said Mara. + +"Confound it all! I hate this world. If I could have my own way now,--if +I could have just what I wanted, and do just as I please exactly, I +might make a pretty good thing of it." + +"And pray what would you have?" said Mara. + +"Well, in the first place, riches." + +"In the first place?" + +"Yes, in the first place, I say; for money buys everything else." + +"Well, supposing so," said Mara, "for argument's sake, what would you +buy with it?" + +"Position in society, respect, consideration,--and I'd have a splendid +place, with everything elegant. I have ideas enough, only give me the +means. And then I'd have a wife, of course." + +"And how much would you pay for her?" said Mara, looking quite cool. + +"I'd buy her with all the rest,--a girl that wouldn't look at _me_ as I +am,--would take me for all the rest, you know,--that's the way of the +world." + +"It is, is it?" said Mara. "I don't understand such matters much." + +"Yes; it's the way with all you girls," said Moses; "it's the way you'll +marry when you do." + +"Don't be so fierce about it. I haven't done it yet," said Mara; "but +now, really, I must go and set the supper-table when I have put these +things away,"--and Mara gathered an armful of things together, and +tripped singing upstairs, and arranged them in the drawer of Moses's +room. "Will his wife like to do all these little things for him as I +do?" she thought. "It's natural I should. I grew up with him, and love +him, just as if he were my own brother,--he is all the brother I ever +had. I love him more than anything else in the world, and this wife he +talks about could do no more." + +"She don't care a pin about me," thought Moses; "it's only a habit she +has got, and her strict notions of duty, that's all. She is housewifely +in her instincts, and seizes all neglected linen and garments as her +lawful prey,--she would do it just the same for her grandfather;" and +Moses drummed moodily on the window-pane. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +A COQUETTE + + +The timbers of the ship which was to carry the fortunes of our hero were +laid by the side of Middle Bay, and all these romantic shores could +hardly present a lovelier scene. This beautiful sheet of water separates +Harpswell from a portion of Brunswick. Its shores are rocky and +pine-crowned, and display the most picturesque variety of outline. Eagle +Island, Shelter Island, and one or two smaller ones, lie on the glassy +surface like soft clouds of green foliage pierced through by the +steel-blue tops of arrowy pine-trees. + +There were a goodly number of shareholders in the projected vessel; some +among the most substantial men in the vicinity. Zephaniah Pennel had +invested there quite a solid sum, as had also our friend Captain +Kittridge. Moses had placed therein the proceeds of his recent voyage, +which enabled him to buy a certain number of shares, and he secretly +revolved in his mind whether the sum of money left by his father might +not enable him to buy the whole ship. Then a few prosperous voyages, and +his fortune was made! + +He went into the business of building the new vessel with all the +enthusiasm with which he used, when a boy, to plan ships and mould +anchors. Every day he was off at early dawn in his working-clothes, and +labored steadily among the men till evening. No matter how early he +rose, however, he always found that a good fairy had been before him and +prepared his dinner, daintily sometimes adding thereto a fragrant +little bunch of flowers. But when his boat returned home at evening, he +no longer saw her as in the days of girlhood waiting far out on the +farthest point of rock for his return. Not that she did not watch for it +and run out many times toward sunset; but the moment she had made out +that it was surely he, she would run back into the house, and very +likely find an errand in her own room, where she would be so deeply +engaged that it would be necessary for him to call her down before she +could make her appearance. Then she came smiling, chatty, always +gracious, and ready to go or to come as he requested,--the very +cheerfulest of household fairies,--but yet for all that there was a +cobweb invisible barrier around her that for some reason or other he +could not break over. It vexed and perplexed him, and day after day he +determined to whistle it down,--ride over it rough-shod,--and be as free +as he chose with this apparently soft, unresistant, airy being, who +seemed so accessible. Why shouldn't he kiss her when he chose, and sit +with his arm around her waist, and draw her familiarly upon his +knee,--this little child-woman, who was as a sister to him? Why, to be +sure? Had she ever frowned or scolded as Sally Kittridge did when he +attempted to pass the air-line that divides man from womanhood? Not at +all. She had neither blushed nor laughed, nor ran away. If he kissed +her, she took it with the most matter-of-fact composure; if he passed +his arm around her, she let it remain with unmoved calmness; and so +somehow he did these things less and less, and wondered why. + +The fact is, our hero had begun an experiment with his little friend +that we would never advise a young man to try on one of these intense, +quiet, soft-seeming women, whose whole life is inward. He had determined +to find out whether she loved him before he committed himself to her; +and the strength of a whole book of martyrs is in women to endure and +to bear without flinching before they will surrender the gate of this +citadel of silence. Moreover, our hero had begun his siege with +precisely the worst weapons. + +For on the night that he returned and found Mara conversing with a +stranger, the suspicion arose in his mind that somehow Mara might be +particularly interested in him, and instead of asking her, which anybody +might consider the most feasible step in the case, he asked Sally +Kittridge. + +Sally's inborn, inherent love of teasing was up in a moment. Did she +know anything of that Mr. Adams? Of course she did,--a young lawyer of +one of the best Boston families,--a splendid fellow; she wished any such +luck might happen to her! Was Mara engaged to him? What would he give to +know? Why didn't he ask Mara? Did he expect her to reveal her friend's +secrets? Well, she shouldn't,--report said Mr. Adams was well-to-do in +the world, and had expectations from an uncle,--and didn't Moses think +he was interesting in conversation? Everybody said what a conquest it +was for an Orr's Island girl, etc., etc. And Sally said the rest with +many a malicious toss and wink and sly twinkle of the dimples of her +cheek, which might mean more or less, as a young man of imaginative +temperament was disposed to view it. Now this was all done in pure +simple love of teasing. We incline to think phrenologists have as yet +been very incomplete in their classification of faculties, or they would +have appointed a separate organ for this propensity of human nature. +Certain persons, often the most kind-hearted in the world, and who would +not give pain in any serious matter, seem to have an insatiable appetite +for those small annoyances we commonly denominate teasing,--and Sally +was one of this number. + +She diverted herself infinitely in playing upon the excitability of +Moses,--in awaking his curiosity, and baffling it, and tormenting him +with a whole phantasmagoria of suggestions and assertions, which played +along so near the line of probability, that one could never tell which +might be fancy and which might be fact. + +Moses therefore pursued the line of tactics for such cases made and +provided, and strove to awaken jealousy in Mara by paying marked and +violent attentions to Sally. He went there evening after evening, +leaving Mara to sit alone at home. He made secrets with her, and alluded +to them before Mara. He proposed calling his new vessel the Sally +Kittridge; but whether all these things made Mara jealous or not, he +could never determine. Mara had no peculiar gift for acting, except in +this one point; but here all the vitality of nature rallied to her +support, and enabled her to preserve an air of the most unperceiving +serenity. If she shed any tears when she spent a long, lonesome evening, +she was quite particular to be looking in a very placid frame when Moses +returned, and to give such an account of the books, or the work, or +paintings which had interested her, that Moses was sure to be vexed. +Never were her inquiries for Sally more cordial,--never did she seem +inspired by a more ardent affection for her. + +Whatever may have been the result of this state of things in regard to +Mara, it is certain that Moses succeeded in convincing the common fame +of that district that he and Sally were destined for each other, and the +thing was regularly discussed at quilting frolics and tea-drinkings +around, much to Miss Emily's disgust and Aunt Roxy's grave satisfaction, +who declared that "Mara was altogether too good for Moses Pennel, but +Sally Kittridge would make him stand round,"--by which expression she +was understood to intimate that Sally had in her the rudiments of the +same kind of domestic discipline which had operated so favorably in the +case of Captain Kittridge. + +These things, of course, had come to Mara's ears. She had overheard the +discussions on Sunday noons as the people between meetings sat over +their doughnuts and cheese, and analyzed their neighbors' affairs, and +she seemed to smile at them all. Sally only laughed, and declared that +it was no such thing; that she would no more marry Moses Pennel, or any +other fellow, than she would put her head into the fire. What did she +want of any of them? She knew too much to get married,--that she did. +She was going to have her liberty for one while yet to come, etc., etc.; +but all these assertions were of course supposed to mean nothing but the +usual declarations in such cases. Mara among the rest thought it quite +likely that this thing was yet to be. + +So she struggled and tried to reason down a pain which constantly ached +in her heart when she thought of this. She ought to have foreseen that +it must some time end in this way. Of course she must have known that +Moses would some time choose a wife; and how fortunate that, instead of +a stranger, he had chosen her most intimate friend. Sally was careless +and thoughtless, to be sure, but she had a good generous heart at the +bottom, and she hoped she would love Moses at least as well as _she_ +did, and then she would always live with them, and think of any little +things that Sally might forget. + +After all, Sally was so much more capable and efficient a person than +herself,--so much more bustling and energetic, she would make altogether +a better housekeeper, and doubtless a better wife for Moses. But then it +was so hard that he did not tell her about it. Was she not his +sister?--his confidant for all his childhood?--and why should he shut up +his heart from her now? But then she must guard herself from being +jealous,--that would be mean and wicked. So Mara, in her zeal of +self-discipline, pushed on matters; invited Sally to tea to meet Moses; +and when she came, left them alone together while she busied herself in +hospitable cares. She sent Moses with errands and commissions to Sally, +which he was sure to improve into protracted visits; and in short, no +young match-maker ever showed more good-will to forward the union of two +chosen friends than Mara showed to unite Moses and Sally. + +So the flirtation went on all summer, like a ship under full sail, with +prosperous breezes; and Mara, in the many hours that her two best +friends were together, tried heroically to persuade herself that she was +not unhappy. She said to herself constantly that she never had loved +Moses other than as a brother, and repeated and dwelt upon the fact to +her own mind with a pertinacity which might have led her to suspect the +reality of the fact, had she had experience enough to look closer. True, +it was rather lonely, she said, but that she was used to,--she always +had been and always should be. Nobody would ever love her in return as +she loved; which sentence she did not analyze very closely, or she might +have remembered Mr. Adams and one or two others, who had professed more +for her than she had found herself able to return. That general +proposition about nobody is commonly found, if sifted to the bottom, to +have specific relation to somebody whose name never appears in the +record. + +Nobody could have conjectured from Mara's calm, gentle cheerfulness of +demeanor, that any sorrow lay at the bottom of her heart; she would not +have owned it to herself. + +There are griefs which grow with years, which have no marked +beginnings,--no especial dates; they are not events, but slow +perceptions of disappointment, which bear down on the heart with a +constant and equable pressure like the weight of the atmosphere, and +these things are never named or counted in words among life's sorrows; +yet through them, as through an unsuspected inward wound, life, energy, +and vigor slowly bleed away, and the persons, never owning even to +themselves the weight of the pressure,--standing, to all appearance, +fair and cheerful, are still undermined with a secret wear of this inner +current, and ready to fall with the first external pressure. + +There are persons often brought into near contact by the relations of +life, and bound to each other by a love so close, that they are +perfectly indispensable to each other, who yet act upon each other as a +file upon a diamond, by a slow and gradual friction, the pain of which +is so equable, so constantly diffused through life, as scarcely ever at +any time to force itself upon the mind as a reality. + +Such had been the history of the affection of Mara for Moses. It had +been a deep, inward, concentrated passion that had almost absorbed +self-consciousness, and made her keenly alive to all the moody, +restless, passionate changes of his nature; it had brought with it that +craving for sympathy and return which such love ever will, and yet it +was fixed upon a nature so different and so uncomprehending that the +action had for years been one of pain more than pleasure. Even now, when +she had him at home with her and busied herself with constant cares for +him, there was a sort of disturbing, unquiet element in the history of +every day. The longing for him to come home at night,--the wish that he +would stay with her,--the uncertainty whether he would or would not go +and spend the evening with Sally,--the musing during the day over all +that he had done and said the day before, were a constant interior +excitement. For Moses, besides being in his moods quite variable and +changeable, had also a good deal of the dramatic element in him, and put +on sundry appearances in the way of experiment. + +He would feign to have quarreled with Sally, that he might detect +whether Mara would betray some gladness; but she only evinced concern +and a desire to make up the difficulty. He would discuss her character +and her fitness to make a man happy in matrimony in the style that +young gentlemen use who think their happiness a point of great +consequence in the creation; and Mara, always cool, and firm, and +sensible, would talk with him in the most maternal style possible, and +caution him against trifling with her affections. Then again he would be +lavish in his praise of Sally's beauty, vivacity, and energy, and Mara +would join with the most apparently unaffected delight. Sometimes he +ventured, on the other side, to rally her on some future husband, and +predict the days when all the attentions which she was daily bestowing +on him would be for another; and here, as everywhere else, he found his +little Sphinx perfectly inscrutable. Instinct teaches the grass-bird, +who hides her eggs under long meadow grass, to creep timidly yards from +the nest, and then fly up boldly in the wrong place; and a like instinct +teaches shy girls all kinds of unconscious stratagems when the one +secret of their life is approached. They may be as truthful in all other +things as the strictest Puritan, but here they deceive by an infallible +necessity. And meanwhile, where was Sally Kittridge in all this matter? +Was her heart in the least touched by the black eyes and long lashes? +Who can say? Had she a heart? Well, Sally was a good girl. When one got +sufficiently far down through the foam and froth of the surface to find +what was in the depths of her nature, there was abundance there of good +womanly feeling, generous and strong, if one could but get at it. + +She was the best and brightest of daughters to the old Captain, whose +accounts she kept, whose clothes she mended, whose dinner she often +dressed and carried to him, from loving choice; and Mrs. Kittridge +regarded her housewifely accomplishments with pride, though she never +spoke to her otherwise than in words of criticism and rebuke, as in her +view an honest mother should who means to keep a flourishing sprig of a +daughter within limits of a proper humility. + +But as for any sentiment or love toward any person of the other sex, +Sally, as yet, had it not. Her numerous admirers were only so many +subjects for the exercise of her dear delight of teasing, and Moses +Pennel, the last and most considerable, differed from the rest only in +the fact that he was a match for her in this redoubtable art and +science, and this made the game she was playing with him altogether more +stimulating than that she had carried on with any other of her admirers. +For Moses could sulk and storm for effect, and clear off as bright as +Harpswell Bay after a thunder-storm--for effect also. Moses could play +jealous, and make believe all those thousand-and-one shadowy nothings +that coquettes, male and female, get up to carry their points with; and +so their quarrels and their makings-up were as manifold as the +sea-breezes that ruffled the ocean before the Captain's door. + +There is but one danger in play of this kind, and that is, that deep +down in the breast of every slippery, frothy, elfish Undine sleeps the +germ of an unawakened soul, which suddenly, in the course of some such +trafficking with the outward shows and seemings of affection, may wake +up and make of the teasing, tricksy elf a sad and earnest woman--a +creature of loves and self-denials and faithfulness unto death--in +short, something altogether too good, too sacred to be trifled with; and +when a man enters the game protected by a previous attachment which +absorbs all his nature, and the woman awakes in all her depth and +strength to feel the real meaning of love and life, she finds that she +has played with one stronger than she, at a terrible disadvantage. + +Is this mine lying dark and evil under the saucy little feet of our +Sally? Well, we should not of course be surprised some day to find it +so. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +NIGHT TALKS + + +October is come, and among the black glooms of the pine forests flare +out the scarlet branches of the rock-maple, and the beech-groves are all +arrayed in gold, through which the sunlight streams in subdued richness. +October is come with long, bright, hazy days, swathing in purple mists +the rainbow brightness of the forests, and blending the otherwise gaudy +and flaunting colors into wondrous harmonies of splendor. And Moses +Pennel's ship is all built and ready, waiting only a favorable day for +her launching. + +And just at this moment Moses is sauntering home from Captain +Kittridge's in company with Sally, for Mara has sent him to bring her to +tea with them. Moses is in high spirits; everything has succeeded to his +wishes; and as the two walk along the high, bold, rocky shore, his eye +glances out to the open ocean, where the sun is setting, and the fresh +wind blowing, and the white sails flying, and already fancies himself a +sea-king, commanding his own place, and going from land to land. + +"There hasn't been a more beautiful ship built here these twenty years," +he says, in triumph. + +"Oho, Mr. Conceit," said Sally, "that's only because it's yours +now--your geese are all swans. I wish you could have seen the Typhoon, +that Ben Drummond sailed in--a real handsome fellow he was. What a pity +there aren't more like him!" + +"I don't enter on the merits of Ben Drummond's beauty," said Moses; "but +I don't believe the Typhoon was one whit superior to our ship. Besides, +Miss Sally, I thought you were going to take it under your especial +patronage, and let me honor it with your name." + +"How absurd you always will be talking about that--why don't you call it +after Mara?" + +"After Mara?" said Moses. "I don't want to--it wouldn't be +appropriate--one wants a different kind of girl to name a ship +after--something bold and bright and dashing!" + +"Thank you, sir, but I prefer not to have my bold and dashing qualities +immortalized in this way," said Sally; "besides, sir, how do I know that +you wouldn't run me on a rock the very first thing? When I give my name +to a ship, it must have an experienced commander," she added, +maliciously, for she knew that Moses was specially vulnerable on this +point. + +"As you please," said Moses, with heightened color. "Allow me to remark +that he who shall ever undertake to command the 'Sally Kittridge' will +have need of all his experience--and then, perhaps, not be able to know +the ways of the craft." + +"See him now," said Sally, with a malicious laugh; "we are getting +wrathy, are we?" + +"Not I," said Moses; "it would cost altogether too much exertion to get +angry at every teasing thing you choose to say, Miss Sally. By and by I +shall be gone, and then won't your conscience trouble you?" + +"My conscience is all easy, so far as you are concerned, sir; your +self-esteem is too deep-rooted to suffer much from my poor little +nips--they produce no more impression than a cat-bird pecking at the +cones of that spruce-tree yonder. Now don't you put your hand where your +heart is supposed to be--there's nobody at home there, you know. There's +Mara coming to meet us;" and Sally bounded forward to meet Mara with all +those demonstrations of extreme delight which young girls are fond of +showering on each other. + +"It's such a beautiful evening," said Mara, "and we are all in such good +spirits about Moses's ship, and I told him you must come down and hold +counsel with us as to what was to be done about the launching; and the +name, you know, that is to be decided on--are you going to let it be +called after you?" + +"Not I, indeed. I should always be reading in the papers of horrible +accidents that had happened to the 'Sally Kittridge.'" + +"Sally has so set her heart on my being unlucky," said Moses, "that I +believe if I make a prosperous voyage, the disappointment would injure +her health." + +"She doesn't mean what she says," said Mara; "but I think there are some +objections in a young lady's name being given to a ship." + +"Then I suppose, Mara," said Moses, "that you would not have yours +either?" + +"I would be glad to accommodate you in anything _but_ that," said Mara, +quietly; but she added, "Why need the ship be named for anybody? A ship +is such a beautiful, graceful thing, it should have a fancy name." + +"Well, suggest one," said Moses. + +"Don't you remember," said Mara, "one Saturday afternoon, when you and +Sally and I launched your little ship down in the cove after you had +come from your first voyage at the Banks?" + +"I do," said Sally. "We called that the Ariel, Mara, after that old torn +play you were so fond of. That's a pretty name for a ship." + +"Why not take that?" said Mara. + +"I bow to the decree," said Moses. "The Ariel it shall be." + +"Yes; and you remember," said Sally, "Mr. Moses here promised at that +time that he would build a ship, and take us two round the world with +him." + +Moses's eyes fell upon Mara as Sally said these words with a sort of +sudden earnestness of expression which struck her. He was really feeling +very much about something, under all the bantering disguise of his +demeanor, she said to herself. Could it be that he felt unhappy about +his prospects with Sally? That careless liveliness of hers might wound +him perhaps now, when he felt that he was soon to leave her. + +Mara was conscious herself of a deep undercurrent of sadness as the time +approached for the ship to sail that should carry Moses from her, and +she could not but think some such feeling must possess her mind. In vain +she looked into Sally's great Spanish eyes for any signs of a lurking +softness or tenderness concealed under her sparkling vivacity. Sally's +eyes were admirable windows of exactly the right size and color for an +earnest, tender spirit to look out of, but just now there was nobody at +the casement but a slippery elf peering out in tricksy defiance. + +When the three arrived at the house, tea was waiting on the table for +them. Mara fancied that Moses looked sad and preoccupied as they sat +down to the tea-table, which Mrs. Pennel had set forth festively, with +the best china and the finest tablecloth and the choicest sweetmeats. In +fact, Moses did feel that sort of tumult and upheaving of the soul which +a young man experiences when the great crisis comes which is to plunge +him into the struggles of manhood. It is a time when he wants sympathy +and is grated upon by uncomprehending merriment, and therefore his +answers to Sally grew brief and even harsh at times, and Mara sometimes +perceived him looking at herself with a singular fixedness of +expression, though he withdrew his eyes whenever she turned hers to look +on him. Like many another little woman, she had fixed a theory about +her friends, into which she was steadily interweaving all the facts she +saw. Sally _must_ love Moses, because she had known her from childhood +as a good and affectionate girl, and it was impossible that she could +have been going on with Moses as she had for the last six months without +loving him. She must evidently have seen that he cared for her; and in +how many ways had she shown that she liked his society and him! But then +evidently she did not understand him, and Mara felt a little womanly +self-pluming on the thought that _she_ knew him so much better. She was +resolved that she would talk with Sally about it, and show her that she +was disappointing Moses and hurting his feelings. Yes, she said to +herself, Sally has a kind heart, and her coquettish desire to conceal +from him the extent of her affection ought now to give way to the +outspoken tenderness of real love. + +So Mara pressed Sally with the old-times request to stay and sleep with +her; for these two, the only young girls in so lonely a neighborhood, +had no means of excitement or dissipation beyond this occasional +sleeping together--by which is meant, of course, lying awake all night +talking. + +When they were alone together in their chamber, Sally let down her long +black hair, and stood with her back to Mara brushing it. Mara sat +looking out of the window, where the moon was making a wide sheet of +silver-sparkling water. Everything was so quiet that the restless dash +of the tide could be plainly heard. Sally was rattling away with her +usual gayety. + +"And so the launching is to come off next Thursday. What shall you +wear?" + +"I'm sure I haven't thought," said Mara. + +"Well, I shall try and finish my blue merino for the occasion. What fun +it will be! I never was on a ship when it was launched, and I think it +will be something perfectly splendid!" + +"But doesn't it sometimes seem sad to think that after all this Moses +will leave us to be gone so long?" + +"What do I care?" said Sally, tossing back her long hair as she brushed +it, and then stopping to examine one of her eyelashes. + +"Sally dear, you often speak in that way," said Mara, "but really and +seriously, you do yourself great injustice. You could not certainly have +been going on as you have these six months past with a man you did not +care for." + +"Well, I do care for him, 'sort o','" said Sally; "but is that any +reason I should break my heart for his going?--that's too much for any +man." + +"But, Sally, you _must_ know that Moses loves you." + +"I'm not so sure," said Sally, freakishly tossing her head and laughing. + +"If he did not," said Mara, "why has he sought you so much, and taken +every opportunity to be with you? I'm sure I've been left here alone +hour after hour, when my only comfort was that it was because my two +best friends loved each other, as I know they must some time love some +one better than they do me." + +The most practiced self-control must fail some time, and Mara's voice +faltered on these last words, and she put her hands over her eyes. Sally +turned quickly and looked at her, then giving her hair a sudden fold +round her shoulders, and running to her friend, she kneeled down on the +floor by her, and put her arms round her waist, and looked up into her +face with an air of more gravity than she commonly used. + +"Now, Mara, what a wicked, inconsistent fool I have been! Did you feel +lonesome?