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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of "The Country of the Pointed Firs"
+by Sarah Orne Jewett
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+The Country of the Pointed Firs
+
+by Sarah Orne Jewett
+
+November, 1995  [Etext #367]
+
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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Country of the Pointed Firs
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+
+
+
+The Country of
+the Pointed Firs
+
+SARAH ORNE JEWETT
+
+
+
+Note
+
+SARAH ORNE JEWETT (1849-1909) was born and died in South Berwick,
+Maine.  Her father was the region's most distinguished doctor and,
+as a child, Jewett often accompanied him on his round of patient
+visits.  She began writing poetry at an early age and when she was
+only 19 her short story "Mr. Bruce" was accepted by the Atlantic
+Monthly.  Her association with that magazine continued, and
+William Dean Howells, who was editor at that time, encouraged her
+to publish her first book, Deephaven (1877), a collection of
+sketches published earlier in the Atlantic Monthly.  Through
+her friendship with Howells, Jewett became acquainted with Boston's
+literary elite, including Annie Fields, with whom she developed one
+of the most intimate and lasting relationships of her life.
+
+The Country of the Pointed Firs (1896) is considered
+Jewett's finest work, described by Henry James as her "beautiful
+little quantum of achievement."  Despite James's diminutives, the
+novel remains a classic.  Because it is loosely structured, many
+critics view the book not as a novel, but a series of sketches;
+however, its structure is unified through both setting and theme. 
+Jewett herself felt that her strengths as a writer lay not in plot
+development or dramatic tension, but in character development. 
+Indeed, she determined early in her career to preserve a
+disappearing way of life, and her novel can be read as a study of
+the effects of isolation and hardship on the inhabitants who lived
+in the decaying fishing villages along the Maine coast.
+
+Jewett died in 1909, eight years after an accident that
+effectively ended her writing career.  Her reputation had grown
+during her lifetime, extending far beyond the bounds of the New
+England she loved.
+
+
+
+Contents
+-------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+    I  The Return
+   II  Mrs. Todd
+  III  The Schoolhouse
+   IV  At the Schoolhouse Window
+    V  Captain Littlepage
+   VI  The Waiting Place
+  VII  The Outer Island
+ VIII  Green Island
+   IX  William
+    X  Where Pennyroyal Grew
+   XI  The Old Singers
+  XII  A Strange Sail
+ XIII  Poor Joanna
+  XIV  The Hermitage
+   XV  On Shell-heap Island
+  XVI  The Great Expedition
+ XVII  A Country Road
+XVIII  The Bowden Reunion
+  XIX  The Feast's End
+   XX  Along Shore
+  XXI  The Backward View
+
+
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+The Return
+
+THERE WAS SOMETHING about the coast town of Dunnet which made it
+seem more attractive than other maritime villages of eastern Maine. 
+Perhaps it was the simple fact of acquaintance with that
+neighborhood which made it so attaching, and gave such interest to
+the rocky shore and dark woods, and the few houses which seemed to
+be securely wedged and tree-nailed in among the ledges by the
+Landing.  These houses made the most of their seaward view, and
+there was a gayety and determined floweriness in their bits of
+garden ground; the small-paned high windows in the peaks of their
+steep gables were like knowing eyes that watched the harbor and the
+far sea-line beyond, or looked northward all along the shore and
+its background of spruces and balsam firs.  When one really knows
+a village like this and its surroundings, it is like becoming
+acquainted with a single person.  The process of falling in love at
+first sight is as final as it is swift in such a case, but the
+growth of true friendship may be a lifelong affair.
+
+After a first brief visit made two or three summers before in
+the course of a yachting cruise, a lover of Dunnet Landing returned
+to find the unchanged shores of the pointed firs, the same
+quaintness of the village with its elaborate conventionalities; all
+that mixture of remoteness, and childish certainty of being the
+centre of civilization of which her affectionate dreams had told. 