--did you care? I ought to have seen that; but I'm selfish, I +love admiration, and I love to have some one to flatter me, and run +after me; and so I've been going on and on in this silly way. But I +didn't know you cared--indeed, I didn't--you are such a deep little +thing. Nobody can ever tell what you feel. I never shall forgive myself, +if you have been lonesome, for you are worth five hundred times as much +as I am. You really do love Moses. I don't." + +"I do love him as a dear brother," said Mara. + +"Dear fiddlestick," said Sally. "Love is love; and when a person loves +all she can, it isn't much use to talk so. I've been a wicked sinner, +that I have. Love? Do you suppose I would bear with Moses Pennel all his +ins and outs and ups and downs, and be always putting him before myself +in everything, as you do? No, I couldn't; I haven't it in me; but you +have. He's a sinner, too, and deserves to get me for a wife. But, Mara, +I have tormented him well--there's some comfort in that." + +"It's no comfort to me," said Mara. "I see his heart is set on you--the +happiness of his life depends on you--and that he is pained and hurt +when you give him only cold, trifling words when he needs real true +love. It is a serious thing, dear, to have a strong man set his whole +heart on you. It will do him a great good or a great evil, and you ought +not to make light of it." + +"Oh, pshaw, Mara, you don't know these fellows; they are only playing +games with us. If they once catch us, they have no mercy; and for one +here's a child that isn't going to be caught. I can see plain enough +that Moses Pennel has been trying to get me in love with him, but he +doesn't love me. No, he doesn't," said Sally, reflectively. "He only +wants to make a conquest of me, and I'm just the same. I want to make a +conquest of him,--at least I have been wanting to,--but now I see it's a +false, wicked kind of way to do as we've been doing." + +"And is it really possible, Sally, that you don't love him?" said Mara, +her large, serious eyes looking into Sally's. "What! be with him so +much,--seem to like him so much,--look at him as I have seen you +do,--and not love him!" + +"I can't help my eyes; they will look so," said Sally, hiding her face +in Mara's lap with a sort of coquettish consciousness. "I tell you I've +been silly and wicked; but he's just the same exactly." + +"And you have worn his ring all summer?" + +"Yes, and he has worn mine; and I have a lock of his hair, and he has a +lock of mine; yet I don't believe he cares for them a bit. Oh, his heart +is safe enough. If he has any, it isn't with me: that I know." + +"But if you found it were, Sally? Suppose you found that, after all, you +were the one love and hope of his life; that all he was doing and +thinking was for you; that he was laboring, and toiling, and leaving +home, so that he might some day offer you a heart and home, and be your +best friend for life? Perhaps he dares not tell you how he really does +feel." + +"It's no such thing! it's no such thing!" said Sally, lifting up her +head, with her eyes full of tears, which she dashed angrily away. "What +am I crying for? I hate him. I'm glad he's going away. Lately it has +been such a trouble to me to have things go on so. I'm really getting to +dislike him. You are the one he ought to love. Perhaps all this time you +are the one he does love," said Sally, with a sudden energy, as if a new +thought had dawned in her mind. + +"Oh, no; he does not even love me as he once did, when we were +children," said Mara. "He is so shut up in himself, so reserved, I know +nothing about what passes in his heart." + +"No more does anybody," said Sally. "Moses Pennel isn't one that says +and does things straightforward because he feels so; but he says and +does them to see what _you_ will do. That's his way. Nobody knows why he +has been going on with me as he has. He has had his own reasons, +doubtless, as I have had mine." + +"He has admired you very much, Sally," said Mara, "and praised you to me +very warmly. He thinks you are so handsome. I could tell you ever so +many things he has said about you. He knows as I do that you are a more +enterprising, practical sort of body than I am, too. Everybody thinks +you are engaged. I have heard it spoken of everywhere." + +"Everybody is mistaken, then, as usual," said Sally. "Perhaps Aunt Roxy +was in the right of it when she said that Moses would never be in love +with anybody but himself." + +"Aunt Roxy has always been prejudiced and unjust to Moses," said Mara, +her cheeks flushing. "She never liked him from a child, and she never +can be made to see anything good in him. I know that he has a deep +heart,--a nature that craves affection and sympathy; and it is only +because he is so sensitive that he is so reserved and conceals his +feelings so much. He has a noble, kind heart, and I believe he truly +loves you, Sally; it must be so." + +Sally rose from the floor and went on arranging her hair without +speaking. Something seemed to disturb her mind. She bit her lip, and +threw down the brush and comb violently. In the clear depths of the +little square of looking-glass a face looked into hers, whose eyes were +perturbed as if with the shadows of some coming inward storm; the black +brows were knit, and the lips quivered. She drew a long breath and burst +out into a loud laugh. + +"What _are_ you laughing at now?" said Mara, who stood in her white +night-dress by the window, with her hair falling in golden waves about +her face. + +"Oh, because these fellows are so funny," said Sally; "it's such fun to +see their actions. Come now," she added, turning to Mara, "don't look so +grave and sanctified. It's better to laugh than cry about things, any +time. It's a great deal better to be made hard-hearted like me, and not +care for anybody, than to be like you, for instance. The idea of any +one's being in love is the drollest thing to me. I haven't the least +idea how it feels. I wonder if I ever shall be in love!" + +"It will come to you in its time, Sally." + +"Oh, yes,--I suppose like the chicken-pox or the whooping cough," said +Sally; "one of the things to be gone through with, and rather +disagreeable while it lasts,--so I hope to put it off as long as +possible." + +"Well, come," said Mara, "we must not sit up all night." + +After the two girls were nestled into bed and the light out, instead of +the brisk chatter there fell a great silence between them. The full +round moon cast the reflection of the window on the white bed, and the +ever restless moan of the sea became more audible in the fixed +stillness. The two faces, both young and fair, yet so different in their +expression, lay each still on its pillow,--their wide-open eyes gleaming +out in the shadow like mystical gems. Each was breathing softly, as if +afraid of disturbing the other. At last Sally gave an impatient +movement. + +"How lonesome the sea sounds in the night," she said. "I wish it would +ever be still." + +"I like to hear it," said Mara. "When I was in Boston, for a while I +thought I could not sleep, I used to miss it so much." + +There was another silence, which lasted so long that each girl thought +the other asleep, and moved softly, but at a restless movement from +Sally, Mara spoke again. + +"Sally,--you asleep?" + +"No,--I thought you were." + +"I wanted to ask you," said Mara, "did Moses ever say anything to you +about me?--you know I told you how much he said about you." + +"Yes; he asked me once if you were engaged to Mr. Adams." + +"And what did you tell him?" said Mara, with increasing interest. + +"Well, I only plagued him. I sometimes made him think you were, and +sometimes that you were not; and then again, that there was a deep +mystery in hand. But I praised and glorified Mr. Adams, and told him +what a splendid match it would be, and put on any little bits of +embroidery here and there that I could lay hands on. I used to make him +sulky and gloomy for a whole evening sometimes. In that way it was one +of the best weapons I had." + +"Sally, what does make you love to tease people so?" said Mara. + +"Why, you know the hymn says,-- + + 'Let dogs delight to bark and bite, + For God hath made them so; + Let bears and lions growl and fight, + For 'tis their nature too.' + +That's all the account I can give of it." + +"But," said Mara, "I never can rest easy a moment when I see I am making +a person uncomfortable." + +"Well, I don't tease anybody but the men. I don't tease father or mother +or you,--but men are fair game; they are such thumby, blundering +creatures, and we can confuse them so." + +"Take care, Sally, it's playing with edge tools; you may lose your heart +some day in this kind of game." + +"Never you fear," said Sally; "but aren't you sleepy?--let's go to +sleep." + +Both girls turned their faces resolutely in opposite directions, and +remained for an hour with their large eyes looking out into the moonlit +chamber, like the fixed stars over Harpswell Bay. At last sleep drew +softly down the fringy curtains. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + +THE LAUNCH OF THE ARIEL + + +In the plain, simple regions we are describing,--where the sea is the +great avenue of active life, and the pine forests are the great source +of wealth,--ship-building is an engrossing interest, and there is no +fete that calls forth the community like the launching of a vessel. And +no wonder; for what is there belonging to this workaday world of ours +that has such a never-failing fund of poetry and grace as a ship? A ship +is a beauty and a mystery wherever we see it: its white wings touch the +regions of the unknown and the imaginative; they seem to us full of the +odors of quaint, strange, foreign shores, where life, we fondly dream, +moves in brighter currents than the muddy, tranquil tides of every day. + +Who that sees one bound outward, with her white breasts swelling and +heaving, as if with a reaching expectancy, does not feel his own heart +swell with a longing impulse to go with her to the far-off shores? Even +at dingy, crowded wharves, amid the stir and tumult of great cities, the +coming in of a ship is an event that never can lose its interest. But on +these romantic shores of Maine, where all is so wild and still, and the +blue sea lies embraced in the arms of dark, solitary forests, the sudden +incoming of a ship from a distant voyage is a sort of romance. Who that +has stood by the blue waters of Middle Bay, engirdled as it is by soft +slopes of green farming land, interchanged here and there with heavy +billows of forest-trees, or rocky, pine-crowned promontories, has not +felt that sense of seclusion and solitude which is so delightful? And +then what a wonder! There comes a ship from China, drifting in like a +white cloud,--the gallant creature! how the waters hiss and foam before +her! with what a great free, generous plash she throws out her anchors, +as if she said a cheerful "Well done!" to some glorious work +accomplished! The very life and spirit of strange romantic lands come +with her; suggestions of sandal-wood and spice breathe through the +pine-woods; she is an oriental queen, with hands full of mystical gifts; +"all her garments smell of myrrh and cassia, out of the ivory palaces, +whereby they have made her glad." No wonder men have loved ships like +birds, and that there have been found brave, rough hearts that in fatal +wrecks chose rather to go down with their ocean love than to leave her +in the last throes of her death-agony. + +A ship-building, a ship-sailing community has an unconscious poetry ever +underlying its existence. Exotic ideas from foreign lands relieve the +trite monotony of life; the ship-owner lives in communion with the whole +world, and is less likely to fall into the petty commonplaces that +infest the routine of inland life. + +Never arose a clearer or lovelier October morning than that which was to +start the Ariel on her watery pilgrimage. Moses had risen while the +stars were yet twinkling over their own images in Middle Bay, to go down +and see that everything was right; and in all the houses that we know in +the vicinity, everybody woke with the one thought of being ready to go +to the launching. + +Mrs. Pennel and Mara were also up by starlight, busy over the provisions +for the ample cold collation that was to be spread in a barn adjoining +the scene,--the materials for which they were packing into baskets +covered with nice clean linen cloths, ready for the little sail-boat +which lay within a stone's throw of the door in the brightening dawn, +her white sails looking rosy in the advancing light. + +It had been agreed that the Pennels and the Kittridges should cross +together in this boat with their contributions of good cheer. + +The Kittridges, too, had been astir with the dawn, intent on their quota +of the festive preparations, in which Dame Kittridge's housewifely +reputation was involved,--for it had been a disputed point in the +neighborhood whether she or Mrs. Pennel made the best doughnuts; and of +course, with this fact before her mind, her efforts in this line had +been all but superhuman. + +The Captain skipped in and out in high feather,--occasionally pinching +Sally's cheek, and asking if she were going as captain or mate upon the +vessel after it was launched, for which he got in return a fillip of his +sleeve or a sly twitch of his coat-tails, for Sally and her old father +were on romping terms with each other from early childhood, a thing +which drew frequent lectures from the always exhorting Mrs. Kittridge. + +"Such levity!" she said, as she saw Sally in full chase after his +retreating figure, in order to be revenged for some sly allusions he had +whispered in her ear. + +"Sally Kittridge! Sally Kittridge!" she called, "come back this minute. +What are you about? I should think your father was old enough to know +better." + +"Lawful sakes, Polly, it kind o' renews one's youth to get a new ship +done," said the Captain, skipping in at another door. "Sort o' puts me +in mind o' that _I_ went out cap'en in when I was jist beginning to +court you, as somebody else is courtin' our Sally here." + +"Now, father," said Sally, threateningly, "what did I tell you?" + +"It's really _lemancholy_," said the Captain, "to think how it does +distress gals to talk to 'em 'bout the fellers, when they ain't thinkin' +o' nothin' else all the time. They can't even laugh without sayin' +he-he-he!" + +"Now, father, you know I've told you five hundred times that I don't +care a cent for Moses Pennel,--that he's a hateful creature," said +Sally, looking very red and determined. + +"Yes, yes," said the Captain, "I take that ar's the reason you've ben +a-wearin' the ring he gin you and them ribbins you've got on your neck +this blessed minute, and why you've giggled off to singin'-school, and +Lord knows where with him all summer,--that ar's clear now." + +"But, father," said Sally, getting redder and more earnest, "I don't +care for him really, and I've told him so. I keep telling him so, and he +will run after me." + +"Haw! haw!" laughed the Captain; "he will, will he? Jist so, Sally; that +ar's jist the way your ma there talked to me, and it kind o' 'couraged +me along. I knew that gals always has to be read back'ard jist like the +writin' in the Barbary States." + +"Captain Kittridge, will you stop such ridiculous talk?" said his +helpmeet; "and jist carry this 'ere basket of cold chicken down to the +landin' agin the Pennels come round in the boat; and you must step spry, +for there's two more baskets a-comin'." + +The Captain shouldered the basket and walked toward the sea with it, and +Sally retired to her own little room to hold a farewell consultation +with her mirror before she went. + +You will perhaps think from the conversation that you heard the other +night, that Sally now will cease all thought of coquettish allurement in +her acquaintance with Moses, and cause him to see by an immediate and +marked change her entire indifference. Probably, as she stands +thoughtfully before her mirror, she is meditating on the propriety of +laying aside the ribbons he gave her--perhaps she will alter that +arrangement of her hair which is one that he himself particularly +dictated as most becoming to the character of her face. She opens a +little drawer, which looks like a flower garden, all full of little +knots of pink and blue and red, and various fancies of the toilet, and +looks into it reflectively. She looses the ribbon from her hair and +chooses another,--but Moses gave her that too, and said, she remembers, +that when she wore that "he should know she had been thinking of him." +Sally is Sally yet--as full of sly dashes of coquetry as a tulip is of +streaks. + +"There's no reason I should make myself look like a fright because I +don't care for him," she says; "besides, after all that he has said, he +ought to say more,--he ought at least to give me a chance to say no,--he +_shall_, too," said the gypsy, winking at the bright, elfish face in the +glass. + +"Sally Kittridge, Sally Kittridge," called her mother, "how long will +you stay prinkin'?--come down this minute." + +"Law now, mother," said the Captain, "gals must prink afore such times; +it's as natural as for hens to dress their feathers afore a +thunder-storm." + +Sally at last appeared, all in a flutter of ribbons and scarfs, whose +bright, high colors assorted well with the ultramarine blue of her +dress, and the vivid pomegranate hue of her cheeks. The boat with its +white sails flapping was balancing and courtesying up and down on the +waters, and in the stern sat Mara; her shining white straw hat trimmed +with blue ribbons set off her golden hair and pink shell complexion. The +dark, even penciling of her eyebrows, and the beauty of the brow above, +the brown translucent clearness of her thoughtful eyes, made her face +striking even with its extreme delicacy of tone. She was unusually +animated and excited, and her cheeks had a rich bloom of that pure deep +rose-color which flushes up in fair complexions under excitement, and +her eyes had a kind of intense expression, for which they had always +been remarkable. All the deep secluded yearning of repressed nature was +looking out of them, giving that pathos which every one has felt at +times in the silence of eyes. + +"Now bless that ar gal," said the Captain, when he saw her. "Our Sally +here's handsome, but she's got the real New-Jerusalem look, she +has--like them in the Revelations that wears the fine linen, clean and +white." + +"Bless you, Captain Kittridge! don't be a-makin' a fool of yourself +about no girl at your time o' life," said Mrs. Kittridge, speaking under +her breath in a nipping, energetic tone, for they were coming too near +the boat to speak very loud. + +"Good mornin', Mis' Pennel; we've got a good day, and a mercy it is so. +'Member when we launched the North Star, that it rained guns all the +mornin', and the water got into the baskets when we was a-fetchin' the +things over, and made a sight o' pester." + +"Yes," said Mrs. Pennel, with an air of placid satisfaction, "everything +seems to be going right about this vessel." + +Mrs. Kittridge and Sally were soon accommodated with seats, and +Zephaniah Pennel and the Captain began trimming sail. The day was one of +those perfect gems of days which are to be found only in the +jewel-casket of October, a day neither hot nor cold, with an air so +clear that every distant pine-tree top stood out in vivid separateness, +and every woody point and rocky island seemed cut out in crystalline +clearness against the sky. There was so brisk a breeze that the boat +slanted quite to the water's edge on one side, and Mara leaned over and +pensively drew her little pearly hand through the water, and thought of +the days when she and Moses took this sail together--she in her pink +sun-bonnet, and he in his round straw hat, with a tin dinner-pail +between them; and now, to-day the ship of her childish dreams was to be +launched. That launching was something she regarded almost with +superstitious awe. The ship, built on one element, but designed to have +its life in another, seemed an image of the soul, framed and fashioned +with many a weary hammer-stroke in this life, but finding its true +element only when it sails out into the ocean of eternity. Such was her +thought as she looked down the clear, translucent depths; but would it +have been of any use to try to utter it to anybody?--to Sally Kittridge, +for example, who sat all in a cheerful rustle of bright ribbons beside +her, and who would have shown her white teeth all round at such a +suggestion, and said, "Now, Mara, who but you would have thought of +that?" + +But there are souls sent into this world who seem to have always +mysterious affinities for the invisible and the unknown--who see the +face of everything beautiful through a thin veil of mystery and sadness. +The Germans call this yearning of spirit home-sickness--the dim +remembrances of a spirit once affiliated to some higher sphere, of whose +lost brightness all things fair are the vague reminders. As Mara looked +pensively into the water, it seemed to her that every incident of life +came up out of its depths to meet her. Her own face reflected in a +wavering image, sometimes shaped itself to her gaze in the likeness of +the pale lady of her childhood, who seemed to look up at her from the +waters with dark, mysterious eyes of tender longing. Once or twice this +dreamy effect grew so vivid that she shivered, and drawing herself up +from the water, tried to take an interest in a very minute account which +Mrs. Kittridge was giving of the way to make corn-fritters which should +taste exactly like oysters. The closing direction about the quantity of +mace Mrs. Kittridge felt was too sacred for common ears, and therefore +whispered it into Mrs. Pennel's bonnet with a knowing nod and a look +from her black spectacles which would not have been bad for a priestess +of Dodona in giving out an oracle. In this secret direction about the +_mace_ lay the whole mystery of corn-oysters; and who can say what +consequences might ensue from casting it in an unguarded manner before +the world? + +And now the boat which has rounded Harpswell Point is skimming across to +the head of Middle Bay, where the new ship can distinctly be discerned +standing upon her ways, while moving clusters of people were walking up +and down her decks or lining the shore in the vicinity. All sorts of +gossiping and neighborly chit-chat is being interchanged in the little +world assembling there. + +"I hain't seen the Pennels nor the Kittridges yet," said Aunt Ruey, +whose little roly-poly figure was made illustrious in her best +cinnamon-colored dyed silk. "There's Moses Pennel a-goin' up that ar +ladder. Dear me, what a beautiful feller he is! it's a pity he ain't +a-goin' to marry Mara Lincoln, after all." + +"Ruey, do hush up," said Miss Roxy, frowning sternly down from under the +shadow of a preternatural black straw bonnet, trimmed with huge bows of +black ribbon, which head-piece sat above her curls like a helmet. "Don't +be a-gettin' sentimental, Ruey, whatever else you get--and talkin' like +Miss Emily Sewell about match-makin'; I can't stand it; it rises on my +stomach, such talk does. As to that ar Moses Pennel, folks ain't so +certain as they thinks what he'll do. Sally Kittridge may think he's +a-goin' to have her, because he's been a-foolin' round with her all +summer, and Sally Kittridge may jist find she's mistaken, that's all." + +"Yes," said Miss Ruey, "I 'member when I was a girl my old aunt, Jerushy +Hopkins, used to be always a-dwellin' on this Scripture, and I've been +havin' it brought up to me this mornin': 'There are three things which +are too wonderful for me, yea, four, which I know not: the way of an +eagle in the air, the way of a serpent upon a rock, the way of a ship in +the sea, and the way of a man with a maid.' She used to say it as a +kind o' caution to me when she used to think Abram Peters was bein' +attentive to me. I've often reflected what a massy it was that ar never +come to nothin', for he's a poor drunken critter now." + +"Well, for my part," said Miss Roxy, fixing her eyes critically on the +boat that was just at the landing, "I should say the ways of a maid with +a man was full as particular as any of the rest of 'em. Do look at Sally +Kittridge now. There's Tom Hiers a-helpin' her out of the boat; and did +you see the look she gin Moses Pennel as she went by him? Wal', Moses has +got Mara on his arm anyhow; there's a gal worth six-and-twenty of the +other. Do see them ribbins and scarfs, and the furbelows, and the way +that ar Sally Kittridge handles her eyes. She's one that one feller +ain't never enough for." + +Mara's heart beat fast when the boat touched the shore, and Moses and +one or two other young men came to assist in their landing. Never had he +looked more beautiful than at this moment, when flushed with excitement +and satisfaction he stood on the shore, his straw hat off, and his black +curls blowing in the sea-breeze. He looked at Sally with a look of frank +admiration as she stood there dropping her long black lashes over her +bright cheeks, and coquettishly looking out from under them, but she +stepped forward with a little energy of movement, and took the offered +hand of Tom Hiers, who was gazing at her too with undisguised rapture, +and Moses, stepping into the boat, helped Mrs. Pennel on shore, and then +took Mara on his arm, looking her over as he did so with a glance far +less assured and direct than he had given to Sally. + +"You won't be afraid to climb the ladders, Mara?" said he. + +"Not if you help me," she said. + +Sally and Tom Hiers had already walked on toward the vessel, she +ostentatiously chatting and laughing with him. Moses's brow clouded a +little, and Mara noticed it. Moses thought he did not care for Sally; he +knew that the little hand that was now lying on his arm was the one he +wanted, and yet he felt vexed when he saw Sally walk off triumphantly +with another. It was the dog-in-the-manger feeling which possesses +coquettes of both sexes. Sally, on all former occasions, had shown a +marked preference for him, and professed supreme indifference to Tom +Hiers. + +"It's all well enough," he said to himself, and he helped Mara up the +ladders with the greatest deference and tenderness. "This little woman +is worth ten such girls as Sally, if one only could get her heart. Here +we are on our ship, Mara," he said, as he lifted her over the last +barrier and set her down on the deck. "Look over there, do you see Eagle +Island? Did you dream when we used to go over there and spend the day +that you ever would be on _my_ ship, as you are to-day? You won't be +afraid, will you, when the ship starts?" + +"I am too much of a sea-girl to fear on anything that sails in water," +said Mara with enthusiasm. "What a splendid ship! how nicely it all +looks!" + +"Come, let me take you over it," said Moses, "and show you my cabin." + +Meanwhile the graceful little vessel was the subject of various comments +by the crowd of spectators below, and the clatter of workmen's hammers +busy in some of the last preparations could yet be heard like a shower +of hail-stones under her. + +"I hope the ways are well greased," said old Captain Eldritch. "'Member +how the John Peters stuck in her ways for want of their being greased?" + +"Don't you remember the Grand Turk, that keeled over five minutes after +she was launched?" said the quavering voice of Miss Ruey; "there was +jist such a company of thoughtless young creatures aboard as there is +now." + +"Well, there wasn't nobody hurt," said Captain Kittridge. "If Mis' +Kittridge would let me, I'd be glad to go aboard this 'ere, and be +launched with 'em." + +"I tell the Cap'n he's too old to be climbin' round and mixin' with +young folks' frolics," said Mrs. Kittridge. + +"I suppose, Cap'n Pennel, you've seen that the ways is all right," said +Captain Broad, returning to the old subject. + +"Oh yes, it's all done as well as hands can do it," said Zephaniah. +"Moses has been here since starlight this morning, and Moses has pretty +good faculty about such matters." + +"Where's Mr. Sewell and Miss Emily?" said Miss Ruey. "Oh, there they are +over on that pile of rocks; they get a pretty fair view there." + +Mr. Sewell and Miss Emily were sitting under a cedar-tree, with two or +three others, on a projecting point whence they could have a clear view +of the launching. They were so near that they could distinguish clearly +the figures on deck, and see Moses standing with his hat off, the wind +blowing his curls back, talking earnestly to the golden-haired little +woman on his arm. + +"It is a launch into life for him," said Mr. Sewell, with suppressed +feeling. + +"Yes, and he has Mara on his arm," said Miss Emily; "that's as it should +be. Who is that that Sally Kittridge is flirting with now? Oh, Tom +Hiers. Well! he's good enough for her. Why don't she take him?" said +Miss Emily, in her zeal jogging her brother's elbow. + +"I'm sure, Emily, I don't know," said Mr. Sewell dryly; "perhaps he +won't be taken." + +"Don't you think Moses looks handsome?" said Miss Emily. "I declare +there is something quite romantic and Spanish about him; don't you think +so, Theophilus?" + +"Yes, I think so," said her brother, quietly looking, externally, the +meekest and most matter-of-fact of persons, but deep within him a voice +sighed, "Poor Dolores, be comforted, your boy is beautiful and +prosperous!" + +"There, there!" said Miss Emily, "I believe she is starting." + +All eyes of the crowd were now fixed on the ship; the sound of hammers +stopped; the workmen were seen flying in every direction to gain good +positions to see her go,--that sight so often seen on those shores, yet +to which use cannot dull the most insensible. + +First came a slight, almost imperceptible, movement, then a swift +exultant rush, a dash into the hissing water, and the air was rent with +hurrahs as the beautiful ship went floating far out on the blue seas, +where her fairer life was henceforth to be. + +Mara was leaning on Moses's arm at the instant the ship began to move, +but in the moment of the last dizzy rush she felt his arm go tightly +round her, holding her so close that she could hear the beating of his +heart. + +"Hurrah!" he said, letting go his hold the moment the ship floated free, +and swinging his hat in answer to the hats, scarfs, and handkerchiefs, +which fluttered from the crowd on the shore. His eyes sparkled with a +proud light as he stretched himself upward, raising his head and +throwing back his shoulders with a triumphant movement. He looked like a +young sea-king just crowned; and the fact is the less wonderful, +therefore, that Mara felt her heart throb as she looked at him, and that +a treacherous throb of the same nature shook the breezy ribbons +fluttering over the careless heart of Sally. A handsome young +sea-captain, treading the deck of his own vessel, is, in his time and +place, a prince. + +Moses looked haughtily across at Sally, and then passed a half-laughing +defiant flash of eyes between them. He looked at Mara, who could +certainly not have known what was in her eyes at the moment,--an +expression that made his heart give a great throb, and wonder if he saw +aright: but it was gone a moment after, as all gathered around in a knot +exchanging congratulations on the fortunate way in which the affair had +gone off. Then came the launching in boats to go back to the collation +on shore, where were high merry-makings for the space of one or two +hours: and thus was fulfilled the first part of Moses Pennel's Saturday +afternoon prediction. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + +GREEK MEETS GREEK + + +Moses was now within a day or two of the time of his sailing, and yet +the distance between him and Mara seemed greater than ever. It is +astonishing, when two people are once started on a wrong understanding +with each other, how near they may live, how intimate they may be, how +many things they may have in common, how many words they may speak, how +closely they may seem to simulate intimacy, confidence, friendship, +while yet there lies a gulf between them that neither crosses,--a +reserve that neither explores. + +Like most shy girls, Mara became more shy the more really she understood +the nature of her own feelings. The conversation with Sally had opened +her eyes to the secret of her own heart, and she had a guilty feeling as +if what she had discovered must be discovered by every one else. Yes, it +was clear she loved Moses in a way that made him, she thought, more +necessary to her happiness than she could ever be to his,--in a way that +made it impossible to think of him as wholly and for life devoted to +another, without a constant inner conflict. In vain had been all her +little stratagems practiced upon herself the whole summer long, to prove +to herself that she was glad that the choice had fallen upon Sally. She +saw clearly enough now that she was not glad,--that there was no woman +or girl living, however dear, who could come for life between him and +her, without casting on her heart the shuddering sorrow of a dim +eclipse. + +But now the truth was plain to herself, her whole force was directed +toward the keeping of her secret. "I may suffer," she thought, "but I +will have strength not to be silly and weak. Nobody shall know,--nobody +shall dream it,--and in the long, long time that he is away, I shall +have strength given me to overcome." + +So Mara put on her most cheerful and matter-of-fact kind of face, and +plunged into the making of shirts and knitting of stockings, and talked +of the coming voyage with such a total absence of any concern, that +Moses began to think, after all, there could be no depth to her +feelings, or that the deeper ones were all absorbed by some one else. + +"You really seem to enjoy the prospect of my going away," said he to +her, one morning, as she was energetically busying herself with her +preparations. + +"Well, of course; you know your career must begin. You must make your +fortune; and it is pleasant to think how favorably everything is shaping +for you." + +"One likes, however, to be a little regretted," said Moses, in a tone of +pique. + +"A little regretted!" Mara's heart beat at these words, but her +hypocrisy was well practiced. She put down the rebellious throb, and +assuming a look of open, sisterly friendliness, said, quite naturally, +"Why, we shall all miss you, of course." + +"Of course," said Moses,--"one would be glad to be missed some other way +than _of course_." + +"Oh, as to that, make yourself easy," said Mara. "We shall all be dull +enough when you are gone to content the most exacting." Still she spoke, +not stopping her stitching, and raising her soft brown eyes with a +frank, open look into Moses's--no tremor, not even of an eyelid. + +"You men must have everything," she continued, gayly, "the enterprise, +the adventure, the novelty, the pleasure of feeling that you are +something, and can do something in the world; and besides all this, you +want the satisfaction of knowing that we women are following in chains +behind your triumphal car!" + +There was a dash of bitterness in this, which was a rare ingredient in +Mara's conversation. + +Moses took the word. "And you women sit easy at home, sewing and +singing, and forming romantic pictures of our life as like its homely +reality as romances generally are to reality; and while we are off in +the hard struggle for position and the means of life, you hold your +hearts ready for the first rich man that offers a fortune ready made." + +"The first!" said Mara. "Oh, you naughty! sometimes we try two or +three." + +"Well, then, I suppose this is from one of them," said Moses, flapping +down a letter from Boston, directed in a masculine hand, which he had +got at the post-office that morning. + +Now Mara knew that this letter was nothing in particular, but she was +taken by surprise, and her skin was delicate as peach-blossom, and so +she could not help a sudden blush, which rose even to her golden hair, +vexed as she was to feel it coming. She put the letter quietly in her +pocket, and for a moment seemed too discomposed to answer. + +"You do well to keep your own counsel," said Moses. "No friend so near +as one's self, is a good maxim. One does not expect young girls to learn +it so early, but it seems they do." + +"And why shouldn't they as well as young men?" said Mara. "Confidence +begets confidence, they say." + +"I have no ambition to play confidant," said Moses; "although as one who +stands to you in the relation of older brother and guardian, and just on +the verge of a long voyage, I might be supposed anxious to know." + +"And I have no ambition to be confidant," said Mara, all her spirit +sparkling in her eyes; "although when one stands to you in the relation +of an only sister, I might be supposed perhaps to feel some interest to +be in your confidence." + +The words "older brother" and "only sister" grated on the ears of both +the combatants as a decisive sentence. Mara never looked so pretty in +her life, for the whole force of her being was awake, glowing and +watchful, to guard passage, door, and window of her soul, that no +treacherous hint might escape. Had he not just reminded her that he was +only an older brother? and what would he think if he knew the +truth?--and Moses thought the words _only sister_ unequivocal +declaration of how the matter stood in her view, and so he rose, and +saying, "I won't detain you longer from your letter," took his hat and +went out. + +"Are you going down to Sally's?" said Mara, coming to the door and +looking out after him. + +"Yes." + +"Well, ask her to come home with you and spend the evening. I have ever +so many things to tell her." + +"I will," said Moses, as he lounged away. + +"The thing is clear enough," said Moses to himself. "Why should I make a +fool of myself any further? What possesses us men always to set our +hearts precisely on what isn't to be had? There's Sally Kittridge likes +me; I can see that plainly enough, for all her mincing; and why couldn't +I have had the sense to fall in love with her? She will make a splendid, +showy woman. She has talent and tact enough to rise to any position I +may rise to, let me rise as high as I will. She will always have skill +and energy in the conduct of life; and when all the froth and foam of +youth has subsided, she will make a noble woman. Why, then, do I cling +to this fancy? I feel that this little flossy cloud, this delicate, +quiet little puff of thistledown, on which I have set my heart, is the +only thing for me, and that without her my life will always be +incomplete. I remember all our early life. It was she who sought me, and +ran after me, and where has all that love gone to? Gone to this fellow; +that's plain enough. When a girl like her is so comfortably cool and +easy, it's because her heart is off somewhere else." + +This conversation took place about four o'clock in as fine an October +afternoon as you could wish to see. The sun, sloping westward, turned to +gold the thousand blue scales of the ever-heaving sea, and soft, +pine-scented winds were breathing everywhere through the forests, waving +the long, swaying films of heavy moss, and twinkling the leaves of the +silver birches that fluttered through the leafy gloom. The moon, already +in the sky, gave promise of a fine moonlight night; and the wild and +lonely stillness of the island, and the thoughts of leaving in a few +days, all conspired to foster the restless excitement in our hero's mind +into a kind of romantic unrest. + +Now, in some such states, a man disappointed in one woman will turn to +another, because, in a certain way and measure, her presence stills the +craving and fills the void. It is a sort of supposititious courtship,--a +saying to one woman, who is sympathetic and receptive, the words of +longing and love that another will not receive. To be sure it is a game +unworthy of any true man,--a piece of sheer, reckless, inconsiderate +selfishness. But men do it, as they do many other unworthy things, from +the mere promptings of present impulse, and let consequences take care +of themselves. Moses met Sally that afternoon in just the frame to play +the lover in this hypothetical, supposititious way, with words and looks +and tones that came from feelings given to another. And as to Sally? +Well, for once, Greek met Greek; for although Sally, as we showed her, +was a girl of generous impulses, she was yet in no danger of immediate +translation on account of superhuman goodness. In short, Sally had made +up her mind that Moses should give her a chance to say that precious and +golden _No_, which should enable her to count him as one of her +captives,--and then he might go where he liked for all her. + +So said the wicked elf, as she looked into her own great eyes in the +little square of mirror shaded by a misty asparagus bush; and to this +end there were various braidings and adornings of the lustrous black +hair, and coquettish earrings were mounted that hung glancing and +twinkling just by the smooth outline of her glowing cheek,--and then +Sally looked at herself in a friendly way of approbation, and nodded at +the bright dimpled shadow with a look of secret understanding. The real +Sally and the Sally of the looking-glass were on admirable terms with +each other, and both of one mind about the plan of campaign against the +common enemy. Sally thought of him as he stood kingly and triumphant on +the deck of his vessel, his great black eyes flashing confident glances +into hers, and she felt a rebellious rustle of all her plumage. "No, +sir," she said to herself, "you don't do it. You shall never find me +among your slaves,"--"that you know of," added a doubtful voice within +her. "Never to your knowledge," she said, as she turned away. "I wonder +if he will come here this evening," she said, as she began to work upon +a pillow-case,--one of a set which Mrs. Kittridge had confided to her +nimble fingers. The seam was long, straight, and monotonous, and Sally +was restless and fidgety; her thread would catch in knots, and when she +tried to loosen it, would break, and the needle had to be threaded over. +Somehow the work was terribly irksome to her, and the house looked so +still and dim and lonesome, and the tick-tock of the kitchen-clock was +insufferable, and Sally let her work fall in her lap and looked out of +the open window, far to the open ocean, where a fresh breeze was +blowing toward her, and her eyes grew deep and dreamy following the +gliding ship sails. Sally was getting romantic. Had she been reading +novels? Novels! What can a pretty woman find in a novel equal to the +romance that is all the while weaving and unweaving about her, and of +which no human foresight can tell her the catastrophe? It is _novels_ +that give false views of life. Is there not an eternal novel, with all +these false, cheating views, written in the breast of every beautiful +and attractive girl whose witcheries make every man that comes near her +talk like a fool? Like a sovereign princess, she never hears the truth, +unless it be from the one manly man in a thousand, who understands both +himself and her. From all the rest she hears only flatteries more or +less ingenious, according to the ability of the framer. Compare, for +instance, what Tom Brown says to little Seraphina at the party to-night, +with what Tom Brown sober says to sober sister Maria _about_ her +to-morrow. Tom remembers that he was a fool last night, and knows what +he thinks and always has thought to-day; but pretty Seraphina thinks he +adores her, so that no matter what she does he will never see a flaw, +she is sure of that,--poor little puss! She does not know that +philosophic Tom looks at her as he does at a glass of champagne, or a +dose of exhilarating gas, and calculates how much it will do for him to +take of the stimulus without interfering with his serious and settled +plans of life, which, of course, he doesn't mean to give up for her. The +one-thousand-and-first man in creation is he that can feel the +fascination but will not flatter, and that tries to tell to the little +tyrant the rare word of truth that may save her; he is, as we say, the +one-thousand-and-first. Well, as Sally sat with her great dark eyes +dreamily following the ship, she mentally thought over all the +compliments Moses had paid her, expressed or understood, and those of +all her other admirers, who had built up a sort of cloud-world around +her, so that her little feet never rested on the soil of reality. Sally +was shrewd and keen, and had a native mother-wit in the discernment of +spirits, that made her feel that somehow this was all false coin; but +still she counted it over, and it looked so pretty and bright that she +sighed to think it was not real. + +"If it only had been," she thought; "if there were only any truth to the +creature; he is so handsome,--it's a pity. But I do believe in his +secret heart he is in love with Mara; he is in love with some one, I +know. I have seen looks that must come from something real; but they +were not for me. I have a kind of power over him, though," she said, +resuming her old wicked look, "and I'll puzzle him a little, and torment +him. He shall find his match in me," and Sally nodded to a cat-bird that +sat perched on a pine-tree, as if she had a secret understanding with +him, and the cat-bird went off into a perfect roulade of imitations of +all that was going on in the late bird-operas of the season. + +Sally was roused from her revery by a spray of goldenrod that was thrown +into her lap by an invisible hand, and Moses soon appeared at the +window. + +"There's a plume that would be becoming to your hair," he said; "stay, +let me arrange it." + +"No, no; you'll tumble my hair,--what can you know of such things?" + +Moses held the spray aloft, and leaned toward her with a sort of quiet, +determined insistence. + +"By your leave, fair lady," he said, wreathing it in her hair, and then +drawing back a little, he looked at her with so much admiration that +Sally felt herself blush. + +"Come, now, I dare say you've made a fright of me," she said, rising and +instinctively turning to the looking-glass; but she had too much +coquetry not to see how admirably the golden plume suited her black +hair, and the brilliant eyes and cheeks; she turned to Moses again, and +courtesied, saying "Thank you, sir," dropping her eyelashes with a mock +humility. + +"Come, now," said Moses; "I am sent after you to come and spend the +evening; let's walk along the seashore, and get there by degrees." + +And so they set out; but the path was circuitous, for Moses was always +stopping, now at this point and now at that, and enacting some of those +thousand little by-plays which a man can get up with a pretty woman. +They searched for smooth pebbles where the waves had left +them,--many-colored, pink and crimson and yellow and brown, all smooth +and rounded by the eternal tossings of the old sea that had made +playthings of them for centuries, and with every pebble given and taken +were things said which should have meant more and more, had the play +been earnest. Had Moses any idea of offering himself to Sally? No; but +he was in one of those fluctuating, unresisting moods of mind in which +he was willing to lie like a chip on the tide of present emotion, and +let it rise and fall and dash him when it liked; and Sally never had +seemed more beautiful and attractive to him than that afternoon, because +there was a shade of reality and depth about her that he had never seen +before. + +"Come on, and let me show you my hermitage," said Moses, guiding her +along the slippery projecting rocks, all covered with yellow tresses of +seaweed. Sally often slipped on this treacherous footing, and Moses was +obliged to hold her up, and instinctively he threw a meaning into his +manner so much more than ever he had before, that by the time they had +gained the little cove both were really agitated and excited. He felt +that temporary delirium which is often the mesmeric effect of a strong +womanly presence, and she felt that agitation which every woman must +when a determined hand is striking on the great vital chord of her +being. When they had stepped round the last point of rock they found +themselves driven by the advancing tide up into the little lonely +grotto,--and there they were with no lookout but the wide blue sea, all +spread out in rose and gold under the twilight skies, with a silver moon +looking down upon them. + +"Sally," said Moses, in a low, earnest whisper, "you love me,--do you +not?" and he tried to pass his arm around her. + +She turned and flashed at him a look of mingled terror and defiance, and +struck out her hands at him; then impetuously turning away and +retreating to the other end of the grotto, she sat down on a rock and +began to cry. + +Moses came toward her, and kneeling, tried to take her hand. She raised +her head angrily, and again repulsed him. + +"Go!" she said. "What right had you to say that? What right had you even +to think it?" + +"Sally, you do love me. It cannot but be. You are a woman; you could not +have been with me as we have and not feel more than friendship." + +"Oh, you men!--your conceit passes understanding," said Sally. "You +think we are born to be your bond slaves,--but for once you are +mistaken, sir. I _don't_ love you; and what's more, you don't love +me,--you know you don't; you know that you love somebody else. You love +Mara,--you know you do; there's no truth in you," she said, rising +indignantly. + +Moses felt himself color. There was an embarrassed pause, and then he +answered,-- + +"Sally, why should I love Mara? Her heart is all given to another,--you +yourself know it." + +"I don't know it either," said Sally; "I know it isn't so." + +"But you gave me to understand so." + +"Well, sir, you put prying questions about what you ought to have asked +her, and so what was I to do? Besides, I did want to show you how much +better Mara could do than to take you; besides, I didn't know till +lately. I never thought she could care much for any man more than I +could." + +"And you think she loves me?" said Moses, eagerly, a flash of joy +illuminating his face; "do you, really?" + +"There you are," said Sally; "it's a shame I have let you know! Yes, +Moses Pennel, she loves you like an angel, as none of you men deserve to +be loved,--as you in particular don't." + +Moses sat down on a point of rock, and looked on the ground +discountenanced. Sally stood up glowing and triumphant, as if she had +her foot on the neck of her oppressor and meant to make the most of it. + +"Now what do you think of yourself for all this summer's work?--for what +you have just said, asking me if I didn't love you? Supposing, now, I +had done as other girls would, played the fool and blushed, and said +yes? Why, to-morrow you would have been thinking how to be rid of me! I +shall save you all that trouble, sir." + +"Sally, I own I have been acting like a fool," said Moses, humbly. + +"You have done more than that,--you have acted wickedly," said Sally. + +"And am I the only one to blame?" said Moses, lifting his head with a +show of resistance. + +"Listen, sir!" said Sally, energetically; "I have played the fool and +acted wrong too, but there is just this difference between you and me: +you had nothing to lose, and I a great deal; your heart, such as it was, +was safely disposed of. But supposing you had won mine, what would you +have done with it? That was the last thing you considered." + +"Go on, Sally, don't spare; I'm a vile dog, unworthy of either of you," +said Moses. + +Sally looked down on her handsome penitent with some relenting, as he +sat quite dejected, his strong arms drooping, and his long eyelashes +cast down. + +"I'll be friends with you," she said, "because, after all, I'm not so +very much better than you. We have both done wrong, and made dear Mara +very unhappy. But after all, I was not so much to blame as you; because, +if there had been any reality in your love, I could have paid it +honestly. I had a heart to give,--I have it now, and hope long to keep +it," said Sally. + +"Sally, you are a right noble girl. I never knew what you were till +now," said Moses, looking at her with admiration. + +"It's the first time for all these six months that we have either of us +spoken a word of truth or sense to each other. I never did anything but +trifle with you, and you the same. Now we've come to some plain dry +land, we may walk on and be friends. So now help me up these rocks, and +I will go home." + +"And you'll not come home with me?" + +"Of course not. I think you may now go home and have one talk with Mara +without witnesses." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + +THE BETROTHAL + + +Moses walked slowly home from his interview with Sally, in a sort of +maze of confused thought. In general, men understand women only from the +outside, and judge them with about as much real comprehension as an +eagle might judge a canary-bird. The difficulty of real understanding +intensifies in proportion as the man is distinctively manly, and the +woman womanly. There are men with a large infusion of the feminine +element in their composition who read the female nature with more +understanding than commonly falls to the lot of men; but in general, +when a man passes beyond the mere outside artifices and unrealities +which lie between the two sexes, and really touches his finger to any +vital chord in the heart of a fair neighbor, he is astonished at the +quality of the vibration. + +"I could not have dreamed there was so much in her," thought Moses, as +he turned away from Sally Kittridge. He felt humbled as well as +astonished by the moral lecture which this frisky elf with whom he had +all summer been amusing himself, preached to him from the depths of a +real woman's heart. What she said of Mara's loving him filled his eyes +with remorseful tears,--and for the moment he asked himself whether this +restless, jealous, exacting desire which he felt to appropriate her +whole life and heart to himself were as really worthy of the name of +love as the generous self-devotion with which she had, all her life, +made all his interests her own. + +Was he to go to her now and tell her that he loved her, and therefore +he had teased and vexed her,--therefore he had seemed to prefer another +before her,--therefore he had practiced and experimented upon her +nature? A suspicion rather stole upon him that love which expresses +itself principally in making exactions and giving pain is not exactly +worthy of the name. And yet he had been secretly angry with her all +summer for being the very reverse of this; for her apparent cheerful +willingness to see him happy with another; for the absence of all signs +of jealousy,--all desire of exclusive appropriation. It showed, he said +to himself, that there was no love; and now when it dawned on him that +this might be the very heroism of self-devotion, he asked himself which +was best worthy to be called love. + +"She did love him, then!" The thought blazed up through the smouldering +embers of thought in his heart like a tongue of flame. She loved him! He +felt a sort of triumph in it, for he was sure Sally must know, they were +so intimate. Well, he would go to her, and tell her all, confess all his +sins, and be forgiven. + +When he came back to the house, all was still evening. The moon, which +was playing brightly on the distant sea, left one side of the brown +house in shadow. Moses saw a light gleaming behind the curtain in the +little room on the lower floor, which had been his peculiar sanctum +during the summer past. He had made a sort of library of it, keeping +there his books and papers. Upon the white curtain flitted, from time to +time, a delicate, busy shadow; now it rose and now it stooped, and then +it rose again--grew dim and vanished, and then came out again. His heart +beat quick. + +Mara was in his room, busy, as she always had been before his +departures, in cares for him. How many things had she made for him, and +done and arranged for him, all his life long! things which he had taken +as much as a matter of course as the shining of that moon. His thought +went back to the times of his first going to sea,--he a rough, chaotic +boy, sensitive and surly, and she the ever thoughtful good angel of a +little girl, whose loving-kindness he had felt free to use and to abuse. +He remembered that he made her cry there when he should have spoken +lovingly and gratefully to her, and that the words of acknowledgment +that ought to have been spoken, never had been said,--remained unsaid to +that hour. He stooped low, and came quite close to the muslin curtain. +All was bright in the room, and shadowy without; he could see her +movements as through a thin white haze. She was packing his sea-chest; +his things were lying about her, folded or rolled nicely. Now he saw her +on her knees writing something with a pencil in a book, and then she +enveloped it very carefully in silk paper, and tied it trimly, and hid +it away at the bottom of the chest. Then she remained a moment kneeling +at the chest, her head resting in her hands. A sort of strange, sacred +feeling came over him as he heard a low murmur, and knew that she felt a +Presence that he never felt or acknowledged. He felt somehow that he was +doing her a wrong thus to be prying upon moments when she thought +herself alone with God; a sort of vague remorse filled him; he felt as +if she were too good for him. He turned away, and entering the front +door of the house, stepped noiselessly along and lifted the latch of the +door. He heard a rustle as of one rising hastily as he opened it and +stood before Mara. He had made up his mind what to say; but when she +stood there before him, with her surprised, inquiring eyes, he felt +confused. + +"What, home so soon?" she said. + +"You did not expect me, then?" + +"Of course not,--not for these two hours; so," she said, looking about, +"I found some mischief to do among your things. If you had waited as +long as I expected, they would all have been quite right again, and you +would never have known." + +Moses sat down and drew her toward him, as if he were going to say +something, and then stopped and began confusedly playing with her +work-box. + +"Now, please don't," said she, archly. "You know what a little old maid +I am about my things!" + +"Mara," said Moses, "people have asked you to marry them, have they +not?" + +"People asked me to marry them!" said Mara. "I hope not. What an odd +question!" + +"You know what I mean," said Moses; "you have had offers of +marriage--from Mr. Adams, for example." + +"And what if I have?" + +"You did not accept him, Mara?" said Moses. + +"No, I did not." + +"And yet he was a fine man, I am told, and well fitted to make you +happy." + +"I believe he was," said Mara, quietly. + +"And why were you so foolish?" + +Mara was fretted at this question. She supposed Moses had come to tell +her of his engagement to Sally, and that this was a kind of preface, and +she answered,-- + +"I don't know why you call it foolish. I was a true friend to Mr. Adams. +I saw intellectually that he might have the power of making any +reasonable woman happy. I think now that the woman will be fortunate who +becomes his wife; but I did not wish to marry him." + +"Is there anybody you prefer to him, Mara?" said Moses. + +She started up with glowing cheeks and sparkling eyes. + +"You have no right to ask me that, though you are my brother." + +"I am not your brother, Mara," said Moses, rising and going toward her, +"and that is why I ask you. I feel I have a right to ask you." + +"I do not understand you," she said, faintly. + +"I can speak plainer, then. I wish to put in my poor venture. I love +you, Mara--not as a brother. I wish you to be my wife, if you will." + +While Moses was saying these words, Mara felt a sort of whirling in her +head, and it grew dark before her eyes; but she had a strong, firm will, +and she mastered herself and answered, after a moment, in a quiet, +sorrowful tone, "How can I believe this, Moses? If it is true, why have +you done as you have this summer?" + +"Because I was a fool, Mara,--because I was jealous of Mr. +Adams,--because I somehow hoped, after all, that you either loved me or +that I might make you think more of me through jealousy of another. They +say that love always is shown by jealousy." + +"Not true love, I should think," said Mara. "How _could_ you do so?