+One evening in June, a single passenger landed upon the steamboat
+wharf.  The tide was high, there was a fine crowd of spectators,
+and the younger portion of the company followed her with subdued
+excitement up the narrow street of the salt-aired, white-
+clapboarded little town.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+Mrs. Todd
+
+LATER, THERE WAS only one fault to find with this choice of a
+summer lodging-place, and that was its complete lack of seclusion. 
+At first the tiny house of Mrs. Almira Todd, which stood with its
+end to the street, appeared to be retired and sheltered enough from
+the busy world, behind its bushy bit of a green garden, in which
+all the blooming things, two or three gay hollyhocks and some
+London-pride, were pushed back against the gray-shingled wall.  It
+was a queer little garden and puzzling to a stranger, the few
+flowers being put at a disadvantage by so much greenery; but the
+discovery was soon made that Mrs. Todd was an ardent lover of
+herbs, both wild and tame, and the sea-breezes blew into the low
+end-window of the house laden with not only sweet-brier and sweet-
+mary, but balm and sage and borage and mint, wormwood and
+southernwood.  If Mrs. Todd had occasion to step into the far
+corner of her herb plot, she trod heavily upon thyme, and made its
+fragrant presence known with all the rest.  Being a very large
+person, her full skirts brushed and bent almost every slender stalk
+that her feet missed.  You could always tell when she was stepping
+about there, even when you were half awake in the morning, and
+learned to know, in the course of a few weeks' experience, in
+exactly which corner of the garden she might be.
+
+At one side of this herb plot were other growths of a rustic
+pharmacopoeia, great treasures and rarities among the commoner
+herbs.  There were some strange and pungent odors that roused a dim
+sense and remembrance of something in the forgotten past.  Some of
+these might once have belonged to sacred and mystic rites, and have
+had some occult knowledge handed with them down the centuries; but
+now they pertained only to humble compounds brewed at intervals
+with molasses or vinegar or spirits in a small caldron on Mrs.
+Todd's kitchen stove.  They were dispensed to suffering neighbors,
+who usually came at night as if by stealth, bringing their own
+ancient-looking vials to be filled.  One nostrum was called the
+Indian remedy, and its price was but fifteen cents; the whispered
+directions could be heard as customers passed the windows.  With
+most remedies the purchaser was allowed to depart unadmonished from
+the kitchen, Mrs. Todd being a wise saver of steps; but with
+certain vials she gave cautions, standing in the doorway, and
+there were other doses which had to be accompanied on their healing
+way as far as the gate, while she muttered long chapters of
+directions, and kept up an air of secrecy and importance to the
+last.  It may not have been only the common aids of humanity with
+which she tried to cope; it seemed sometimes as if love and hate
+and jealousy and adverse winds at sea might also find their proper
+remedies among the curious wild-looking plants in Mrs. Todd's
+garden.
+
+The village doctor and this learned herbalist were upon the
+best of terms.  The good man may have counted upon the unfavorable
+effect of certain potions which he should find his opportunity in
+counteracting; at any rate, he now and then stopped and exchanged
+greetings with Mrs. Todd over the picket fence.  The conversation
+became at once professional after the briefest preliminaries, and
+he would stand twirling a sweet-scented sprig in his fingers, and
+make suggestive jokes, perhaps about her faith in a too persistent
+course of thoroughwort elixir, in which my landlady professed such
+firm belief as sometimes to endanger the life and usefulness of
+worthy neighbors.
+
+To arrive at this quietest of seaside villages late in June,
+when the busy herb-gathering season was just beginning, was also to
+arrive in the early prime of Mrs. Todd's activity in the brewing of
+old-fashioned spruce beer.  This cooling and refreshing drink had
+been brought to wonderful perfection through a long series of
+experiments; it had won immense local fame, and the supplies for
+its manufacture were always giving out and having to be
+replenished.  For various reasons, the seclusion and uninterrupted
+days which had been looked forward to proved to be very rare in
+this otherwise delightful corner of the world.  My hostess and I
+had made our shrewd business agreement on the basis of a simple
+cold luncheon at noon, and liberal restitution in the matter of hot
+suppers, to provide for which the lodger might sometimes be seen
+hurrying down the road, late in the day, with cunner line in hand. 
+It was soon found that this arrangement made large allowance for
+Mrs. Todd's slow herb-gathering progresses through woods and
+pastures.  The spruce-beer customers were pretty steady in hot
+weather, and there were many demands for different soothing syrups
+and elixirs with which the unwise curiosity of my early residence
+had made me acquainted.  Knowing Mrs. Todd to be a widow, who had
+little beside this slender business and the income from one hungry
+lodger to maintain her, one's energies and even interest were
+quickly bestowed, until it became a matter of course that she
+should go afield every pleasant day, and that the lodger should
+answer all peremptory knocks at the side door.
+
+In taking an occasional wisdom-giving stroll in Mrs. Todd's
+company, and in acting as business partner during her
+frequent absences, I found the July days fly fast, and it was not
+until I felt myself confronted with too great pride and pleasure in
+the display, one night, of two dollars and twenty-seven cents which
+I had taken in during the day, that I remembered a long piece of
+writing, sadly belated now, which I was bound to do.  To have been
+patted kindly on the shoulder and called "darlin'," to have been
+offered a surprise of early mushrooms for supper, to have had all
+the glory of making two dollars and twenty-seven cents in a single
+day, and then to renounce it all and withdraw from these pleasant
+successes, needed much resolution.  Literary employments are so
+vexed with uncertainties at best, and it was not until the voice of
+conscience sounded louder in my ears than the sea on the nearest
+pebble beach that I said unkind words of withdrawal to Mrs. Todd. 
+She only became more wistfully affectionate than ever in her
+expressions, and looked as disappointed as I expected when I
+frankly told her that I could no longer enjoy the pleasure of what
+we called "seein' folks."  I felt that I was cruel to a whole
+neighborhood in curtailing her liberty in this most important
+season for harvesting the different wild herbs that were so much
+counted upon to ease their winter ails.
+
+"Well, dear," she said sorrowfully, "I've took great advantage
+o' your bein' here.  I ain't had such a season for years, but I
+have never had nobody I could so trust.  All you lack is a few
+qualities, but with time you'd gain judgment an' experience, an' be
+very able in the business.  I'd stand right here an' say it to
+anybody."
+
+
+Mrs. Todd and I were not separated or estranged by the change
+in our business relations; on the contrary, a deeper intimacy
+seemed to begin.  I do not know what herb of the night it was that
+used sometimes to send out a penetrating odor late in the evening,
+after the dew had fallen, and the moon was high, and the cool air
+came up from the sea.  Then Mrs. Todd would feel that she must talk
+to somebody, and I was only too glad to listen.  We both fell under
+the spell, and she either stood outside the window, or made an
+errand to my sitting-room, and told, it might be very commonplace
+news of the day, or, as happened one misty summer night, all that
+lay deepest in her heart.  It was in this way that I came to know
+that she had loved one who was far above her.
+
+"No, dear, him I speak of could never think of me," she said. 
+"When we was young together his mother didn't favor the match, an'
+done everything she could to part us; and folks thought we both
+married well, but't wa'n't what either one of us wanted most; an'
+now we're left alone again, an' might have had each other all the
+time.  He was above bein' a seafarin' man, an' prospered more
+than most; he come of a high family, an' my lot was plain an' hard-
+workin'.  I ain't seen him for some years; he's forgot our youthful
+feelin's, I expect, but a woman's heart is different; them feelin's
+comes back when you think you've done with 'em, as sure as spring
+comes with the year.  An' I've always had ways of hearin' about
+him."
+
+She stood in the centre of a braided rug, and its rings of
+black and gray seemed to circle about her feet in the dim light. 
+Her height and massiveness in the low room gave her the look of a
+huge sibyl, while the strange fragrance of the mysterious herb blew
+in from the little garden.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+The Schoolhouse
+
+FOR SOME DAYS after this, Mrs. Todd's customers came and went past
+my windows, and, haying-time being nearly over, strangers began to
+arrive from the inland country, such was her widespread reputation. 