--it +was cruel to her,--cruel to me." + +"I admit it,--anything, everything you can say. I have acted like a fool +and a knave, if you will; but after all, Mara, I do love you. I know I +am not worthy of you--never was--never can be; you are in all things a +true, noble woman, and I have been unmanly." + +It is not to be supposed that all this was spoken without accompaniments +of looks, movements, and expressions of face such as we cannot give, but +such as doubled their power to the parties concerned; and the "I love +you" had its usual conclusive force as argument, apology, +promise,--covering, like charity, a multitude of sins. + +Half an hour after, you might have seen a youth and a maiden coming +together out of the door of the brown house, and walking arm in arm +toward the sea-beach. + +It was one of those wonderfully clear moonlight evenings, when the +ocean, like a great reflecting mirror, seems to double the brightness of +the sky,--and its vast expanse lay all around them in its stillness, +like an eternity of waveless peace. Mara remembered that time in her +girlhood when she had followed Moses into the woods on just such a +night,--how she had sat there under the shadows of the trees, and looked +over to Harpswell and noticed the white houses and the meeting-house, +all so bright and clear in the moonlight, and then off again on the +other side of the island where silent ships were coming and going in the +mysterious stillness. They were talking together now with that +outflowing fullness which comes when the seal of some great reserve has +just been broken,--going back over their lives from day to day, bringing +up incidents of childhood, and turning them gleefully like two children. + +And then Moses had all the story of his life to relate, and to tell Mara +all he had learned of his mother,--going over with all the narrative +contained in Mr. Sewell's letter. + +"You see, Mara, that it was intended that you should be my fate," he +ended; "so the winds and waves took me up and carried me to the lonely +island where the magic princess dwelt." + +"You are Prince Ferdinand," said Mara. + +"And you are Miranda," said he. + +"Ah!" she said with fervor, "how plainly we can see that our heavenly +Father has been guiding our way! How good He is,--and how we must try to +live for Him,--both of us." + +A sort of cloud passed over Moses's brow. He looked embarrassed, and +there was a pause between them, and then he turned the conversation. + +Mara felt pained; it was like a sudden discord; such thoughts and +feelings were the very breath of her life; she could not speak in +perfect confidence and unreserve, as she then spoke, without uttering +them; and her finely organized nature felt a sort of electric +consciousness of repulsion and dissent. She grew abstracted, and they +walked on in silence. + +"I see now, Mara, I have pained you," said Moses, "but there are a class +of feelings that you have that I have not and cannot have. No, I cannot +feign anything. I can understand what religion is in you, I can admire +its results. I can be happy, if it gives you any comfort; but people are +differently constituted. I never can feel as you do." + +"Oh, don't say never," said Mara, with an intensity that nearly startled +him; "it has been the one prayer, the one hope, of my life, that you +might have these comforts,--this peace." + +"I need no comfort or peace except what I shall find in you," said +Moses, drawing her to himself, and looking admiringly at her; "but pray +for me still. I always thought that my wife must be one of the sort of +women who pray." + +"And why?" said Mara, in surprise. + +"Because I need to be loved a great deal, and it is only that kind who +pray who know how to love really. If you had not prayed for me all this +time, you never would have loved me in spite of all my faults, as you +did, and do, and will, as I know you will," he said, folding her in his +arms, and in his secret heart he said, "Some of this intensity, this +devotion, which went upward to heaven, will be mine one day. She will +worship me." + +"The fact is, Mara," he said, "I am a child of this world. I have no +sympathy with things not seen. You are a half-spiritual creature,--a +child of air; and but for the great woman's heart in you, I should feel +that you were something uncanny and unnatural. I am selfish, I know; I +frankly admit, I never disguised it; but I love your religion because it +makes you love me. It is an incident to that loving, trusting nature +which makes you all and wholly mine, as I want you to be. I want you all +and wholly; every thought, every feeling,--the whole strength of your +being. I don't care if I say it: I would not wish to be second in your +heart even to God himself!" + +"Oh, Moses!" said Mara, almost starting away from him, "such words are +dreadful; they will surely bring evil upon us." + +"I only breathed out my nature, as you did yours. Why should you love an +unseen and distant Being more than you do one whom you can feel and see, +who holds you in his arms, whose heart beats like your own?" + +"Moses," said Mara, stopping and looking at him in the clear moonlight, +"God has always been to me not so much like a father as like a dear and +tender mother. Perhaps it was because I was a poor orphan, and my father +and mother died at my birth, that He has been so loving to me. I never +remember the time when I did not feel His presence in my joys and my +sorrows. I never had a thought of joy and sorrow that I could not say to +Him. I never woke in the night that I did not feel that He was loving +and watching me, and that I loved Him in return. Oh, how many, many +things I have said to Him about you! My heart would have broken years +ago, had it not been for Him; because, though you did not know it, you +often seemed unkind; you hurt me very often when you did not mean to. +His love is so much a part of my life that I cannot conceive of life +without it. It is the very air I breathe." + +Moses stood still a moment, for Mara spoke with a fervor that affected +him; then he drew her to his heart, and said,-- + +"Oh, what could ever make you love me?" + +"He sent you and gave you to me," she answered, "to be mine in time and +eternity." + +The words were spoken in a kind of enthusiasm so different from the +usual reserve of Mara, that they seemed like a prophecy. That night, for +the first time in her life, had she broken the reserve which was her +very nature, and spoken of that which was the intimate and hidden +history of her soul. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + +AT A QUILTING + + +"And so," said Mrs. Captain Badger to Miss Roxy Toothacre, "it seems +that Moses Pennel ain't going to have Sally Kittridge after all,--he's +engaged to Mara Lincoln." + +"More shame for him," said Miss Roxy, with a frown that made her mohair +curls look really tremendous. + +Miss Roxy and Mrs. Badger were the advance party at a quilting, to be +holden at the house of Mr. Sewell, and had come at one o'clock to do the +marking upon the quilt, which was to be filled up by the busy fingers of +all the women in the parish. Said quilt was to have a bordering of a +pattern commonly denominated in those parts clam-shell, and this Miss +Roxy was diligently marking with indigo. + +"What makes you say so, now?" said Mrs. Badger, a fat, comfortable, +motherly matron, who always patronized the last matrimonial venture that +put forth among the young people. + +"What business had he to flirt and gallivant all summer with Sally +Kittridge, and make everybody think he was going to have her, and then +turn round to Mara Lincoln at the last minute? I wish I'd been in Mara's +place." + +In Miss Roxy's martial enthusiasm, she gave a sudden poke to her +frisette, giving to it a diagonal bristle which extremely increased its +usually severe expression; and any one contemplating her at the moment +would have thought that for Moses Pennel, or any other young man, to +come with tender propositions in that direction would have been indeed +a venturesome enterprise. + +"I tell you what 'tis, Mis' Badger," she said, "I've known Mara since +she was born,--I may say I fetched her up myself, for if I hadn't +trotted and tended her them first four weeks of her life, Mis' Pennel'd +never have got her through; and I've watched her every year since; and +havin' Moses Pennel is the only silly thing I ever knew her to do; but +you never can tell what a girl will do when it comes to +marryin',--never!" + +"But he's a real stirrin', likely young man, and captain of a fine +ship," said Mrs. Badger. + +"Don't care if he's captain of twenty ships," said Miss Roxy, +obdurately; "he ain't a professor of religion, and I believe he's an +infidel, and she's one of the Lord's people." + +"Well," said Mrs. Badger, "you know the unbelievin' husband shall be +sanctified by the believin' wife." + +"Much sanctifyin' he'll get," said Miss Roxy, contemptuously. "I don't +believe he loves her any more than fancy; she's the last plaything, and +when he's got her, he'll be tired of her, as he always was with anything +he got ever since. I tell you, Moses Pennel is all for pride and +ambition and the world; and his wife, when he gets used to her, 'll be +only a circumstance,--that's all." + +"Come, now, Miss Roxy," said Miss Emily, who in her best silk and +smoothly-brushed hair had just come in, "we must _not_ let you talk so. +Moses Pennel has had long talks with brother, and he thinks him in a +very hopeful way, and we are all delighted; and as to Mara, she is as +fresh and happy as a little rose." + +"So I tell Roxy," said Miss Ruey, who had been absent from the room to +hold private consultations with Miss Emily concerning the biscuits and +sponge-cake for tea, and who now sat down to the quilt and began to +unroll a capacious and very limp calico thread-case; and placing her +spectacles awry on her little pug nose, she began a series of ingenious +dodges with her thread, designed to hit the eye of her needle. + +"The old folks," she continued, "are e'en a'most tickled to +pieces,--'cause they think it'll jist be the salvation of him to get +Mara." + +"I ain't one of the sort that wants to be a-usin' up girls for the +salvation of fellers," said Miss Roxy, severely. "Ever since he nearly +like to have got her eat up by sharks, by giggiting her off in the boat +out to sea when she wa'n't more'n three years old, I always have +thought he was a misfortin' in that family, and I think so now." + +Here broke in Mrs. Eaton, a thrifty energetic widow of a deceased +sea-captain, who had been left with a tidy little fortune which +commanded the respect of the neighborhood. Mrs. Eaton had entered +silently during the discussion, but of course had come, as every other +woman had that afternoon, with views to be expressed upon the subject. + +"For my part," she said, as she stuck a decisive needle into the first +clam-shell pattern, "I ain't so sure that all the advantage in this +match is on Moses Pennel's part. Mara Lincoln is a good little thing, +but she ain't fitted to help a man along,--she'll always be wantin' +somebody to help her. Why, I 'member goin' a voyage with Cap'n Eaton, +when I saved the ship, if anybody did,--it was allowed on all hands. +Cap'n Eaton wasn't hearty at that time, he was jist gettin' up from a +fever,--it was when Marthy Ann was a baby, and I jist took her and went +to sea and took care of him. I used to work the longitude for him and +help him lay the ship's course when his head was bad,--and when we came +on the coast, we were kept out of harbor beatin' about nearly three +weeks, and all the ship's tacklin' was stiff with ice, and I tell you +the men never would have stood it through and got the ship in, if it +hadn't been for me. I kept their mittens and stockings all the while +a-dryin' at my stove in the cabin, and hot coffee all the while +a-boilin' for 'em, or I believe they'd a-frozen their hands and feet, +and never been able to work the ship in. That's the way _I_ did. Now +Sally Kittridge is a great deal more like that than Mara." + +"There's no doubt that Sally is smart," said Mrs. Badger, "but then it +ain't every one can do like you, Mrs. Eaton." + +"Oh no, oh no," was murmured from mouth to mouth; "Mrs. Eaton mustn't +think she's any rule for others,--everybody knows she can do more than +most people;" whereat the pacified Mrs. Eaton said "she didn't know as +it was anything remarkable,--it showed what anybody might do, if they'd +only _try_ and have resolution; but that Mara never had been brought up +to have resolution, and her mother never had resolution before her, it +wasn't in any of Mary Pennel's family; she knew their grandmother and +all their aunts, and they were all a weakly set, and not fitted to get +along in life,--they were a kind of people that somehow didn't seem to +know how to take hold of things." + +At this moment the consultation was hushed up by the entrance of Sally +Kittridge and Mara, evidently on the closest terms of intimacy, and more +than usually demonstrative and affectionate; they would sit together and +use each other's needles, scissors, thread, and thimbles +interchangeably, as if anxious to express every minute the most +overflowing confidence. Sly winks and didactic nods were covertly +exchanged among the elderly people, and when Mrs. Kittridge entered with +more than usual airs of impressive solemnity, several of these were +covertly directed toward her, as a matron whose views in life must have +been considerably darkened by the recent event. + +Mrs. Kittridge, however, found an opportunity to whisper under her +breath to Miss Ruey what a relief to her it was that the affair had +taken such a turn. She had felt uneasy all summer for fear of what might +come. Sally was so thoughtless and worldly, she felt afraid that he +would lead her astray. She didn't see, for her part, how a professor of +religion like Mara could make up her mind to such an unsettled kind of +fellow, even if he did seem to be rich and well-to-do. But then she had +done looking for consistency; and she sighed and vigorously applied +herself to quilting like one who has done with the world. + +In return, Miss Ruey sighed and took snuff, and related for the +hundredth time to Mrs. Kittridge the great escape she once had from the +addresses of Abraham Peters, who had turned out a "poor drunken +creetur." But then it was only natural that Mara should be interested in +Moses; and the good soul went off into her favorite verse:-- + + "The fondness of a creature's love, + How strong it strikes the sense! + Thither the warm affections move, + Nor can we drive them thence." + +In fact, Miss Ruey's sentimental vein was in quite a gushing state, for +she more than once extracted from the dark corners of the limp calico +thread-case we have spoken of certain long-treasured _morceaux_ of +newspaper poetry, of a tender and sentimental cast, which she had laid +up with true Yankee economy, in case any one should ever be in a +situation to need them. They related principally to the union of kindred +hearts, and the joys of reciprocated feeling and the pains of absence. +Good Miss Ruey occasionally passed these to Mara, with glances full of +meaning, which caused the poor old thing to resemble a sentimental +goblin, keeping Sally Kittridge in a perfect hysterical tempest of +suppressed laughter, and making it difficult for Mara to preserve the +decencies of life toward her well-intending old friend. The trouble with +poor Miss Ruey was that, while her body had grown old and crazy, her +soul was just as juvenile as ever,--and a simple, juvenile soul +disporting itself in a crazy, battered old body, is at great +disadvantage. It was lucky for her, however, that she lived in the most +sacred unconsciousness of the ludicrous effect of her little +indulgences, and the pleasure she took in them was certainly of the most +harmless kind. The world would be a far better and more enjoyable place +than it is, if all people who are old and uncomely could find amusement +as innocent and Christian-like as Miss Ruey's inoffensive thread-case +collection of sentimental truisms. + +This quilting of which we speak was a solemn, festive occasion of the +parish, held a week after Moses had sailed away; and so _piquant_ a +morsel as a recent engagement could not, of course, fail to be served up +for the company in every variety of garnishing which individual tastes +might suggest. + +It became an ascertained fact, however, in the course of the evening +festivities, that the minister was serenely approbative of the event; +that Captain Kittridge was at length brought to a sense of the errors of +his way in supposing that Sally had ever cared a pin for Moses more than +as a mutual friend and confidant; and the great affair was settled +without more ripples of discomposure than usually attend similar +announcements in more refined society. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + +FRIENDS + + +The quilting broke up at the primitive hour of nine o'clock, at which, +in early New England days, all social gatherings always dispersed. +Captain Kittridge rowed his helpmeet, with Mara and Sally, across the +Bay to the island. + +"Come and stay with me to-night, Sally," said Mara. + +"I think Sally had best be at home," said Mrs. Kittridge. "There's no +sense in girls talking all night." + +"There ain't sense in nothin' else, mother," said the Captain. "Next to +sparkin', which is the Christianist thing I knows on, comes gals' talks +'bout their sparks; they's as natural as crowsfoot and red columbines +in the spring, and spring don't come but once a year neither,--and so +let 'em take the comfort on't. I warrant now, Polly, you've laid awake +nights and talked about me." + +"We've all been foolish once," said Mrs. Kittridge. + +"Well, mother, we want to be foolish too," said Sally. + +"Well, you and your father are too much for me," said Mrs. Kittridge, +plaintively; "you always get your own way." + +"How lucky that my way is always a good one!" said Sally. + +"Well, you know, Sally, you are going to make the beer to-morrow," still +objected her mother. + +"Oh, yes; that's another reason," said Sally. "Mara and I shall come +home through the woods in the morning, and we can get whole apronfuls of +young wintergreen, and besides, I know where there's a lot of sassafras +root. We'll dig it, won't we, Mara?" + +"Yes; and I'll come down and help you brew," said Mara. "Don't you +remember the beer I made when Moses came home?" + +"Yes, yes, I remember," said the Captain, "you sent us a couple of +bottles." + +"We can make better yet now," said Mara. "The wintergreen is young, and +the green tips on the spruce boughs are so full of strength. Everything +is lively and sunny now." + +"Yes, yes," said the Captain, "and I 'spect I know why things do look +pretty lively to some folks, don't they?" + +"I don't know what sort of work you'll make of the beer among you," said +Mrs. Kittridge; "but you must have it your own way." + +Mrs. Kittridge, who never did anything else among her tea-drinking +acquaintances but laud and magnify Sally's good traits and domestic +acquirements, felt constantly bound to keep up a faint show of +controversy and authority in her dealings with her,--the fading remains +of the strict government of her childhood; but it was, nevertheless, +very perfectly understood, in a general way, that Sally was to do as she +pleased; and so, when the boat came to shore, she took the arm of Mara +and started up toward the brown house. + +The air was soft and balmy, and though the moon by which the troth of +Mara and Moses had been plighted had waned into the latest hours of the +night, still a thousand stars were lying in twinkling brightness, +reflected from the undulating waves all around them, and the tide, as it +rose and fell, made a sound as gentle and soft as the respiration of a +peaceful sleeper. + +"Well, Mara," said Sally, after an interval of silence, "all has come +out right. You see that it was you whom he loved. What a lucky thing +for me that I am made so heartless, or I might not be as glad as I am." + +"You are not heartless, Sally," said Mara; "it's the enchanted princess +asleep; the right one hasn't come to waken her." + +"Maybe so," said Sally, with her old light laugh. "If I only were sure +he would make you happy now,--half as happy as you deserve,--I'd forgive +him his share of this summer's mischief. The fault was just half mine, +you see, for I witched with him. I confess it. I have my own little +spider-webs for these great lordly flies, and I like to hear them buzz." + +"Take care, Sally; never do it again, or the spider-web may get round +you," said Mara. + +"Never fear me," said Sally. "But, Mara, I wish I felt sure that Moses +could make you happy. Do you really, now, when you think seriously, feel +as if he would?" + +"I never thought seriously about it," said Mara; "but I know he needs +me; that I can do for him what no one else can. I have always felt all +my life that he was to be mine; that he was sent to me, ordained for me +to care for and to love." + +"You are well mated," said Sally. "He wants to be loved very much, and +you want to love. There's the active and passive voice, as they used to +say at Miss Plucher's. But yet in your natures you are opposite as any +two could well be." + +Mara felt that there was in these chance words of Sally more than she +perceived. No one could feel as intensely as she could that the mind and +heart so dear to her were yet, as to all that was most vital and real in +her inner life, unsympathizing. To her the spiritual world was a +reality; God an ever-present consciousness; and the line of this present +life seemed so to melt and lose itself in the anticipation of a future +and brighter one, that it was impossible for her to speak intimately and +not unconsciously to betray the fact. To him there was only the life of +this world: there was no present God; and from all thought of a future +life he shrank with a shuddering aversion, as from something ghastly and +unnatural. She had realized this difference more in the few days that +followed her betrothal than all her life before, for now first the +barrier of mutual constraint and misunderstanding having melted away, +each spoke with an _abandon_ and unreserve which made the acquaintance +more vitally intimate than ever it had been before. It was then that +Mara felt that while her sympathies could follow him through all his +plans and interests, there was a whole world of thought and feeling in +her heart where his could not follow her; and she asked herself, Would +it be so always? Must she walk at his side forever repressing the +utterance of that which was most sacred and intimate, living in a +nominal and external communion only? How could it be that what was so +lovely and clear in its reality to her, that which was to her as +life-blood, that which was the vital air in which she lived and moved +and had her being, could be absolutely nothing to him? Was it really +possible, as he said, that God had no existence for him except in a +nominal cold belief; that the spiritual world was to him only a land of +pale shades and doubtful glooms, from which he shrank with dread, and +the least allusion to which was distasteful? and would this always be +so? and if so, could she be happy? + +But Mara said the truth in saying that the question of personal +happiness never entered her thoughts. She loved Moses in a way that made +it necessary to her happiness to devote herself to him, to watch over +and care for him; and though she knew not how, she felt a sort of +presentiment that it was through her that he must be brought into +sympathy with a spiritual and immortal life. + +All this passed through Mara's mind in the reverie into which Sally's +last words threw her, as she sat on the door-sill and looked off into +the starry distance and heard the weird murmur of the sea. + +"How lonesome the sea at night always is," said Sally. "I declare, Mara, +I don't wonder you miss that creature, for, to tell the truth, I do a +little bit. It was something, you know, to have somebody to come in, and +to joke with, and to say how he liked one's hair and one's ribbons, and +all that. I quite got up a friendship for Moses, so that I can feel how +dull you must be;" and Sally gave a half sigh, and then whistled a tune +as adroitly as a blackbird. + +"Yes," said Mara, "we two girls down on this lonely island need some one +to connect us with the great world; and he was so full of life, and so +certain and confident, he seemed to open a way before one out into +life." + +"Well, of course, while he is gone there will be plenty to do getting +ready to be married," said Sally. "By the by, when I was over to +Portland the other day, Maria Potter showed me a new pattern for a +bed-quilt, the sweetest thing you can imagine,--it is called the morning +star. There is a great star in the centre, and little stars all +around,--white on a blue ground. I mean to begin one for you." + +"I am going to begin spinning some very fine flax next week," said Mara; +"and have I shown you the new pattern I drew for a counterpane? it is to +be morning-glories, leaves and flowers, you know,--a pretty idea, isn't +it?" + +And so, the conversation falling from the region of the sentimental to +the practical, the two girls went in and spent an hour in discussions so +purely feminine that we will not enlighten the reader further therewith. +Sally seemed to be investing all her energies in the preparation of the +wedding outfit of her friend, about which she talked with a constant and +restless activity, and for which she formed a thousand plans, and +projected shopping tours to Portland, Brunswick, and even to +Boston,--this last being about as far off a venture at that time as +Paris now seems to a Boston belle. + +"When you are married," said Sally, "you'll have to take me to live with +you; that creature sha'n't have you _all_ to himself. I hate men, they +are so exorbitant,--they spoil all our playmates; and what shall I do +when _you_ are gone?" + +"You will go with Mr.