+Sometimes I saw a pale young creature like a white windflower left
+over into midsummer, upon whose face consumption had set its bright
+and wistful mark; but oftener two stout, hard-worked women from the
+farms came together, and detailed their symptoms to Mrs. Todd in
+loud and cheerful voices, combining the satisfactions of a friendly
+gossip with the medical opportunity.  They seemed to give much from
+their own store of therapeutic learning.  I became aware of the
+school in which my landlady had strengthened her natural gift; but
+hers was always the governing mind, and the final command, "Take of
+hy'sop one handful" (or whatever herb it was), was received in
+respectful silence.  One afternoon, when I had listened,--it was
+impossible not to listen, with cottonless ears,--and then laughed
+and listened again, with an idle pen in my hand, during a
+particularly spirited and personal conversation, I reached for my
+hat, and, taking blotting-book and all under my arm, I resolutely
+fled further temptation, and walked out past the fragrant green
+garden and up the dusty road.  The way went straight uphill, and
+presently I stopped and turned to look back.
+
+The tide was in, the wide harbor was surrounded by its dark
+woods, and the small wooden houses stood as near as they could get
+to the landing.  Mrs. Todd's was the last house on the way
+inland.  The gray ledges of the rocky shore were well covered with
+sod in most places, and the pasture bayberry and wild roses grew
+thick among them.  I could see the higher inland country and the
+scattered farms.  On the brink of the hill stood a little white
+schoolhouse, much wind-blown and weather-beaten, which was a
+landmark to seagoing folk; from its door there was a most beautiful
+view of sea and shore.  The summer vacation now prevailed, and
+after finding the door unfastened, and taking a long look through
+one of the seaward windows, and reflecting afterward for some time
+in a shady place near by among the bayberry bushes, I returned to
+the chief place of business in the village, and, to the amusement
+of two of the selectmen, brothers and autocrats of Dunnet Landing,
+I hired the schoolhouse for the rest of the vacation for fifty
+cents a week.
+
+Selfish as it may appear, the retired situation seemed to
+possess great advantages, and I spent many days there quite
+undisturbed, with the sea-breeze blowing through the small, high
+windows and swaying the heavy outside shutters to and fro.  I hung
+my hat and luncheon-basket on an entry nail as if I were a small
+scholar, but I sat at the teacher's desk as if I were that great
+authority, with all the timid empty benches in rows before me.  Now
+and then an idle sheep came and stood for a long time looking in at
+the door.  At sundown I went back, feeling most businesslike, down
+toward the village again, and usually met the flavor, not of the
+herb garden, but of Mrs. Todd's hot supper, halfway up the hill. 
+On the nights when there were evening meetings or other public
+exercises that demanded her presence we had tea very early, and I
+was welcomed back as if from a long absence.
+
+Once or twice I feigned excuses for staying at home, while
+Mrs. Todd made distant excursions, and came home late, with both
+hands full and a heavily laden apron.  This was in pennyroyal time,
+and when the rare lobelia was in its prime and the elecampane was
+coming on.  One day she appeared at the schoolhouse itself, partly
+out of amused curiosity about my industries; but she explained that
+there was no tansy in the neighborhood with such snap to it as some
+that grew about the schoolhouse lot.  Being scuffed down all the
+spring made it grow so much the better, like some folks that had it
+hard in their youth, and were bound to make the most of themselves
+before they died.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+At the Schoolhouse Window
+
+ONE DAY I reached the schoolhouse very late, owing to attendance
+upon the funeral of an acquaintance and neighbor, with whose sad
+decline in health I had been familiar, and whose last days both the
+doctor and Mrs. Todd had tried in vain to ease.  The services had
+taken place at one o'clock, and now, at quarter past two, I stood
+at the schoolhouse window, looking down at the procession as it
+went along the lower road close to the shore.  It was a walking
+funeral, and even at that distance I could recognize most of the
+mourners as they went their solemn way.  Mrs. Begg had been very
+much respected, and there was a large company of friends following
+to her grave.  She had been brought up on one of the neighboring
+farms, and each of the few times that I had seen her she professed
+great dissatisfaction with town life.  The people lived too close
+together for her liking, at the Landing, and she could not get used
+to the constant sound of the sea.  She had lived to lament three
+seafaring husbands, and her house was decorated with West Indian
+curiosities, specimens of conch shells and fine coral which they
+had brought home from their voyages in lumber-laden ships.  Mrs.