--what's his name?" said Mara. + +"Pshaw, I don't know him. I shall be an old maid," said Sally; "and +really there isn't much harm in that, if one could have company,--if +somebody or other wouldn't marry all one's friends,--that's lonesome," +she said, winking a tear out of her black eyes and laughing. "If I were +only a young fellow now, Mara, I'd have you myself, and that would be +just the thing; and I'd shoot Moses, if he said a word; and I'd have +money, and I'd have honors, and I'd carry you off to Europe, and take +you to Paris and Rome, and nobody knows where; and we'd live in peace, +as the story-books say." + +"Come, Sally, how wild you are talking," said Mara, "and the clock has +just struck one; let's try to go to sleep." + +Sally put her face to Mara's and kissed her, and Mara felt a moist spot +on her cheek,--could it be a tear? + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + +THE TOOTHACRE COTTAGE + + +Aunt Roxy and Aunt Ruey Toothacre lived in a little one-story +gambrel-roofed cottage, on the side of Harpswell Bay, just at the head +of the long cove which we have already described. The windows on two +sides commanded the beautiful bay and the opposite shores, and on the +other they looked out into the dense forest, through whose deep shadows +of white birch and pine the silver rise and fall of the sea daily +revealed itself. + +The house itself was a miracle of neatness within, for the two thrifty +sisters were worshipers of soap and sand, and these two tutelary deities +had kept every board of the house-floor white and smooth, and also every +table and bench and tub of household use. There was a sacred care over +each article, however small and insignificant, which composed their +slender household stock. The loss or breakage of one of them would have +made a visible crack in the hearts of the worthy sisters,--for every +plate, knife, fork, spoon, cup, or glass was as intimate with them, as +instinct with home feeling, as if it had a soul; each defect or spot had +its history, and a cracked dish or article of furniture received as +tender and considerate medical treatment as if it were capable of +understanding and feeling the attention. + +It was now a warm, spicy day in June,--one of those which bring out the +pineapple fragrance from the fir-shoots, and cause the spruce and +hemlocks to exude a warm, resinous perfume. The two sisters, for a +wonder, were having a day to themselves, free from the numerous calls +of the vicinity for twelve miles round. The room in which they were +sitting was bestrewn with fragments of dresses and bonnets, which were +being torn to pieces in a most wholesale way, with a view to a general +rejuvenescence. A person of unsympathetic temperament, and disposed to +take sarcastic views of life, might perhaps wonder what possible object +these two battered and weather-beaten old bodies proposed to themselves +in this process,--whether Miss Roxy's gaunt black-straw helmet, which +she had worn defiantly all winter, was likely to receive much lustre +from being pressed over and trimmed with an old green ribbon which that +energetic female had colored black by a domestic recipe; and whether +Miss Roxy's rusty bombazette would really seem to the world any fresher +for being ripped, and washed, and turned, for the second or third time, +and made over with every breadth in a different situation. Probably +after a week of efficient labor, busily expended in bleaching, dyeing, +pressing, sewing, and ripping, an unenlightened spectator, seeing them +come into the meeting-house, would simply think, "There are those two +old frights with the same old things on they have worn these fifty +years." Happily the weird sisters were contentedly ignorant of any such +remarks, for no duchesses could have enjoyed a more quiet belief in +their own social position, and their semi-annual spring and fall +rehabilitation was therefore entered into with the most simple-hearted +satisfaction. + +"I'm a-thinkin', Roxy," said Aunt Ruey, considerately turning and +turning on her hand an old straw bonnet, on which were streaked all the +marks of the former trimming in lighter lines, which revealed too +clearly the effects of wind and weather,--"I'm a-thinkin' whether or no +this 'ere mightn't as well be dyed and done with it as try to bleach it +out. I've had it ten years last May, and it's kind o' losin' its +freshness, you know. I don't believe these 'ere streaks will bleach +out." + +"Never mind, Ruey," said Miss Roxy, authoritatively, "I'm goin' to do +Mis' Badger's leg'orn, and it won't cost nothin'; so hang your'n in the +barrel along with it,--the same smoke'll do 'em both. Mis' Badger she +finds the brimstone, and next fall you can put it in the dye when we do +the yarn." + +"That ar straw is a beautiful straw!" said Miss Ruey, in a plaintive +tone, tenderly examining the battered old head-piece,--"I braided every +stroke on it myself, and I don't know as I could do it ag'in. My fingers +ain't quite so limber as they was! I don't think I shall put green +ribbon on it ag'in; 'cause green is such a color to ruin, if a body gets +caught out in a shower! There's these green streaks come that day I left +my amberil at Captain Broad's, and went to meetin'. Mis' Broad she says +to me, 'Aunt Ruey, it won't rain.' And says I to her, 'Well, Mis' Broad, +I'll try it; though I never did leave my amberil at home but what it +rained.' And so I went, and sure enough it rained cats and dogs, and +streaked my bonnet all up; and them ar streaks won't bleach out, I'm +feared." + +"How long is it Mis' Badger has had that ar leg'orn?" + +"Why, you know, the Cap'n he brought it home when he came from his +voyage from Marseilles. That ar was when Phebe Ann was born, and she's +fifteen year old. It was a most elegant thing when he brought it; but I +think it kind o' led Mis' Badger on to extravagant ways,--for gettin' +new trimmin' spring and fall so uses up money as fast as new bonnets; +but Mis' Badger's got the money, and she's got a right to use it if she +pleases; but if I'd a-had new trimmin's spring and fall, I shouldn't +a-put away what I have in the bank." + +"Have you seen the straw Sally Kittridge is braidin' for Mara Lincoln's +weddin' bonnet?" said Miss Ruey. "It's jist the finest thing ever you +did see,--and the whitest. I was a-tellin' Sally that I could do as well +once myself, but my mantle was a-fallin' on her. Sally don't seem to act +a bit like a disap'inted gal. She is as chipper as she can be about +Mara's weddin', and seems like she couldn't do too much. But laws, +everybody seems to want to be a-doin' for her. Miss Emily was a-showin' +me a fine double damask tablecloth that she was goin' to give her; and +Mis' Pennel, she's been a-spinnin' and layin' up sheets and towels and +tablecloths all her life,--and then she has all Naomi's things. Mis' +Pennel was talkin' to me the other day about bleachin' 'em out 'cause +they'd got yellow a-lyin'. I kind o' felt as if 'twas unlucky to be +a-fittin' out a bride with her dead mother's things, but I didn't like +to say nothin'." + +"Ruey," said Miss Roxy impressively, "I hain't never had but jist one +mind about Mara Lincoln's weddin',--it's to be,--but it won't be the way +people think. I hain't nussed and watched and sot up nights sixty years +for nothin'. I can see beyond what most folks can,--her weddin' garments +is bought and paid for, and she'll wear 'em, but she won't be Moses +Pennel's wife,--now you see." + +"Why, whose wife will she be then?" said Miss Ruey; "'cause that ar Mr. +Adams is married. I saw it in the paper last week when I was up to Mis' +Badger's." + +Miss Roxy shut her lips with oracular sternness and went on with her +sewing. + +"Who's that comin' in the back door?" said Miss Ruey, as the sound of a +footstep fell upon her ear. "Bless me," she added, as she started up to +look, "if folks ain't always nearest when you're talkin' about 'em. Why, +Mara; you come down here and catched us in all our dirt! Well now, we're +glad to see you, if we be," said Miss Ruey. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI + +THE SHADOW OF DEATH + + +It was in truth Mara herself who came and stood in the doorway. She +appeared overwearied with her walk, for her cheeks had a vivid +brightness unlike their usual tender pink. Her eyes had, too, a +brilliancy almost painful to look upon. They seemed like ardent fires, +in which the life was slowly burning away. + +"Sit down, sit down, little Mara," said Aunt Ruey. "Why, how like a +picture you look this mornin',--one needn't ask you how you do,--it's +plain enough that you are pretty well." + +"Yes, I am, Aunt Ruey," she answered, sinking into a chair; "only it is +warm to-day, and the sun is so hot, that's all, I believe; but I am very +tired." + +"So you are now, poor thing," said Miss Ruey. "Roxy, where's my +turkey-feather fan? Oh, here 'tis; there, take it, and fan you, child; +and maybe you'll have a glass of our spruce beer?" + +"Thank you, Aunt Roxy. I brought you some young wintergreen," said Mara, +unrolling from her handkerchief a small knot of those fragrant leaves, +which were wilted by the heat. + +"Thank you, I'm sure," said Miss Ruey, in delight; "you always fetch +something, Mara,--always would, ever since you could toddle. Roxy and I +was jist talkin' about your weddin'. I s'pose you're gettin' things well +along down to your house. Well, here's the beer. I don't hardly know +whether you'll think it worked enough, though. I set it Saturday +afternoon, for all Mis' Twitchell said it was wicked for beer to work +Sundays," said Miss Ruey, with a feeble cackle at her own joke. + +"Thank you, Aunt Ruey; it is excellent, as your things always are. I was +very thirsty." + +"I s'pose you hear from Moses pretty often now," said Aunt Ruey. "How +kind o' providential it happened about his getting that property; he'll +be a rich man now; and Mara, you'll come to grandeur, won't you? Well, I +don't know anybody deserves it more,--I r'ally don't. Mis' Badger was +a-sayin' so a-Sunday, and Cap'n Kittridge and all on 'em. I s'pose +though we've got to lose you,--you'll be goin' off to Boston, or New +York, or somewhere." + +"We can't tell what may happen, Aunt Ruey," said Mara, and there was a +slight tremor in her voice as she spoke. + +Miss Roxy, who beyond the first salutations had taken no part in this +conversation, had from time to time regarded Mara over the tops of her +spectacles with looks of grave apprehension; and Mara, looking up, now +encountered one of these glances. + +"Have you taken the dock and dandelion tea I told you about?" said the +wise woman, rather abruptly. + +"Yes, Aunt Roxy, I have taken them faithfully for two weeks past." + +"And do they seem to set you up any?" said Miss Roxy. + +"No, I don't think they do. Grandma thinks I'm better, and grandpa, and +I let them think so; but Miss Roxy, _can't_ you think of something +else?" + +Miss Roxy laid aside the straw bonnet which she was ripping, and +motioned Mara into the outer room,--the sink-room, as the sisters called +it. It was the scullery of their little establishment,--the place where +all dish-washing and clothes-washing was generally performed,--but the +boards of the floor were white as snow, and the place had the odor of +neatness. The open door looked out pleasantly into the deep forest, +where the waters of the cove, now at high tide, could be seen glittering +through the trees. Soft moving spots of sunlight fell, checkering the +feathery ferns and small piney tribes of evergreen which ran in ruffling +wreaths of green through the dry, brown matting of fallen pine needles. +Birds were singing and calling to each other merrily from the green +shadows of the forest,--everything had a sylvan fullness and freshness +of life. There are moods of mind when the sight of the bloom and +freshness of nature affects us painfully, like the want of sympathy in a +dear friend. Mara had been all her days a child of the woods; her +delicate life had grown up in them like one of their own cool shaded +flowers; and there was not a moss, not a fern, not an upspringing thing +that waved a leaf or threw forth a flower-bell, that was not a +well-known friend to her; she had watched for years its haunts, known +the time of its coming and its going, studied its shy and veiled habits, +and interwoven with its life each year a portion of her own; and now she +looked out into the old mossy woods, with their wavering spots of sun +and shadow, with a yearning pain, as if she wanted help or sympathy to +come from their silent recesses. + +She sat down on the clean, scoured door-sill, and took off her straw +hat. Her golden-brown hair was moist with the damps of fatigue, which +made it curl and wave in darker little rings about her forehead; her +eyes,--those longing, wistful eyes,--had a deeper pathos of sadness than +ever they had worn before; and her delicate lips trembled with some +strong suppressed emotion. + +"Aunt Roxy," she said suddenly, "I _must_ speak to somebody. I can't go +on and keep up without telling some one, and it had better be you, +because you have skill and experience, and can help me if anybody can. +I've been going on for six months now, taking this and taking that, and +trying to get better, but it's of no use. Aunt Roxy, I feel my life +going,--going just as steadily and as quietly every day as the sand goes +out of your hour-glass. I want to live,--oh, I never wanted to live so +much, and I can't,--oh, I know I can't. Can I now,--do you think I can?" + +Mara looked imploringly at Miss Roxy. The hard-visaged woman sat down on +the wash-bench, and, covering her worn, stony visage with her checked +apron, sobbed aloud. + +Mara was confounded. This implacably withered, sensible, dry woman, +beneficently impassive in sickness and sorrow, weeping!--it was awful, +as if one of the Fates had laid down her fatal distaff to weep. + +Mara sprung up impulsively and threw her arms round her neck. + +"Now don't, Aunt Roxy, don't. I didn't think you would feel bad, or I +wouldn't have told you; but oh, you don't know how hard it is to keep +such a secret all to one's self. I have to make believe all the time +that I am feeling well and getting better. I really say what isn't true +every day, because, poor grandmamma, how could I bear to see her +distress? and grandpapa,--oh, I wish people didn't love me so! Why +cannot they let me go? And oh, Aunt Roxy, I had a letter only yesterday, +and he is so sure we shall be married this fall,--and I know it cannot +be." Mara's voice gave way in sobs, and the two wept together,--the old +grim, gray woman holding the soft golden head against her breast with a +convulsive grasp. "Oh, Aunt Roxy, do you love me, too?" said Mara. "I +didn't know you did." + +"Love ye, child?" said Miss Roxy; "yes, I love ye like my life. I ain't +one that makes talk about things, but I do; you come into my arms fust +of anybody's in this world,--and except poor little Hitty, I never loved +nobody as I have you." + +"Ah! that was your sister, whose grave I have seen," said Mara, speaking +in a soothing, caressing tone, and putting her little thin hand against +the grim, wasted cheek, which was now moist with tears. + +"Jes' so, child, she died when she was a year younger than you be; she +was not lost, for God took her. Poor Hitty! her life jest dried up like +a brook in August,--jest so. Well, she was hopefully pious, and it was +better for her." + +"Did she go like me, Aunt Roxy?" said Mara. + +"Well, yes, dear; she did begin jest so, and I gave her everything I +could think of; and we had doctors for her far and near; but _'twasn't +to be_,--that's all we could say; she was called, and her time was +come." + +"Well, now, Aunt Roxy," said Mara, "at any rate, it's a relief to speak +out to some one. It's more than two months that I have felt every day +more and more that there was no hope,--life has hung on me like a +weight. I have had to _make_ myself keep up, and make myself do +everything, and no one knows how it has tried me. I am so tired all the +time, I could cry; and yet when I go to bed nights I can't sleep, I lie +in such a hot, restless way; and then before morning I am drenched with +cold sweat, and feel so weak and wretched. I force myself to eat, and I +force myself to talk and laugh, and it's all pretense; and it wears me +out,--it would be better if I stopped trying,--it would be better to +give up and act as weak as I feel; but how can I let them know?" + +"My dear child," said Aunt Roxy, "the truth is the kindest thing we can +give folks in the end. When folks know jest where they are, why they can +walk; you'll all be supported; you must trust in the Lord. I have been +more'n forty years with sick rooms and dyin' beds, and I never knew it +fail that those that trusted in the Lord was brought through." + +"Oh, Aunt Roxy, it is so hard for me to give up,--to give up hoping to +live. There were a good many years when I thought I should love to +depart,--not that I was really unhappy, but I longed to go to heaven, +though I knew it was selfish, when I knew how lonesome I should leave my +friends. But now, oh, life has looked so bright; I have clung to it so; +I do now. I lie awake nights and pray, and try to give it up and be +resigned, and I can't. Is it wicked?" + +"Well, it's natur' to want to live," said Miss Roxy. "Life is sweet, and +in a gen'l way we was made to live. Don't worry; the Lord'll bring you +right when His time comes. Folks isn't always supported jest when they +want to be, nor _as_ they want to be; but yet they're supported fust and +last. Ef I was to tell you how as I has hope in your case, I shouldn't +be a-tellin' you the truth. I hasn't much of any; only all things is +possible with God. If you could kind o' give it all up and rest easy in +His hands, and keep a-doin' what you can,--why, while there's life +there's hope, you know; and if you are to be made well, you will be all +the sooner." + +"Aunt Roxy, it's all right; I know it's all right. God knows best; He +will do what is best; I know that; but my heart bleeds, and is sore. And +when I get his letters,--I got one yesterday,--it brings it all back +again. Everything is going on so well; he says he has done more than all +he ever hoped; his letters are full of jokes, full of spirit. Ah, he +little knows,--and how can I tell him?" + +"Child, you needn't yet. You can jest kind o' prepare his mind a +little." + +"Aunt Roxy, have you spoken of my case to any one,--have you told what +you know of me?" + +"No, child, I hain't said nothin' more than that you was a little weakly +now and then." + +"I have such a color every afternoon," said Mara. "Grandpapa talks about +my roses, and Captain Kittridge jokes me about growing so handsome; +nobody seems to realize how I feel. I have kept up with all the strength +I had. I have tried to shake it off, and to feel that nothing was the +matter,--really there is nothing much, only this weakness. This morning +I thought it would do me good to walk down here. I remember times when I +could ramble whole days in the woods, but I was so tired before I got +half way here that I had to stop a long while and rest. Aunt Roxy, if +you would only tell grandpapa and grandmamma just how things are, and +what the danger is, and let them stop talking to me about wedding +things,--for really and truly I am too unwell to keep up any longer." + +"Well, child, I will," said Miss Roxy. "Your grandfather will be +supported, and hold you up, for he's one of the sort as has the secret +of the Lord,--I remember him of old. Why, the day your father and mother +was buried he stood up and sung old China, and his face was wonderful to +see. He seemed to be standin' with the world under his feet and heaven +opening. He's a master Christian, your grandfather is; and now you jest +go and lie down in the little bedroom, and rest you a bit, and by and +by, in the cool of the afternoon, I'll walk along home with you." + +Miss Roxy opened the door of a little room, whose white fringy +window-curtains were blown inward by breezes from the blue sea, and laid +the child down to rest on a clean sweet-smelling bed with as deft and +tender care as if she were not a bony, hard-visaged, angular female, in +a black mohair frisette. + +She stopped a moment wistfully before a little profile head, of a kind +which resembles a black shadow on a white ground. "That was Hitty!" she +said. + +Mara had often seen in the graveyard a mound inscribed to this young +person, and heard traditionally of a young and pretty sister of Miss +Roxy who had died very many years before. But the grave was overgrown +with blackberry-vines, and gray moss had grown into the crevices of the +slab which served for a tombstone, and never before that day had she +heard Miss Roxy speak of her. Miss Roxy took down the little black +object and handed it to Mara. "You can't tell much by that, but she was +a most beautiful creatur'. Well, it's all best as it is." Mara saw +nothing but a little black shadow cast on white paper, yet she was +affected by the perception how bright, how beautiful, was the image in +the memory of that seemingly stern, commonplace woman, and how of all +that in her mind's eye she saw and remembered, she could find no outward +witness but this black block. "So some day my friends will speak of me +as a distant shadow," she said, as with a sigh she turned her head on +the pillow. + +Miss Roxy shut the door gently as she went out, and betrayed the +unwonted rush of softer feelings which had come over her only by being +more dictatorial and commanding than usual in her treatment of her +sister, who was sitting in fidgety curiosity to know what could have +been the subject of the private conference. + +"I s'pose Mara wanted to get some advice about makin' up her weddin' +things," said Miss Ruey, with a sort of humble quiver, as Miss Roxy +began ripping and tearing fiercely at her old straw bonnet, as if she +really purposed its utter and immediate demolition. + +"No she didn't, neither," said Miss Roxy, fiercely. "I declare, Ruey, +you are silly; your head is always full of weddin's, weddin's, +weddin's--nothin' else--from mornin' till night, and night till mornin'. +I tell you there's other things have got to be thought of in this world +besides weddin' clothes, and it would be well, if people would think +more o' gettin' their weddin' garments ready for the kingdom of heaven. +That's what Mara's got to think of; for, mark my words, Ruey, there is +no marryin' and givin' in marriage for her in this world." + +"Why, bless me, Roxy, now you don't say so!" said Miss Ruey; "why I knew +she was kind o' weakly and ailin', but"-- + +"Kind o' weakly and ailin'!" said Miss Roxy, taking up Miss Ruey's words +in a tone of high disgust, "I should rather think she was; and more'n +that, too: she's marked for death, and that before long, too. It may be +that Moses Pennel'll never see her again--he never half knew what she +was worth--maybe he'll know when he's lost her, that's one comfort!" + +"But," said Miss Ruey, "everybody has been a-sayin' what a beautiful +color she was a-gettin' in her cheeks." + +"Color in her cheeks!" snorted Miss Roxy; "so does a rock-maple get +color in September and turn all scarlet, and what for? why, the frost +has been at it, and its time is out. That's what your bright colors +stand for. Hain't you noticed that little gravestone cough, jest the +faintest in the world, and it don't come from a cold, and it hangs on. I +tell you you can't cheat me, she's goin' jest as Mehitabel went, jest as +Sally Ann Smith went, jest as Louisa Pearson went. I could count now on +my fingers twenty girls that have gone that way. Nobody saw 'em goin' +till they was gone." + +"Well, now, I don't think the old folks have the least idea on't," said +Miss Ruey. "Only last Saturday Mis' Pennel was a-talkin' to me about the +sheets and tablecloths she's got out a-bleachin'; and she said that the +weddin' dress was to be made over to Mis' Mosely's in Portland, 'cause +Moses he's so particular about havin' things genteel." + +"Well, Master Moses'll jest have to give up his particular notions," +said Miss Roxy, "and come down in the dust, like all the rest on us, +when the Lord sends an east wind and withers our gourds. Moses Pennel's +one of the sort that expects to drive all before him with the strong +arm, and sech has to learn that things ain't to go as they please in the +Lord's world. Sech always has to come to spots that they can't get over +nor under nor round, to have their own way, but jest has to give right +up square." + +"Well, Roxy," said Miss Ruey, "how does the poor little thing take it? +Has she got reconciled?" + +"Reconciled! Ruey, how you do ask questions!" said Miss Roxy, fiercely +pulling a bandanna silk handkerchief out of her pocket, with which she +wiped her eyes in a defiant manner. "Reconciled! It's easy enough to +talk, Ruey, but how would you like it, when everything was goin' smooth +and playin' into your hands, and all the world smooth and shiny, to be +took short up? I guess you wouldn't be reconciled. That's what I guess." + +"Dear me, Roxy, who said I should?" said Miss Ruey. "I wa'n't blamin' +the poor child, not a grain." + +"Well, who said you was, Ruey?" answered Miss Roxy, in the same high +key. + +"You needn't take my head off," said Aunt Ruey, roused as much as her +adipose, comfortable nature could be. "You've been a-talkin' at me ever +since you came in from the sink-room, as if I was to blame; and snappin' +at me as if I hadn't a right to ask civil questions; and I won't stan' +it," said Miss Ruey. "And while I'm about it, I'll say that you always +have snubbed me and contradicted and ordered me round. I won't bear it +no longer." + +"Come, Ruey, don't make a fool of yourself at your time of life," said +Miss Roxy. "Things is bad enough in this world without two lone sisters +and church-members turnin' agin each other. You must take me as I am, +Ruey; my bark's worse than my bite, as you know." + +Miss Ruey sank back pacified into her usual state of pillowy dependence; +it was so much easier to be good-natured than to contend. As for Miss +Roxy, if you have ever carefully examined a chestnut-burr, you will +remember that, hard as it is to handle, no plush of downiest texture can +exceed the satin smoothness of the fibres which line its heart. There +are a class of people in New England who betray the uprising of the +softer feelings of our nature only by an increase of outward asperity--a +sort of bashfulness and shyness leaves them no power of expression for +these unwonted guests of the heart--they hurry them into inner chambers +and slam the doors upon them, as if they were vexed at their appearance. + +Now if poor Miss Roxy had been like you, my dear young lady--if her soul +had been encased in a round, rosy, and comely body, and looked out of +tender blue eyes shaded by golden hair, probably the grief and love she +felt would have shown themselves only in bursts of feeling most graceful +to see, and engaging the sympathy of all; but this same soul, imprisoned +in a dry, angular body, stiff and old, and looking out under beetling +eyebrows, over withered high cheek-bones, could only utter itself by a +passionate tempest--unlovely utterance of a lovely impulse--dear only to +Him who sees with a Father's heart the real beauty of spirits. It is our +firm faith that bright solemn angels in celestial watchings were +frequent guests in the homely room of the two sisters, and that passing +by all accidents of age and poverty, withered skins, bony features, and +grotesque movements and shabby clothing, they saw more real beauty there +than in many a scented boudoir where seeming angels smile in lace and +satin. + +"Ruey," said Miss Roxy, in a more composed voice, while her hard, bony +hands still trembled with excitement, "this 'ere's been on my mind a +good while. I hain't said nothin' to nobody, but I've seen it a-comin'. +I always thought that child wa'n't for a long life. Lives is run in +different lengths, and nobody can say what's the matter with some folks, +only that their thread's run out; there's more on one spool and less on +another. I thought, when we laid Hitty in the grave, that I shouldn't +never set my heart on nothin' else--but we can't jest say we will or we +won't. Ef we are to be sorely afflicted at any time, the Lord lets us +set our hearts before we know it. This 'ere's a great affliction to me, +Ruey, but I must jest shoulder my cross and go through with it. I'm +goin' down to-night to tell the old folks, and to make arrangements so +that the poor little lamb may have the care she needs. She's been +a-keepin' up so long, 'cause she dreaded to let 'em know, but this 'ere +has got to be looked right in the face, and I hope there'll be grace +given to do it." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII + +THE VICTORY + + +Meanwhile Mara had been lying in the passive calm of fatigue and +exhaustion, her eyes fixed on the window, where, as the white curtain +drew inward, she could catch glimpses of the bay. Gradually her eyelids +fell, and she dropped into that kind of half-waking doze, when the outer +senses are at rest, and the mind is all the more calm and clear for +their repose. In such hours a spiritual clairvoyance often seems to lift +for a while the whole stifling cloud that lies like a confusing mist +over the problem of life, and the soul has sudden glimpses of things +unutterable which lie beyond. Then the narrow straits, that look so full +of rocks and quicksands, widen into a broad, clear passage, and one +after another, rosy with a celestial dawn, and ringing silver bells of +gladness, the isles of the blessed lift themselves up on the horizon, +and the soul is flooded with an atmosphere of light and joy. As the +burden of Christian fell off at the cross and was lost in the sepulchre, +so in these hours of celestial vision the whole weight of life's anguish +is lifted, and passes away like a dream; and the soul, seeing the +boundless ocean of Divine love, wherein all human hopes and joys and +sorrows lie so tenderly upholden, comes and casts the one little drop of +its personal will and personal existence with gladness into that +Fatherly depth. Henceforth, with it, God and Saviour is no more word of +mine and thine, for in that hour the child of earth feels himself heir +of all things: "All things are yours, and ye are Christ's, and Christ is +God's." + + * * * * * + +"The child is asleep," said Miss Roxy, as she stole on tiptoe into the +room when their noon meal was prepared. A plate and knife had been laid +for her, and they had placed for her a tumbler of quaint old engraved +glass, reputed to have been brought over from foreign parts, and which +had been given to Miss Roxy as her share in the effects of the +mysterious Mr. Swadkins. Tea also was served in some egg-like India +china cups, which saw the light only on the most high and festive +occasions. + +"Hadn't you better wake her?" said Miss Ruey; "a cup of hot tea would do +her so much good." + +Miss Ruey could conceive of few sorrows or ailments which would not be +materially better for a cup of hot tea. If not the very elixir of life, +it was indeed the next thing to it. + +"Well," said Miss Roxy, after laying her hand for a moment with great +gentleness on that of the sleeping girl, "she don't wake easy, and she's +tired; and she seems to be enjoying it so. The Bible says, 'He giveth +his beloved sleep,' and I won't interfere. I've seen more good come of +sleep than most things in my nursin' experience," said Miss Roxy, and +she shut the door gently, and the two sisters sat down to their noontide +meal. + +"How long the child does sleep!" said Miss Ruey as the old clock struck +four. + +"It was too much for her, this walk down here," said Aunt Roxy. "She's +been doin' too much for a long time. I'm a-goin' to put an end to that. +Well, nobody needn't say Mara hain't got resolution. I never see a +little thing have more. She always did have, when she was the leastest +little thing. She was always quiet and white and still, but she did +whatever she sot out to." + +At this moment, to their surprise, the door opened, and Mara came in, +and both sisters were struck with a change that had passed over her. It +was more than the result of mere physical repose. Not only had every +sign of weariness and bodily languor vanished, but there was about her +an air of solemn serenity and high repose that made her seem, as Miss +Ruey afterwards said, "like an angel jest walked out of the big Bible." + +"Why, dear child, how you have slept, and how bright and rested you +look," said Miss Ruey. + +"I am rested," said Mara; "oh how much! And happy," she added, laying +her little hand on Miss Roxy's shoulder. "I thank you, dear friend, for +all your kindness to me. I am sorry I made you feel so sadly; but now +you mustn't feel so any more, for all is well--yes, all is well. I see +now that it is so. I have passed beyond sorrow--yes, forever." + +Soft-hearted Miss Ruey here broke into audible sobbing, hiding her face +in her hands, and looking like a tumbled heap of old faded calico in a +state of convulsion. + +"Dear Aunt Ruey, you mustn't," said Mara, with a voice of gentle +authority. "We mustn't any of us feel so any more. There is no harm +done, no real evil is coming, only a good which we do not understand. I +am perfectly satisfied--perfectly at rest now. I was foolish and weak to +feel as I did this morning, but I shall not feel so any more. I shall +comfort you all. Is it anything so dreadful for me to go to heaven? How +little while it will be before you all come to me! Oh, how +little--little while!" + +"I told you, Mara, that you'd be supported in the Lord's time," said +Miss Roxy, who watched her with an air of grave and solemn attention. +"First and last, folks allers is supported; but sometimes there is a +long wrestlin'. The Lord's give you the victory early." + +"Victory!" said the girl, speaking as in a deep muse, and with a +mysterious brightness in her eyes; "yes, that is the word--it _is_ a +victory--no other word expresses it. Come, Aunt Roxy, we will go home. I +am not afraid now to tell grandpapa and grandmamma. God will care for +them; He will wipe away all tears." + +"Well, though, you mus'n't think of goin' till you've had a cup of tea," +said Aunt Ruey, wiping her eyes. "I've kep' the tea-pot hot by the fire, +and you must eat a little somethin', for it's long past dinner-time." + +"Is it?" said Mara. "I had no idea I had slept so long--how thoughtful +and kind you are!" + +"I do wish I could only do more for you," said Miss Ruey. "I don't seem +to get reconciled no ways; it seems dreffle hard--dreffle; but I'm glad +you _can_ feel so;" and the good old soul proceeded to press upon the +child not only the tea, which she drank with feverish relish, but every +hoarded dainty which their limited housekeeping commanded. + +It was toward sunset before Miss Roxy and Mara started on their walk +homeward. Their way lay over the high stony ridge which forms the +central part of the island. On one side, through the pines, they looked +out into the boundless blue of the ocean, and on the other caught +glimpses of Harpswell Bay as it lay glorified in the evening light. The +fresh cool breeze blowing landward brought with it an invigorating +influence, which Mara felt through all her feverish frame. She walked +with an energy to which she had long been a stranger. She said little, +but there was a sweetness, a repose, in her manner contrasting +singularly with the passionate melancholy which she had that morning +expressed. + +Miss Roxy did not interrupt her meditations. The nature of her +profession had rendered her familiar with all the changing mental and +physical phenomena that attend the development of disease and the +gradual loosening of the silver cords of a present life. Certain +well-understood phrases everywhere current among the mass of the people +in New England, strikingly tell of the deep foundations of religious +earnestness on which its daily life is built. "A triumphant death" was a +matter often casually spoken of among the records of the neighborhood; +and Miss Roxy felt that there was a vague and solemn charm about its +approach. Yet the soul of the gray, dry woman was hot within her, for +the conversation of the morning had probed depths in her own nature of +whose existence she had never before been so conscious. The roughest and +most matter-of-fact minds have a craving for the ideal somewhere; and +often this craving, forbidden by uncomeliness and ungenial surroundings +from having any personal history of its own, attaches itself to the +fortune of some other one in a kind of strange disinterestedness. Some +one young and beautiful is to live the life denied to them--to be the +poem and the romance; it is the young mistress of the poor black +slave--the pretty sister of the homely old spinster--or the clever son +of the consciously ill-educated father. Something of this unconscious +personal investment had there been on the part of Miss Roxy in the +nursling whose singular loveliness she had watched for so many years, +and on whose fair virgin orb she had marked the growing shadow of a +fatal eclipse, and as she saw her glowing and serene, with that peculiar +brightness that she felt came from no earthly presence or influence, she +could scarcely keep the tears from her honest gray eyes. + +When they arrived at the door of the house, Zephaniah Pennel was sitting +in it, looking toward the sunset. + +"Why, reely," he said, "Miss Roxy, we thought you must a-run away with +Mara; she's been gone a'most all day." + +"I expect she's had enough to talk with Aunt Roxy about," said Mrs. +Pennel. "Girls goin' to get married have a deal to talk about, what with +patterns and contrivin' and makin' up. But come in, Miss Roxy; we're +glad to see you." + +Mara turned to Miss Roxy, and gave her a look of peculiar meaning. "Aunt +Roxy," she said, "you must tell them what we have been talking about +to-day;" and then she went up to her room and shut the door. + +Miss Roxy accomplished her task with a matter-of-fact distinctness to +which her business-like habits of dealing with sickness and death had +accustomed her, yet with a sympathetic tremor in her voice which +softened the hard directness of her words. "You can take her over to +Portland, if you say so, and get Dr. Wilson's opinion," she said, in +conclusion. "It's best to have all done that can be, though in my mind +the case is decided." + +The silence that fell between the three was broken at last by the sound +of a light footstep descending the stairs, and Mara entered among them. + +She came forward and threw her arms round Mrs. Pennel's neck, and kissed +her; and then turning, she nestled down in the arms of her old +grandfather, as she had often done in the old days of childhood, and +laid her hand upon his shoulder. There was no sound for a few moments +but one of suppressed weeping; but _she_ did not weep--she lay with +bright calm eyes, as if looking upon some celestial vision. + +"It is not so very sad," she said at last, in a gentle voice, "that I +should go there; you are going, too, and grandmamma; we are all going; +and we shall be forever with the Lord. Think of it! think of it!" + +Many were the words spoken in that strange communing; and before Miss +Roxy went away, a calmness of solemn rest had settled down on all. The +old family Bible was brought forth, and Zephaniah Pennel read from it +those strange words of strong consolation, which take the sting from +death and the victory from the grave:-- + +"And I heard a great voice out of heaven. Behold the tabernacle of God +is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people; +and God himself shall be with them and be their God. And God shall wipe +away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, +neither sorrow nor crying, for the former things are passed away." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII + +OPEN VISION + + +As Miss Roxy was leaving the dwelling of the Pennels, she met Sally +Kittridge coming toward the house, laughing and singing, as was her +wont. She raised her long, lean forefinger with a gesture of warning. + +"What's the matter now, Aunt Roxy? You look as solemn as a hearse." + +"None o' your jokin' now, Miss Sally; there _is_ such a thing as serious +things in this 'ere world of our'n, for all you girls never seems to +know it." + +"What is the matter, Aunt Roxy?--has anything happened?--is anything the +matter with Mara?" + +"Matter enough. I've known it a long time," said Miss Roxy. "She's been +goin' down for three months now; and she's got that on her that will +carry her off before the year's out." + +"Pshaw, Aunt Roxy! how lugubriously you old nurses always talk! I hope +now you haven't been filling Mara's head with any such notions--people +can be frightened into anything." + +"Sally Kittridge, don't be a-talkin' of what you don't know nothin' +about! It stands to reason that a body that was bearin' the heat and +burden of the day long before you was born or thought on in this world +_should_ know a thing or two more'n you. Why, I've laid you on your +stomach and trotted you to trot up the wind many a day, and I was pretty +experienced then, and it ain't likely that I'm a-goin' to take sa'ce +from you. Mara Pennel is a gal as has every bit and grain as much +resolution and ambition as you have, for all you flap your wings and +crow so much louder, and she's one of the close-mouthed sort, that don't +make no talk, and she's been a-bearin' up and bearin' up, and comin' to +me on the sly for strengthenin' things. She's took camomile and +orange-peel, and snake-root and boneset, and dash-root and +dandelion--and there hain't nothin' done her no good. She told me to-day +she couldn't keep up no longer, and I've been a-tellin' Mis' Pennel and +her grand'ther. I tell you it has been a solemn time; and if you're +goin' in, don't go in with none o' your light triflin' ways, 'cause 'as +vinegar upon nitre is he that singeth songs on a heavy heart,' the +Scriptur' says." + +"Oh, Miss Roxy, do tell me truly," said Sally, much moved. "What do you +think is the matter with Mara? I've noticed myself that she got tired +easy, and that she was short-breathed--but she seemed so cheerful. Can +anything really be the matter?" + +"It's consumption, Sally Kittridge," said Miss Roxy, "neither more nor +less; that ar is the long and the short. They're going to take her over +to Portland to see Dr. Wilson--it won't do no harm, and it won't do no +good." + +"You seem to be determined she shall die," said Sally in a tone of +pique. + +"Determined, am I? Is it I that determines that the maple leaves shall +fall next October? Yet I know they will--folks can't help knowin' what +they know, and shuttin' one's eyes won't alter one's road. I s'pose you +think 'cause you're young and middlin' good-lookin' that you have +feelin's and I hasn't; well, you're mistaken, that's all. I don't +believe there's one person in the world that would go farther or do more +to save Mara Pennel than I would,--and yet I've been in the world long +enough to see that livin' ain't no great shakes neither. Ef one is +hopefully prepared in the days of their youth, why they escape a good +deal, ef they get took cross-lots into heaven." + +Sally turned away thoughtfully into the house; there was no one in the +kitchen, and the tick of the old clock sounded lonely and sepulchral. +She went upstairs to Mara's room; the door was ajar. Mara was sitting at +the open window that looked forth toward the ocean, busily engaged in +writing. The glow of evening shone on the golden waves of her hair, and +tinged the pearly outline of her cheek. Sally noticed the translucent +clearness of her complexion, and the deep burning color and the +transparency of the little hands, which seemed as if they might transmit +the light like Sevres porcelain. She was writing with an expression of +tender calm, and sometimes stopping to consult an open letter that Sally +knew came from Moses. + +So fair and sweet and serene she looked that a painter might have chosen +her for an embodiment of twilight, and one might not be surprised to see +a clear star shining out over her forehead. Yet in the tender serenity +of the face there dwelt a pathos of expression that spoke of struggles +and sufferings past, like the traces of tears on the face of a restful +infant that has grieved itself to sleep. + +Sally came softly in on tiptoe, threw her arms around her, and kissed +her, with a half laugh, then bursting into tears, sobbed upon her +shoulder. + +"Dear Sally, what is the matter?" said Mara, looking up. + +"Oh, Mara, I just met Miss Roxy, and she told me"-- + +Sally only sobbed passionately. + +"It is very sad to make all one's friends so unhappy," said Mara, in a +soothing voice, stroking Sally's hair. "You don't know how much I have +suffered dreading it. Sally, it is a long time since I began to expect +and dread and fear. My time of anguish was then--then when I first felt +that it could be possible that I should not live after all. There was a +long time I dared not even think of it; I could not even tell such a +fear to myself; and I did far more than I felt able to do to convince +myself that I was not weak and failing. I have been often to Miss Roxy, +and once, when nobody knew it, I went to a doctor in Brunswick, but then +I was afraid to tell him half, lest he should say something about me, +and it should get out; and so I went on getting worse and worse, and +feeling every day as if I could not keep up, and yet afraid to lie down +for fear grandmamma would suspect me. But this morning it was pleasant +and bright, and something came over me that said I _must_ tell somebody, +and so, as it was cool and pleasant, I walked up to Aunt Roxy's and told +her. I thought, you know, that she knew the most, and would feel it the +least; but oh, Sally, she has such a feeling heart, and loves me so; it +is strange she should." + +"Is it?" said Sally, tightening her clasp around Mara's neck; and then +with a hysterical shadow of gayety she said, "I suppose you think that +you are such a hobgoblin that nobody could be expected to do that. After +all, though, I should have as soon expected roses to bloom in a juniper +clump as love from Aunt Roxy." + +"Well, she does love me," said Mara. "No mother could be kinder. Poor +thing, she really sobbed and cried when I told her. I was very tired, +and she told me she would take care of me, and tell grandpapa and +grandmamma,--_that_ had been lying on my heart as such a dreadful thing +to do,--and she laid me down to rest on her bed, and spoke so lovingly +to me! I wish you could have seen her. And while I lay there, I fell +into a strange, sweet sort of rest. I can't describe it; but since then +everything has been changed. I wish I could tell any one how I saw +things then." + +"Do try to tell me, Mara," said Sally, "for I need comfort too, if there +is any to be had." + +"Well, then, I lay on the bed, and the wind drew in from the sea and +just lifted the window-curtain, and I could see the sea shining and hear +the waves making a pleasant little dash, and then my head seemed to +swim. I thought I was walking out by the pleasant shore, and everything +seemed so strangely beautiful, and grandpapa and grandmamma were there, +and Moses had come home, and you were there, and we were all so happy. +And then I felt a sort of strange sense that something was coming--some +great trial or affliction--and I groaned and clung to Moses, and asked +him to put his arm around me and hold me. + +"Then it seemed to be not by our seashore that this was happening, but +by the Sea of Galilee, just as it tells about it in the Bible, and there +were fishermen mending their nets, and men sitting counting their money, +and I saw Jesus come walking along, and heard him say to this one and +that one, 'Leave all and follow me,' and it seemed that the moment he +spoke they did it, and then he came to me, and I felt his eyes in my +very soul, and he said, 'Wilt _thou_ leave _all_ and follow me?' I +cannot tell now what a pain I felt--what an anguish. I wanted to leave +all, but my heart felt as if it were tied and woven with a thousand +threads, and while I waited he seemed to fade away, and I found myself +then alone and unhappy, wishing that I could, and mourning that I had +not; and then something shone out warm like the sun, and I looked up, +and he stood there looking pitifully, and he said again just as he did +before, 'Wilt thou leave all and follow me?' Every word was so gentle +and full of pity, and I looked into his eyes and could not look away; +they drew me, they warmed me, and I felt a strange, wonderful sense of +his greatness and sweetness. It seemed as if I felt within me cord after +cord breaking, I felt so free, so happy; and I said, 'I will, I will, +with all my heart;' and I woke then, so happy, so sure of God's love. + +"I saw so clearly how his love is in everything, and these words came +into my mind as if an angel had spoken them, 'God shall wipe away all +tears from their eyes.' Since then I cannot be unhappy. I was so myself +only this morning, and now I wonder that any one can have a grief when +God is so loving and good, and cares so sweetly for us all. Why, Sally, +if I could see Christ and hear him speak, I could not be more certain +that he will make this sorrow such a blessing to us all that we shall +never be able to thank him enough for it." + +"Oh Mara," said Sally, sighing deeply, while her cheek was wet with +tears, "it is beautiful to hear you talk; but there is one that I am +sure will not and cannot feel so." + +"God will care for him," said Mara; "oh, I am sure of it; He is love +itself, and He values his love in us, and He never, never would have +brought such a trial, if it had not been the true and only way to our +best good. We shall not shed one needless tear. Yes, if God loved us so +that he spared not his own Son, he will surely give us all the good here +that we possibly can have without risking our eternal happiness." + +"You are writing to Moses, now?" said Sally. + +"Yes, I am answering his letter; it is so full of spirit and life and +hope--but all hope in this world--all, all earthly, as much as if there +was no God and no world to come. Sally, perhaps our Father saw that I +could not have strength to live with him and keep my faith. I should be +drawn by him earthward instead of drawing him heavenward; and so this is +in mercy to us both." + +"And are you telling him the whole truth, Mara?" + +"Not all, no," said Mara; "he could not bear it at once. I only tell him +that my health is failing, and that my friends are seriously alarmed, +and then I speak as if it were doubtful, in my mind, what the result +might be." + +"I don't think you can make him feel as you do. Moses Pennel has a +tremendous will, and he never yielded to any one. You bend, Mara, like +the little blue harebells, and so the storm goes over you; but he will +stand up against it, and it will wrench and shatter him. I am afraid, +instead of making him better, it will only make him bitter and +rebellious." + +"He has a Father in heaven who knows how to care for him," said Mara. "I +am persuaded--I feel certain that he will be blessed in the end; not +perhaps in the time and way I should have chosen, but in the end. I have +always felt that he was mine, ever since he came a little shipwrecked +boy to me--a little girl. And now I have given him up to his Saviour and +my Saviour--to his God and my God--and I am perfectly at peace. All will +be well." + +Mara spoke with a look of such solemn, bright assurance as made her, in +the dusky, golden twilight, seem like some serene angel sent down to +comfort, rather than a hapless mortal just wrenched from life and hope. + +Sally rose up and kissed her silently. "Mara," she said, "I shall come +to-morrow to see what I can do for you. I will not interrupt you now. +Good-by, dear." + + * * * * * + +There are no doubt many, who have followed this history so long as it +danced like a gay little boat over sunny waters, and who would have +followed it gayly to the end, had it closed with ringing of +marriage-bells, who turn from it indignantly, when they see that its +course runs through the dark valley. This, they say, is an imposition, a +trick upon our feelings. We want to read only stories which end in joy +and prosperity. + +But have we then settled it in our own mind that there is no such thing +as a fortunate issue in a history which does not terminate in the way of +earthly success and good fortune? Are we Christians or heathen? It is +now eighteen centuries since, as we hold, the "highly favored among +women" was pronounced to be one whose earthly hopes were all cut off in +the blossom,--whose noblest and dearest in the morning of his days went +down into the shadows of death. + +Was Mary the highly-favored among women, and was Jesus indeed the +blessed,--or was the angel mistaken? If they were these, if we are +Christians, it ought to be a settled and established habit of our souls +to regard something else as prosperity than worldly success and happy +marriages. That life is a success which, like the life of Jesus, in its +beginning, middle, and close, has borne a perfect witness to the truth +and the highest form of truth. It is true that God has given to us, and +inwoven in our nature a desire for a perfection and completeness made +manifest to our senses in this mortal life. To see the daughter bloom +into youth and womanhood, the son into manhood, to see them marry and +become themselves parents, and gradually ripen and develop in the +maturities of middle life, gradually wear into a sunny autumn, and so be +gathered in fullness of time to their fathers,--such, one says, is the +programme which God has made us to desire; such the ideal of happiness +which he has interwoven with our nerves, and for which our heart and our +flesh crieth out; to which every stroke of a knell is a violence, and +every thought of an early death is an abhorrence. + +But the life of Christ and his mother sets the foot on this lower ideal +of happiness, and teaches us that there is something higher. His +ministry began with declaring, "Blessed are they that mourn." It has +been well said that prosperity was the blessing of the Old Testament, +and adversity of the New. Christ came to show us a nobler style of +living and bearing; and so far as he had a personal and earthly life, he +buried it as a corner-stone on which to erect a new immortal style of +architecture. + +Of his own, he had nothing, neither houses, nor lands, nor family ties, +nor human hopes, nor earthly sphere of success; and as a human life, it +was all a sacrifice and a defeat. He was rejected by his countrymen, +whom the passionate anguish of his love and the unwearied devotion of +his life could not save from an awful doom. He was betrayed by weak +friends, prevailed against by slanderers, overwhelmed with an +ignominious death in the morning of youth, and his mother stood by his +cross, and she was the only woman whom God ever called highly favored in +this world. + +This, then, is the great and perfect ideal of what God honors. Christ +speaks of himself as bread to be eaten,--bread, simple, humble, +unpretending, vitally necessary to human life, made by the bruising and +grinding of the grain, unostentatiously having no life or worth of its +own except as it is absorbed into the life of others and lives in them. +We wished in this history to speak of a class of lives formed on the +model of Christ, and like his, obscure and unpretending, like his, +seeming to end in darkness and defeat, but which yet have this +preciousness and value that the dear saints who live them come nearest +in their mission to the mission of Jesus. They are made, not for a +career and history of their own, but to be bread of life to others. In +every household or house have been some of these, and if we look on +their lives and deaths with the unbaptized eyes of nature, we shall see +only most mournful and unaccountable failure, when, if we could look +with the eye of faith, we should see that their living and dying has +been bread of life to those they left behind. Fairest of these, and +least developed, are the holy innocents who come into our households to +smile with the smile of angels, who sleep in our bosoms, and win us with +the softness of tender little hands, and pass away like the lamb that +was slain before they have ever learned the speech of mortals. Not vain +are even these silent lives of Christ's lambs, whom many an earth-bound +heart has been roused to follow when the Shepherd bore them to the +higher pastures. And so the daughter who died so early, whose +wedding-bells were never rung except in heaven,--the son who had no +career of ambition or a manly duty except among the angels,--the patient +sufferers, whose only lot on earth seemed to be to endure, whose life +bled away drop by drop in the shadows of the sick-room--all these are +among those whose life was like Christ's in that they were made, not for +themselves, but to become bread to us. + +It is expedient for us that they go away. Like their Lord, they come to +suffer, and to die; they take part in his sacrifice; their life is +incomplete without their death, and not till they are gone away does the +Comforter fully come to us. + +It is a beautiful legend which one sees often represented in the +churches of Europe, that when the grave of the mother of Jesus was +opened, it was found full of blossoming lilies,--fit emblem of the +thousand flowers of holy thought and purpose which spring up in our +hearts from the memory of our sainted dead. + +Cannot many, who read these lines, bethink them of such rooms that have +been the most cheerful places in the family,--when the heart of the +smitten one seemed the band that bound all the rest together,--and have +there not been dying hours which shed such a joy and radiance on all +around, that it was long before the mourners remembered to mourn? Is it +not a misuse of words to call such a heavenly translation _death_? and +to call most things that are lived out on this earth _life_? + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX + +THE LAND OF BEULAH + + +It is now about a month after the conversation which we have recorded, +and during that time the process which was to loose from this present +life had been going on in Mara with a soft, insensible, but steady +power. When she ceased to make efforts beyond her strength, and allowed +herself that languor and repose which nature claimed, all around her +soon became aware how her strength was failing; and yet a cheerful +repose seemed to hallow the atmosphere around her. The sight of her +every day in family worship, sitting by in such tender tranquillity, +with such a smile on her face, seemed like a present inspiration. And +though the aged pair knew that she was no more for this world, yet she +was comforting and inspiring to their view as the angel who of old +rolled back the stone from the sepulchre and sat upon it. They saw in +her eyes, not death, but the solemn victory which Christ gives over +death. + +Bunyan has no more lovely poem than the image he gives of that land of +pleasant waiting which borders the river of death, where the chosen of +the Lord repose, while shining messengers, constantly passing and +repassing, bear tidings from the celestial shore, opening a way between +earth and heaven. It was so, that through the very thought of Mara an +influence of tenderness and tranquillity passed through the whole +neighborhood, keeping hearts fresh with sympathy, and causing thought +and conversation to rest on those bright mysteries of eternal joy which +were reflected on her face. + +Sally Kittridge was almost a constant inmate of the brown house, ever +ready in watching and waiting; and one only needed to mark the +expression of her face to feel that a holy charm was silently working +upon her higher and spiritual nature. Those great, dark, sparkling eyes +that once seemed to express only the brightness of animal vivacity, and +glittered like a brook in unsympathetic gayety, had in them now +mysterious depths, and tender, fleeting shadows, and the very tone of +her voice had a subdued tremor. The capricious elf, the tricksy sprite, +was melting away in the immortal soul, and the deep pathetic power of a +noble heart was being born. Some influence sprung of sorrow is necessary +always to perfect beauty in womanly nature. We feel its absence in many +whose sparkling wit and high spirits give grace and vivacity to life, +but in whom we vainly seek for some spot of quiet tenderness and +sympathetic repose. Sally was, ignorantly to herself, changing in the +expression of her face and the tone of her character, as she ministered +in the daily wants which sickness brings in a simple household. + +For the rest of the neighborhood, the shelves and larder of Mrs. Pennel +were constantly crowded with the tributes which one or another sent in +for the invalid. There was jelly of Iceland moss sent across by Miss +Emily, and brought by Mr. Sewell, whose calls were almost daily. There +were custards and preserves, and every form of cake and other +confections in which the housekeeping talent of the neighbors delighted, +and which were sent in under the old superstition that sick people must +be kept eating at all hazards. + +At church, Sunday after Sunday, the simple note requested the prayers of +the church and congregation for Mara Lincoln, who was, as the note +phrased it, drawing near her end, that she and all concerned might be +prepared for the great and last change. One familiar with New England +customs must have remembered with what a plaintive power the reading of +such a note, from Sunday to Sunday, has drawn the thoughts and +sympathies of a congregation to some chamber of sickness; and in a +village church, where every individual is known from childhood to every +other, the power of this simple custom is still greater. + +Then the prayers of the minister would dwell on the case, and thanks +would be rendered to God for the great light and peace with which he had +deigned to visit his young handmaid; and then would follow a prayer that +when these sad tidings should reach a distant friend who had gone down +to do business on the great waters, they might be sanctified to his +spiritual and everlasting good. Then on Sunday noons, as the people ate +their dinners together in a room adjoining the church, all that she said +and did was talked over and over,--how quickly she had gained the +victory of submission, the peace of a will united with God's, mixed with +harmless gossip of the sick chamber,--as to what she ate and how she +slept, and who had sent her gruel with raisins in it, and who jelly with +wine, and how she had praised this and eaten that twice with a relish, +but how the other had seemed to disagree with her. Thereafter would come +scraps of nursing information, recipes against coughing, specifics +against short breath, speculations about watchers, how soon she would +need them, and long legends of other death-beds where the fear of death +had been slain by the power of an endless life. + +Yet through all the gossip, and through much that might have been called +at other times commonplace cant of religion, there was spread a tender +earnestness, and the whole air seemed to be enchanted with the fragrance +of that fading rose. Each one spoke more gently, more lovingly to each, +for the thought of her. + +It was now a bright September morning, and the early frosts had changed +the maples in the pine-woods to scarlet, and touched the white birches +with gold, when one morning Miss Roxy presented herself at an early hour +at Captain Kittridge's. + +They were at breakfast, and Sally was dispensing the tea at the head of +the table, Mrs. Kittridge having been prevailed on to abdicate in her +favor. + +"It is such a fine morning," she said, looking out at the window, which +showed a waveless expanse of ocean. "I do hope Mara has had a good +night." + +"I'm a-goin' to make her some jelly this very forenoon," said Mrs. +Kittridge. "Aunt Roxy was a-tellin' me yesterday that she was a-goin' +down to stay at the house regular, for she needed so much done now." + +"It's 'most an amazin' thing we don't hear from Moses Pennel," said +Captain Kittridge. "If he don't make haste, he may never see her." + +"There's Aunt Roxy at this minute," said Sally. + +In truth, the door opened at this moment, and Aunt Roxy entered with a +little blue bandbox and a bundle tied up in a checked handkerchief. + +"Oh, Aunt Roxy," said Mrs. Kittridge, "you are on your way, are you? Do +sit down, right here, and get a cup of strong tea." + +"Thank you," said Aunt Roxy, "but Ruey gave me a humming cup before I +came away." + +"Aunt Roxy, have they heard anything from Moses?" said the Captain. + +"No, father, I know they haven't," said Sally. "Mara has written to him, +and so has Mr. Sewell, but it is very uncertain whether he ever got the +letters." + +"It's most time to be a-lookin' for him home," said the Captain. "I +shouldn't be surprised to see him any day." + +At this moment Sally, who sat where she could see from the window, gave +a sudden start and a half scream, and rising from the table, darted +first to the window and then to the door, whence she rushed out eagerly. + +"Well, what now?" said the Captain. + +"I am sure I don't know what's come over her," said Mrs. Kittridge, +rising to look out. + +"Why, Aunt Roxy, do look; I believe to my soul that ar's Moses Pennel!" + +And so it was. He met Sally, as she ran out, with a gloomy brow and +scarcely a look even of recognition; but he seized her hand and wrung it +in the stress of his emotion so that she almost screamed with the pain. + +"Tell me, Sally," he said, "tell me the truth. I dared not go home +without I knew. Those gossiping, lying reports are always exaggerated. +They are dreadful exaggerations,--they frighten a sick person into the +grave; but you have good sense and a hopeful, cheerful temper,--you must +see and know how things are. Mara is not so very--very"--He held Sally's +hand and looked at her with a burning eagerness. "Say, what do you think +of her?" + +"We all think that we cannot long keep her with us," said Sally. "And +oh, Moses, I am so glad you have come." + +"It's false,--it must be false," he said, violently; "nothing is more +deceptive than these ideas that doctors and nurses pile on when a +sensitive person is going down a little. I know Mara; everything depends +on the mind with her. I shall wake her up out of this dream. She is not +to die. She shall not die,--I come to save her." + +"Oh, if you could!" said Sally, mournfully. + +"It cannot be; it is not to be," he said again, as if to convince +himself. "No such thing is to be thought of. Tell me, Sally, have you +tried to keep up the cheerful side of things to her,--have you?" + +"Oh, you cannot tell, Moses, how it is, unless you see her. She is +cheerful, happy; the only really joyous one among us." + +"Cheerful! joyous! happy! She does not believe, then, these frightful +things? I thought she would keep up; she is a brave little thing." + +"No, Moses, she does believe. She has given up all hope of life,--all +wish to live; and oh, she is so lovely,--so sweet,--so dear." + +Sally covered her face with her hands and sobbed. Moses stood still, +looking at her a moment in a confused way, and then he answered,-- + +"Come, get your bonnet, Sally, and go with me. You must go in and tell +them; tell her that I am come, you know." + +"Yes, I will," said Sally, as she ran quickly back to the house. + +Moses stood listlessly looking after her. A moment after she came out of +the door again, and Miss Roxy behind. Sally hurried up to Moses. + +"Where's that black old raven going?" said Moses, in a low voice, +looking back on Miss Roxy, who stood on the steps. + +"What, Aunt Roxy?" said Sally; "why, she's going up to nurse Mara, and +take care of her. Mrs. Pennel is so old and infirm she needs somebody to +depend on." + +"I can't bear her," said Moses. "I always think of sick-rooms and +coffins and a stifling smell of camphor when I see her. I never could +endure her. She's an old harpy going to carry off my dove." + +"Now, Moses, you must _not_ talk so. She loves Mara dearly, the poor +old soul, and Mara loves her, and there is no earthly thing she would +not do for her. And she knows what to do for sickness better than you or +I. I have found out one thing, that it isn't mere love and good-will +that is needed in a sick-room; it needs knowledge and experience." + +Moses assented in gloomy silence, and they walked on together the way +that they had so often taken laughing and chatting. When they came +within sight of the house, Moses said,-- + +"Here she came running to meet us; do you remember?" + +"Yes," said Sally. + +"I was never half worthy of her. I never said half what I ought to," he +added. "She _must_ live! I must have one more chance." + +When they came up to the house, Zephaniah Pennel was sitting in the +door, with his gray head bent over the leaves of the great family Bible. + +He rose up at their coming, and with that suppression of all external +signs of feeling for which the New Englander is remarkable, simply shook +the hand of Moses, saying,-- + +"Well, my boy, we are glad you have come." + +Mrs. Pennel, who was busied in some domestic work in the back part of +the kitchen, turned away and hid her face in her apron when she saw him. +There fell a great silence among them, in the midst of which the old +clock ticked loudly and importunately, like the inevitable approach of +fate. + +"I will go up and see her, and get her ready," said Sally, in a whisper +to Moses. "I'll come and call you." + +Moses sat down and looked around on the old familiar scene; there was +the great fireplace where, in their childish days, they had sat together +winter nights,--her fair, spiritual face enlivened by the blaze, while +she knit and looked thoughtfully into the coals; there she had played +checkers, or fox and geese, with him; or studied with him the Latin +lessons; or sat by, grave and thoughtful, hemming his toyship sails, +while he cut the moulds for his anchors, or tried experiments on +pulleys; and in all these years he could not remember one selfish +action,--one unlovely word,--and he thought to himself, "I hoped to +possess this angel as a mortal wife! God forgive my presumption." + + + + +CHAPTER XL + +THE MEETING + + +Sally found Mara sitting in an easy-chair that had been sent to her by +the provident love of Miss Emily. It was wheeled in front of her room +window, from whence she could look out upon the wide expanse of the +ocean. It was a gloriously bright, calm morning, and the water lay clear +and still, with scarce a ripple, to the far distant pearly horizon. She +seemed to be looking at it in a kind of calm ecstasy, and murmuring the +words of a hymn:-- + + "Nor wreck nor ruin there is seen, + There not a wave of trouble rolls, + But the bright rainbow round the throne + Peals endless peace to all their souls." + +Sally came softly behind her on tiptoe to kiss her. "Good-morning, dear, +how do you find yourself?" + +"Quite well," was the answer. + +"Mara, is not there anything you want?" + +"There might be many things; but His will is mine." + +"You want to see Moses?" + +"Very much; but I shall see him as soon as it is best for us both." + +"Mara,--he is come." + +The quick blood flushed over the pale, transparent face as a virgin +glacier flushes at sunrise, and she looked up eagerly. "Come!" + +"Yes, he is below-stairs wanting to see you." + +She seemed about to speak eagerly, and then checked herself and mused a +moment. "Poor, poor boy!" she said. "Yes, Sally, let him come at once." + +There were a few dazzling, dreamy minutes when Moses first held that +frail form in his arms, which but for its tender, mortal warmth, might +have seemed to him a spirit. It was no spirit, but a woman whose heart +he could feel thrilling against his own; who seemed to him like some +frail, fluttering bird; but somehow, as he looked into her clear, +transparent face, and pressed her thin little hands in his, the +conviction stole over him overpoweringly that she was indeed fading away +and going from him,--drawn from him by that mysterious, irresistible +power against which human strength, even in the strongest, has no +chance. + +It is dreadful to a strong man who has felt the influence of his +strength,--who has always been ready with a resource for every +emergency, and a weapon for every battle,--when first he meets that +mighty invisible power by which a beloved life--a life he would give his +own blood to save--melts and dissolves like smoke before his eyes. + +"Oh, Mara, Mara," he groaned, "this is too dreadful, too cruel; it is +cruel." + +"You will think so at first, but not always," she said, soothingly. "You +will live to see a joy come out of this sorrow." + +"Never, Mara, never. I cannot believe that kind of talk. I see no love, +no mercy in it. Of course, if there is any life after death you will be +happy; if there is a heaven you will be there; but can this dim, +unsubstantial, cloudy prospect make you happy in leaving me and giving +up one's lover? Oh, Mara, you cannot love as I do, or you could not"-- + +"Moses, I have suffered,--oh, very, very much. It was many months ago +when I first thought that I must give everything up,--when I thought +that we must part; but Christ helped me; he showed me his wonderful +love,--the love that surrounds us all our life, that follows us in all +our wanderings, and sustains us in all our weaknesses,--and then I felt +that whatever He wills for us is in love; oh, believe it,--believe it +for my sake, for your own." + +"Oh, I cannot, I cannot," said Moses; but as he looked at the bright, +pale face, and felt how the tempest of his feelings shook the frail +form, he checked himself. "I do wrong to agitate you so, Mara. I will +try to be calm." + +"And to pray?" she said, beseechingly. + +He shut his lips in gloomy silence. + +"Promise me," she said. + +"I have prayed ever since I got your first letter, and I see it does no +good," he answered. "Our prayers cannot alter fate." + +"Fate! there is no fate," she answered; "there is a strong and loving +Father who guides the way, though we know it not. We cannot resist His +will; but it is all love,--pure, pure love." + +At this moment Sally came softly into the room. A gentle air of womanly +authority seemed to express itself in that once gay and giddy face, at +which Moses, in the midst of his misery, marveled. + +"You must not stay any longer now," she said; "it would be too much for +her strength; this is enough for this morning." + +Moses turned away, and silently left the room, and Sally said to Mara,-- + +"You must lie down now, and rest." + +"Sally," said Mara, "promise me one thing." + +"Well, Mara; of course I will." + +"Promise to love him and care for him when I am gone; he will be so +lonely." + +"I will do all I can, Mara," said Sally, soothingly; "so now you must +take a little wine and lie down. You know what you have so often said, +that all will yet be well with him." + +"Oh, I know it, I am sure," said Mara, "but oh, his sorrow shook my very +heart." + +"You must not talk another word about it," said Sally, peremptorily, "Do +you know Aunt Roxy is coming to see you? I see her out of the window +this very moment." + +And Sally assisted to lay her friend on the bed, and then, administering +a stimulant, she drew down the curtains, and, sitting beside her, began +repeating, in a soft monotonous tone, the words of a favorite hymn:-- + + "The Lord my shepherd is, + I shall be well supplied; + Since He is mine, and I am His, + What can I want beside?" + +Before she had finished, Mara was asleep. + + + + +CHAPTER XLI + +CONSOLATION + + +Moses came down from the chamber of Mara in a tempest of contending +emotions. He had all that constitutional horror of death and the +spiritual world which is an attribute of some particularly strong and +well-endowed physical natures, and he had all that instinctive +resistance of the will which such natures offer to anything which +strikes athwart their cherished hopes and plans. To be wrenched suddenly +from the sphere of an earthly life and made to confront the unclosed +doors of a spiritual world on the behalf of the one dearest to him, was +to him a dreary horror uncheered by one filial belief in God. He felt, +furthermore, that blind animal irritation which assails one under a +sudden blow, whether of the body or of the soul,--an anguish of +resistance, a vague blind anger. + +Mr. Sewell was sitting in the kitchen,--he had called to see Mara, and +waited for the close of the interview above. He rose and offered his +hand to Moses, who took it in gloomy silence, without a smile or word. + +"'My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord,'" said Mr. +Sewell. + +"I cannot bear that sort of thing," said Moses abruptly, and almost +fiercely. "I beg your pardon, sir, but it irritates me." + +"Do you not believe that afflictions are sent for our improvement?" said +Mr. Sewell. + +"No! how can I? What improvement will there be to me in taking from me +the angel who guided me to all good, and kept me from all evil; the one +pure motive and holy influence of my life? If you call this the +chastening of a loving father, I must say it looks more to me like the +caprice of an evil spirit." + +"Had you ever thanked the God of your life for this gift, or felt your +dependence on him to keep it? Have you not blindly idolized the creature +and forgotten Him who gave it?" said Mr. Sewell. + +Moses was silent a moment. + +"I cannot believe there is a God," he said. "Since this fear came on me +I have prayed,--yes, and humbled myself; for I know I have not always +been what I ought. I promised if he would grant me this one thing, I +would seek him in future; but it did no good,--it's of no use to pray. I +would have been good in this way, if she might be spared, and I cannot +in any other." + +"My son, our Lord and Master will have no such conditions from us," said +Mr. Sewell. "We must submit unconditionally. _She_ has done it, and her +peace is as firm as the everlasting hills. God's will is a great current +that flows in spite of us; if we go with it, it carries us to endless +rest,--if we resist, we only wear our lives out in useless struggles." + +Moses stood a moment in silence, and then, turning away without a word, +hurried from the house. He strode along the high rocky bluff, through +tangled junipers and pine thickets, till he came above the rocky cove +which had been his favorite retreat on so many occasions. He swung +himself down over the cliffs into the grotto, where, shut in by the high +tide, he felt himself alone. There he had read Mr. Sewell's letter, and +dreamed vain dreams of wealth and worldly success, now all to him so +void. He felt to-day, as he sat there and watched the ships go by, how +utterly nothing all the wealth in the world was, in the loss of that one +heart. Unconsciously, even to himself, sorrow was doing her ennobling +ministry within him, melting off in her fierce fires trivial ambitions +and low desires, and making him feel the sole worth and value of love. +That which in other days had seemed only as one good thing among many +now seemed the _only_ thing in life. And he who has learned the +paramount value of love has taken one step from an earthly to a +spiritual existence. + +But as he lay there on the pebbly shore, hour after hour glided by, his +whole past life lived itself over to his eye; he saw a thousand actions, +he heard a thousand words, whose beauty and significance never came to +him till now. And alas! he saw so many when, on his part, the responsive +word that should have been spoken, and the deed that should have been +done, was forever wanting. He had all his life carried within him a +vague consciousness that he had not been to Mara what he should have +been, but he had hoped to make amends for all in that future which lay +before him,--that future now, alas! dissolving and fading away like the +white cloud-islands which the wind was drifting from the sky. A voice +seemed saying in his ears, "Ye know that when he would have inherited a +blessing he was rejected; for he found no place for repentance, though +he sought it carefully with tears." Something that he had never felt +before struck him as appalling in the awful fixedness of all past deeds +and words,--the unkind words once said, which no tears could unsay,--the +kind ones suppressed, to which no agony of wishfulness could give a past +reality. There were particular times in their past history that he +remembered so vividly, when he saw her so clearly,--doing some little +thing for him, and shyly watching for the word of acknowledgment, which +he did not give. Some willful wayward demon withheld him at the moment, +and the light on the little wishful face slowly faded. True, all had +been a thousand times forgiven and forgotten between them, but it is the +ministry of these great vital hours of sorrow to teach us that nothing +in the soul's history ever dies or is forgotten, and when the beloved +one lies stricken and ready to pass away, comes the judgment-day of +love, and all the dead moments of the past arise and live again. + +He lay there musing and dreaming till the sun grew low in the afternoon +sky, and the tide that isolated the little grotto had gone far out into +the ocean, leaving long, low reefs of sunken rocks, all matted and +tangled with the yellow hair of the seaweed, with little crystal pools +of salt water between. He heard the sound of approaching footsteps, and +Captain Kittridge came slowly picking his way round among the shingle +and pebbles. + +"Wal', now, I thought I'd find ye here!" he said: "I kind o' thought I +wanted to see ye,--ye see." + +Moses looked up half moody, half astonished, while the Captain seated +himself upon a fragment of rock and began brushing the knees of his +trousers industriously, until soon the tears rained down from his eyes +upon his dry withered hands. + +"Wal', now ye see, I can't help it, darned if I can; knowed her ever +since she's that high. She's done me good, she has. Mis' Kittridge has +been pretty faithful. I've had folks here and there talk to me +consid'able, but Lord bless you, I never had nothin' go to my heart like +this 'ere--Why to look on her there couldn't nobody doubt but what there +was somethin' in religion. You never knew half what she did for you, +Moses Pennel, you didn't know that the night you was off down to the +long cove with Skipper Atkinson, that 'ere blessed child was a-follerin' +you, but she was, and she come to me next day to get me to do somethin' +for you. That was how your grand'ther and I got ye off to sea so quick, +and she such a little thing then; that ar child was the savin' of ye, +Moses Pennel." + +Moses hid his head in his hands with a sort of groan. + +"Wal', wal'," said the Captain, "I don't wonder now ye feel so,--I don't +see how ye can stan' it no ways--only by thinkin' o' where she's goin' +to--Them ar bells in the Celestial City must all be a-ringin' for +her,--there'll be joy that side o' the river I reckon, when she gets +acrost. If she'd jest leave me a hem o' her garment to get in by, I'd be +glad; but she was one o' the sort that was jest _made_ to go to heaven. +She only stopped a few days in our world, like the robins when they's +goin' south; but there'll be a good many fust and last that'll get into +the kingdom for love of her. She never said much to me, but she kind o' +drew me. Ef ever I should get in there, it'll be _she_ led me. But come, +now, Moses, ye oughtn't fur to be a-settin' here catchin' cold--jest +come round to our house and let Sally gin you a warm cup o' tea--do +come, now." + +"Thank you, Captain," said Moses, "but I will go home; I must see her +again to-night." + +"Wal', don't let her see you grieve too much, ye know; we must be a +little sort o' manly, ye know, 'cause her body's weak, if her heart is +strong." + +Now Moses was in a mood of dry, proud, fierce, self-consuming sorrow, +least likely to open his heart or seek sympathy from any one; and no +friend or acquaintance would probably have dared to intrude on his +grief. But there are moods of the mind which cannot be touched or +handled by one on an equal level with us that yield at once to the +sympathy of something below. A dog who comes with his great honest, +sorrowful face and lays his mute paw of inquiry on your knee, will +sometimes open floodgates of sober feeling, that have remained closed to +every human touch;--the dumb simplicity and ignorance of his sympathy +makes it irresistible. In like manner the downright grief of the +good-natured old Captain, and the child-like ignorance with which he +ventured upon a ministry of consolation from which a more cultivated +person would have shrunk away, were irresistibly touching. Moses grasped +the dry, withered hand and said, "Thank you, thank you, Captain +Kittridge; you're a true friend." + +"Wal', I be, that's a fact, Moses. Lord bless me, I ain't no great--I +ain't nobody--I'm jest an old last-year's mullein-stalk in the Lord's +vineyard; but that 'ere blessed little thing allers had a good word for +me. She gave me a hymn-book and marked some hymns in it, and read 'em to +me herself, and her voice was jest as sweet as the sea of a warm +evening. Them hymns come to me kind o' powerful when I'm at my work +planin' and sawin'. Mis' Kittridge, she allers talks to me as ef I was a +terrible sinner; and I suppose I be, but this 'ere blessed child, she's +so kind o' good and innocent, she thinks I'm good; kind o' takes it for +granted I'm one o' the Lord's people, ye know. It kind o' makes me want +to be, ye know." + +The Captain here produced from his coat-pocket a much worn hymn-book, +and showed Moses where leaves were folded down. "Now here's this 'ere," +he said; "you get her to say it to you," he added, pointing to the +well-known sacred idyl which has refreshed so many hearts:-- + + "There is a land of pure delight + Where saints immortal reign; + Eternal day excludes the night, + And pleasures banish pain. + + "There everlasting spring abides, + And never-fading flowers; + Death like a narrow sea divides + This happy land from ours." + +"Now that ar beats everything," said the Captain, "and we must kind o' +think of it for her, 'cause she's goin' to see all that, and ef it's our +loss it's her gain, ye know." + +"I know," said Moses; "our grief is selfish." + +"Jest so. Wal', we're selfish critters, we be," said the Captain; "but +arter all, 't ain't as ef we was heathen and didn't know where they was +a-goin' to. We jest ought to be a-lookin' about and tryin' to foller +'em, ye know." + +"Yes, yes, I do know," said Moses; "it's easy to say, but hard to do." + +"But law, man, she prays for you; she did years and years ago, when you +was a boy and she a girl. You know it tells in the Revelations how the +angels has golden vials full of odors which are the prayers of saints. I +tell ye Moses, you ought to get into heaven, if no one else does. I +expect you are pretty well known among the angels by this time. I tell +ye what 'tis, Moses, fellers think it a mighty pretty thing to be +a-steppin' high, and a-sayin' they don't believe the Bible, and all that +ar, so long as the world goes well. This 'ere old Bible--why it's jest +like yer mother,--ye rove and ramble, and cut up round the world without +her a spell, and mebbe think the old woman ain't so fashionable as some; +but when sickness and sorrow comes, why, there ain't nothin' else to go +back to. Is there, now?" + +Moses did not answer, but he shook the hand of the Captain and turned +away. + + + + +CHAPTER XLII + +LAST WORDS + + +The setting sun gleamed in at the window of Mara's chamber, tinted with +rose and violet hues from a great cloud-castle that lay upon the smooth +ocean over against the window. Mara was lying upon the bed, but she +raised herself upon her elbow to look out. + +"Dear Aunt Roxy," she said, "raise me up and put the pillows behind me, +so that I can see out--it is splendid." + +Aunt Roxy came and arranged the pillows, and lifted the girl with her +long, strong arms, then stooping over her a moment she finished her +arrangements by softly smoothing the hair from her forehead with a +caressing movement most unlike her usual precise business-like +proceedings. + +"I love you, Aunt Roxy," said Mara, looking up with a smile. + +Aunt Roxy made a strange wry face, which caused her to look harder than +usual. She was choked with tenderness, and had only this uncomely way of +showing it. + +"Law now, Mara, I don't see how ye can; I ain't nothin' but an old +burdock-bush; love ain't for me." + +"Yes it is too," said Mara, drawing her down and kissing her withered +cheek, "and you sha'n't call yourself an old burdock. God sees that you +are beautiful, and in the resurrection everybody will see it." + +"I was always homely as an owl," said Miss Roxy, unconsciously speaking +out what had lain like a stone at the bottom of even her sensible heart. +"I always had sense to know it, and knew my sphere. Homely folks would +like to say pretty things, and to have pretty things said to them, but +they never do. I made up my mind pretty early that my part in the +vineyard was to have hard work and no posies." + +"Well, you will have all the more in heaven; I love you dearly, and I +like your looks, too. You look kind and true and good, and that's beauty +in the country where we are going." + +Miss Roxy sprang up quickly from the bed, and turning her back began to +arrange the bottles on the table with great zeal. + +"Has Moses come in yet?" said Mara. + +"No, there ain't nobody seen a thing of him since he went out this +morning." + +"Poor boy!" said Mara, "it is too hard upon him. Aunt Roxy, please pick +some roses off the bush from under the window and put in the vases; +let's have the room as sweet and cheerful as we can. I hope God will let +me live long enough to comfort him. It is not so very terrible, if one +would only think so, to cross that river. All looks so bright to me now +that I have forgotten how sorrow seemed. Poor Moses! he will have a hard +struggle, but he will get the victory, too. I am very weak to-night, but +to-morrow I shall feel better, and I shall sit up, and perhaps I can +paint a little on that flower I was doing for him. We will not have +things look sickly or deathly. There, Aunt Roxy, he has come in; I hear +his step." + +"I didn't hear it," said Miss Roxy, surprised at the acute senses which +sickness had etherealized to an almost spirit-like intensity. "Shall I +call him?" + +"Yes, do," said Mara. "He can sit with me a little while to-night." + +The light in the room was a strange dusky mingling of gold and gloom, +when Moses stole softly in. The great cloud-castle that a little while +since had glowed like living gold from turret and battlement, now dim, +changed for the most part to a sombre gray, enlivened with a dull glow +of crimson; but there was still a golden light where the sun had sunk +into the sea. Moses saw the little thin hand stretched out to him. + +"Sit down," she said; "it has been such a beautiful sunset. Did you +notice it?" + +He sat down by the bed, leaning his forehead on his hand, but saying +nothing. + +She drew her fingers through his dark hair. "I am so glad to see you," +she said. "It is such a comfort to me that you have come; and I hope it +will be to you. You know I shall be better to-morrow than I am to-night, +and I hope we shall have some pleasant days together yet. We mustn't +reject what little we may have, because it cannot be more." + +"Oh, Mara," said Moses, "I would give my life, if I could take back the +past. I have never been worthy of you; never knew your worth; never made +you happy. You always lived for me, and I lived for myself. I deserve to +lose you, but it is none the less bitter." + +"Don't say lose. Why must you? I cannot think of losing you. I know I +shall not. God has given you to me. You will come to me and be mine at +last. I feel sure of it." + +"You don't know me," said Moses. + +"Christ does, though," she said; "and He has promised to care for you. +Yes, you will live to see many flowers grow out of my grave. You cannot +think so now; but it will be so--believe me." + +"Mara," said Moses, "I never lived through such a day as this. It seems +as if every moment of my life had been passing before me, and every +moment of yours. I have seen how true and loving in thought and word and +deed you have been, and I have been doing nothing but take. You have +given love as the skies give rain, and I have drunk it up like the hot +dusty earth." + +Mara knew in her own heart that this was all true, and she was too real +to use any of the terms of affected humiliation which many think a kind +of spiritual court language. She looked at him and answered, "Moses, I +always knew I loved most. It was my nature; God gave it to me, and it +was a gift for which I give him thanks--not a merit. I knew you had a +larger, wider nature than mine,--a wider sphere to live in, and that you +could not live in your heart as I did. Mine was all thought and feeling, +and the narrow little duties of this little home. Yours went all round +the world." + +"But, oh Mara--oh, my angel! to think I should lose you when I am just +beginning to know your worth. I always had a sort of superstitious +feeling,--a sacred presentiment about you,--that my spiritual life, if +ever I had any, would come through you. It seemed if there ever was such +a thing as God's providence, which some folks believe in, it was in +leading me to you, and giving you to me. And now, to have all +lashed--all destroyed--It makes me feel as if all was blind chance; no +guiding God; for if he wanted me to be good, he would spare you." + +Mara lay with her large eyes fixed on the now faded sky. The dusky +shadows had dropped like a black crape veil around her pale face. In a +few moments she repeated to herself, as if she were musing upon them, +those mysterious words of Him who liveth and was dead, "Except a corn of +wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; if it die, it +bringeth forth much fruit." + +"Moses," she said, "for all I know you have loved me dearly, yet I have +felt that in all that was deepest and dearest to me, I was alone. You +did not come near to me, nor touch me where I feel most deeply. If I had +lived to be your wife, I cannot say but this distance in our spiritual +nature might have widened. You know, what we live with we get used to; +it grows an old story. Your love to me might have grown old and worn +out. If we lived together in the commonplace toils of life, you would +see only a poor threadbare wife. I might have lost what little charm I +ever had for you; but I feel that if I die, this will not be. There is +something sacred and beautiful in death; and I may have more power over +you, when I seem to be gone, than I should have had living." + +"Oh, Mara, Mara, don't say that." + +"Dear Moses, it is so. Think how many lovers marry, and how few lovers +are left in middle life; and how few love and reverence living friends +as they do the dead. There are only a very few to whom it is given to do +that." + +Something in the heart of Moses told him that this was true. In this one +day--the sacred revealing light of approaching death--he had seen more +of the real spiritual beauty and significance of Mara's life than in +years before, and felt upspringing in his heart, from the deep pathetic +influence of the approaching spiritual world a new and stronger power of +loving. It may be that it is not merely a perception of love that we +were not aware of before, that wakes up when we approach the solemn +shadows with a friend. It may be that the soul has compressed and +unconscious powers which are stirred and wrought upon as it looks over +the borders into its future home,--its loves and its longings so swell +and beat, that they astonish itself. We are greater than we know, and +dimly feel it with every approach to the great hereafter. "It doth not +yet appear what we shall be." + + * * * * * + +"Now, I'll tell you what 'tis," said Aunt Roxy, opening the door, "all +the strength this 'ere girl spends a-talkin' to-night, will be so much +taken out o' the whole cloth to-morrow." + +Moses started up. "I ought to have thought of that, Mara." + +"Ye see," said Miss Roxy, "she's been through a good deal to-day, and +she must be got to sleep at some rate or other to-night. 'Lord, if he +sleep he shall do well,' the Bible says, and it's one of my best nussin' +maxims." + +"And a good one, too, Aunt Roxy," said Mara. "Good-night, dear boy; you +see we must all mind Aunt Roxy." + +Moses bent down and kissed her, and felt her arms around his neck. + +"Let not your heart be troubled," she whispered. In spite of himself +Moses felt the storm that had risen in his bosom that morning soothed by +the gentle influences which Mara breathed upon it. There is a +sympathetic power in all states of mind, and they who have reached the +deep secret of eternal rest have a strange power of imparting calm to +others. + +It was in the very crisis of the battle that Christ said to his +disciples, "_My peace I give unto you_," and they that are made one with +him acquire like precious power of shedding round them repose, as +evening flowers shed odors. Moses went to his pillow sorrowful and +heart-stricken, but bitter or despairing he could not be with the +consciousness of that present angel in the house. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIII + +THE PEARL + + +The next morning rose calm and bright with that wonderful and mystical +stillness and serenity which glorify autumn days. It was impossible that +such skies could smile and such gentle airs blow the sea into one great +waving floor of sparkling sapphires without bringing cheerfulness to +human hearts. You must be very despairing indeed, when Nature is doing +her best, to look her in the face sullen and defiant. So long as there +is a drop of good in your cup, a penny in your exchequer of happiness, a +bright day reminds you to look at it, and feel that all is not gone yet. + +So felt Moses when he stood in the door of the brown house, while Mrs. +Pennel was clinking plates and spoons as she set the breakfast-table, +and Zephaniah Pennel in his shirt-sleeves was washing in the back-room, +while Miss Roxy came downstairs in a business-like fashion, bringing +sundry bowls, plates, dishes, and mysterious pitchers from the +sick-room. + +"Well, Aunt Roxy, you ain't one that lets the grass grow under your +feet," said Mrs. Pennel. "How is the dear child, this morning?" + +"Well, she had a better night than one could have expected," said Miss +Roxy, "and by the time she's had her breakfast, she expects to sit up a +little and see her friends." Miss Roxy said this in a cheerful tone, +looking encouragingly at Moses, whom she began to pity and patronize, +now she saw how real was his affliction. + +After breakfast Moses went to see her; she was sitting up in her white +dressing-gown, looking so thin and poorly, and everything in the room +was fragrant with the spicy smell of the monthly roses, whose late buds +and blossoms Miss Roxy had gathered for the vases. She seemed so +natural, so calm and cheerful, so interested in all that went on around +her, that one almost forgot that the time of her stay must be so short. +She called Moses to come and look at her drawings, and paintings of +flowers and birds,--full of reminders they were of old times,--and then +she would have her pencils and colors, and work a little on a bunch of +red rock-columbine, that she had begun to do for him; and she chatted of +all the old familiar places where flowers grew, and of the old talks +they had had there, till Moses quite forgot himself; forgot that he was +in a sick room, till Aunt Roxy, warned by the deepening color on Mara's +cheeks, interposed her "nussing" authority, that she must do no more +that day. + +Then Moses laid her down, and arranged her pillows so that she could +look out on the sea, and sat and read to her till it was time for her +afternoon nap; and when the evening shadows drew on, he marveled with +himself how the day had gone. + +Many such there were, all that pleasant month of September, and he was +with her all the time, watching her wants and doing her +bidding,--reading over and over with a softened modulation her favorite +hymns and chapters, arranging her flowers, and bringing her home wild +bouquets from all her favorite wood-haunts, which made her sick-room +seem like some sylvan bower. Sally Kittridge was there too, almost every +day, with always some friendly offering or some helpful deed of +kindness, and sometimes they two together would keep guard over the +invalid while Miss Roxy went home to attend to some of her own more +peculiar concerns. Mara seemed to rule all around her with calm +sweetness and wisdom, speaking unconsciously only the speech of heaven, +talking of spiritual things, not in an excited rapture or wild ecstasy, +but with the sober certainty of waking bliss. She seemed like one of the +sweet friendly angels one reads of in the Old Testament, so lovingly +companionable, walking and talking, eating and drinking, with mortals, +yet ready at any unknown moment to ascend with the flame of some +sacrifice and be gone. There are those (a few at least) whose blessing +it has been to have kept for many days, in bonds of earthly fellowship, +a perfected spirit in whom the work of purifying love was wholly done, +who lived in calm victory over sin and sorrow and death, ready at any +moment to be called to the final mystery of joy. + +Yet it must come at last, the moment when heaven claims its own, and it +came at last in the cottage on Orr's Island. There came a day when the +room so sacredly cheerful was hushed to a breathless stillness; the bed +was then all snowy white, and that soft still sealed face, the parted +waves of golden hair, the little hands folded over the white robe, all +had a sacred and wonderful calm, a rapture of repose that seemed to say +"it is done." + +They who looked on her wondered; it was a look that sunk deep into every +heart; it hushed down the common cant of those who, according to country +custom, went to stare blindly at the great mystery of death,--for all +that came out of that chamber smote upon their breasts and went away in +silence, revolving strangely whence might come that unearthly beauty, +that celestial joy. + +Once more, in that very room where James and Naomi Lincoln had lain side +by side in their coffins, sleeping restfully, there was laid another +form, shrouded and coffined, but with such a fairness and tender purity, +such a mysterious fullness of joy in its expression, that it seemed more +natural to speak of that rest as some higher form of life than of +death. + +Once more were gathered the neighborhood; all the faces known in this +history shone out in one solemn picture, of which that sweet restful +form was the centre. Zephaniah Pennel and Mary his wife, Moses and +Sally, the dry form of Captain Kittridge and the solemn face of his +wife, Aunt Roxy and Aunt Ruey, Miss Emily and Mr. Sewell; but their +faces all wore a tender brightness, such as we see falling like a thin +celestial veil over all the faces in an old Florentine painting. The +room was full of sweet memories, of words of cheer, words of assurance, +words of triumph, and the mysterious brightness of that young face +forbade them to weep. Solemnly Mr. Sewell read,-- + +"He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord God will wipe away +tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of his people shall he take +away from off all the earth; for the Lord hath spoken it. And it shall +be said in that day, Lo this is our God; we have waited for him, and he +will save us; this is the Lord; we have waited for him, we will be glad +and rejoice in his salvation." + +Then the prayer trembled up to heaven with thanksgiving, for the early +entrance of that fair young saint into glory, and then the same old +funeral hymn, with its mournful triumph:-- + + "Why should we mourn departed friends, + Or shake at death's alarms, + 'Tis but the voice that Jesus sends + To call them to his arms." + +Then in a few words Mr. Sewell reminded them how that hymn had been sung +in this room so many years ago, when that frail, fluttering orphan soul +had been baptized into the love and care of Jesus, and how her whole +life, passing before them in its simplicity and beauty, had come to so +holy and beautiful a close; and when, pointing to the calm sleeping face +he asked, "Would we call her back?" there was not a heart at that moment +that dared answer, Yes. Even he that should have been her bridegroom +could not at that moment have unsealed the holy charm, and so they bore +her away, and laid the calm smiling face beneath the soil, by the side +of poor Dolores. + + * * * * * + +"I had a beautiful dream last night," said Zephaniah Pennel, the next +morning after the funeral, as he opened his Bible to conduct family +worship. + +"What was it?" said Miss Roxy. + +"Well, ye see, I thought I was out a-walkin' up and down, and lookin' +and lookin' for something that I'd lost. What it was I couldn't quite +make out, but my heart felt heavy as if it would break, and I was +lookin' all up and down the sands by the seashore, and somebody said I +was like the merchantman, seeking goodly pearls. I said I had lost my +pearl--my pearl of great price--and then I looked up, and far off on the +beach, shining softly on the wet sands, lay my pearl. I thought it was +Mara, but it seemed a great pearl with a soft moonlight on it; and I was +running for it when some one said 'hush,' and I looked and I saw _Him_ +a-coming--Jesus of Nazareth, jist as he walked by the sea of Galilee. It +was all dark night around Him, but I could see Him by the light that +came from his face, and the long hair was hanging down on his shoulders. +He came and took up my pearl and put it on his forehead, and it shone +out like a star, and shone into my heart, and I felt happy; and he +looked at me steadily, and rose and rose in the air, and melted in the +clouds, and I awoke so happy, and so calm!" + + + + +CHAPTER XLIV + +FOUR YEARS AFTER + + +It was a splendid evening in July, and the sky was filled high with +gorgeous tabernacles of purple and gold, the remains of a grand +thunder-shower which had freshened the air and set a separate jewel on +every needle leaf of the old pines. + +Four years had passed since the fair Pearl of Orr's Island had been laid +beneath the gentle soil, which every year sent monthly tributes of +flowers to adorn her rest, great blue violets, and starry flocks of +ethereal eye-brights in spring, and fringy asters, and goldenrod in +autumn. In those days, the tender sentiment which now makes the +burial-place a cultivated garden was excluded by the rigid spiritualism +of the Puritan life, which, ever jealous of that which concerned the +body, lest it should claim what belonged to the immortal alone, had +frowned on all watching of graves, as an earthward tendency, and +enjoined the flight of faith with the spirit, rather than the yearning +for its cast-off garments. + +But Sally Kittridge, being lonely, found something in her heart which +could only be comforted by visits to that grave. So she had planted +there roses and trailing myrtle, and tended and watered them; a +proceeding which was much commented on Sunday noons, when people were +eating their dinners and discussing their neighbors. + +It is possible good Mrs. Kittridge might have been much scandalized by +it, had she been in a condition to think on the matter at all; but a +very short time after the funeral she was seized with a paralytic +shock, which left her for a while as helpless as an infant; and then she +sank away into the grave, leaving Sally the sole care of the old +Captain. + +A cheerful home she made, too, for his old age, adorning the house with +many little tasteful fancies unknown in her mother's days; reading the +Bible to him and singing Mara's favorite hymns, with a voice as sweet as +the spring blue-bird. The spirit of the departed friend seemed to hallow +the dwelling where these two worshiped her memory, in simple-hearted +love. Her paintings, framed in quaint woodland frames of moss and +pine-cones by Sally's own ingenuity, adorned the walls. Her books were +on the table, and among them many that she had given to Moses. + +"I am going to be a wanderer for many years," he said in parting, "keep +these for me until I come back." + +And so from time to time passed long letters between the two +friends,--each telling to the other the same story,--that they were +lonely, and that their hearts yearned for the communion of one who could +no longer be manifest to the senses. And each spoke to the other of a +world of hopes and memories buried with her, "Which," each so constantly +said, "no one could understand but you." Each, too, was firm in the +faith that buried love must have no earthly resurrection. Every letter +strenuously insisted that they should call each other brother and +sister, and under cover of those names the letters grew longer and more +frequent, and with every chance opportunity came presents from the +absent brother, which made the little old cottage quaintly suggestive +with smell of spice and sandal-wood. + +But, as we said, this is a glorious July evening,--and you may discern +two figures picking their way over those low sunken rocks, yellowed with +seaweed, of which we have often spoken. They are Moses and Sally going +on an evening walk to that favorite grotto retreat, which has so often +been spoken of in the course of this history. + +Moses has come home from long wanderings. It is four years since they +parted, and now they meet and have looked into each other's eyes, not as +of old, when they met in the first giddy flush of youth, but as fully +developed man and woman. Moses and Sally had just risen from the +tea-table, where she had presided with a thoughtful housewifery gravity, +just pleasantly dashed with quaint streaks of her old merry willfulness, +while the old Captain, warmed up like a rheumatic grasshopper in a fine +autumn day, chirruped feebly, and told some of his old stories, which +now he told every day, forgetting that they had ever been heard before. +Somehow all three had been very happy; the more so, from a shadowy sense +of some sympathizing presence which was rejoicing to see them together +again, and which, stealing soft-footed and noiseless everywhere, touched +and lighted up every old familiar object with sweet memories. + +And so they had gone out together to walk; to walk towards the grotto +where Sally had caused a seat to be made, and where she declared she had +passed hours and hours, knitting, sewing, or reading. + +"Sally," said Moses, "do you know I am tired of wandering? I am coming +home now. I begin to want a home of my own." This he said as they sat +together on the rustic seat and looked off on the blue sea. + +"Yes, you must," said Sally. "How lovely that ship looks, just coming in +there." + +"Yes, they are beautiful," said Moses abstractedly; and Sally rattled on +about the difference between sloops and brigs; seeming determined that +there should be no silence, such as often comes in ominous gaps between +two friends who have long been separated, and have each many things to +say with which the other is not familiar. + +"Sally!" said Moses, breaking in with a deep voice on one of these +monologues. "Do you remember some presumptuous things I once said to +you, in this place?" + +Sally did not answer, and there was a dead silence in which they could +hear the tide gently dashing on the weedy rocks. + +"You and I are neither of us what we were then, Sally," said Moses. "We +are as different as if we were each another person. We have been trained +in another life,--educated by a great sorrow,--is it not so?" + +"I know it," said Sally. + +"And why should we two, who have a world of thoughts and memories which +no one can understand but the other,--why should we, each of us, go on +alone? If we must, why then, Sally, I must leave you, and I must write +and receive no more letters, for I have found that you are becoming so +wholly necessary to me, that if any other should claim you, I could not +feel as I ought. Must I go?" + +Sally's answer is not on record; but one infers what it was from the +fact that they sat there very late, and before they knew it, the tide +rose up and shut them in, and the moon rose up in full glory out of the +water, and still they sat and talked, leaning on each other, till a +cracked, feeble voice called down through the pine-trees above, like a +hoarse old cricket,-- + +"Children, be you there?" + +"Yes, father," said Sally, blushing and conscious. + +"Yes, all right," said the deep bass of Moses. "I'll bring her back when +I've done with her, Captain." + +"Wal',--wal'; I was gettin' consarned; but I see I don't need to. I hope +you won't get no colds nor nothin'." + +They did not; but in the course of a month there was a wedding at the +brown house of the old Captain, which everybody in the parish was glad +of, and was voted without dissent to be just the thing. + +Miss Roxy, grimly approbative, presided over the preparations, and all +the characters of our story appeared, and more, having on their +wedding-garments. Nor was the wedding less joyful, that all felt the +presence of a heavenly guest, silent and loving, seeing and blessing +all, whose voice seemed to say in every heart,-- + +"He turneth the shadow of death into morning." + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Pearl of Orr's Island, by Harriet Beecher Stowe + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND *** + +***** This file should be named 31522.txt or 31522.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/1/5/2/31522/ + +Produced by David Edwards, Jane Hyland and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This +book was produced from scanned images of public domain +material from the Google Print project.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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