+Todd had told me all our neighbor's history.  They had been girls
+together, and, to use her own phrase, had "both seen trouble till
+they knew the best and worst on 't."  I could see the sorrowful,
+large figure of Mrs. Todd as I stood at the window.  She made a
+break in the procession by walking slowly and keeping the after-
+part of it back.  She held a handkerchief to her eyes, and I knew,
+with a pang of sympathy, that hers was not affected grief.
+
+Beside her, after much difficulty, I recognized the one
+strange and unrelated person in all the company, an old man who had
+always been mysterious to me.  I could see his thin, bending
+figure.  He wore a narrow, long-tailed coat and walked with a
+stick, and had the same "cant to leeward" as the wind-bent trees on
+the height above.
+
+This was Captain Littlepage, whom I had seen only once or
+twice before, sitting pale and old behind a closed window; never
+out of doors until now.  Mrs. Todd always shook her head gravely
+when I asked a question, and said that he wasn't what he had been
+once, and seemed to class him with her other secrets.  He might
+have belonged with a simple which grew in a certain slug-haunted
+corner of the garden, whose use she could never be betrayed
+into telling me, though I saw her cutting the tops by moonlight
+once, as if it were a charm, and not a medicine, like the great
+fading bloodroot leaves.
+
+I could see that she was trying to keep pace with the old
+captain's lighter steps.  He looked like an aged grasshopper of
+some strange human variety.  Behind this pair was a short,
+impatient, little person, who kept the captain's house, and gave it
+what Mrs. Todd and others believed to be no proper sort of care. 
+She was usually called "that Mari' Harris" in subdued conversation
+between intimates, but they treated her with anxious civility when
+they met her face to face.
+
+The bay-sheltered islands and the great sea beyond stretched
+away to the far horizon southward and eastward; the little
+procession in the foreground looked futile and helpless on the edge
+of the rocky shore.  It was a glorious day early in July, with a
+clear, high sky; there were no clouds, there was no noise of the
+sea.  The song sparrows sang and sang, as if with joyous knowledge
+of immortality, and contempt for those who could so pettily concern
+themselves with death.  I stood watching until the funeral
+procession had crept round a shoulder of the slope below and
+disappeared from the great landscape as if it had gone into a cave.
+
+An hour later I was busy at my work.  Now and then a bee
+blundered in and took me for an enemy; but there was a useful stick
+upon the teacher's desk, and I rapped to call the bees to order as
+if they were unruly scholars, or waved them away from their riots
+over the ink, which I had bought at the Landing store, and
+discovered to be scented with bergamot, as if to refresh the labors
+of anxious scribes.  One anxious scribe felt very dull that day; a
+sheep-bell tinkled near by, and called her wandering wits after it. 
+The sentences failed to catch these lovely summer cadences.  For
+the first time I began to wish for a companion and for news from
+the outer world, which had been, half unconsciously, forgotten. 
+Watching the funeral gave one a sort of pain.  I began to wonder if
+I ought not to have walked with the rest, instead of hurrying away
+at the end of the services.  Perhaps the Sunday gown I had put on
+for the occasion was making this disastrous change of feeling, but
+I had now made myself and my friends remember that I did not really
+belong to Dunnet Landing.
+
+I sighed, and turned to the half-written page again.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+Captain Littlepage
+
+IT WAS A long time after this; an hour was very long in that coast
+town where nothing stole away the shortest minute.  I had lost
+myself completely in work, when I heard footsteps outside.  There
+was a steep footpath between the upper and the lower road, which I
+climbed to shorten the way, as the children had taught me, but I
+believed that Mrs. Todd would find it inaccessible, unless she had
+occasion to seek me in great haste.  I wrote on, feeling like a
+besieged miser of time, while the footsteps came nearer, and the
+sheep-bell tinkled away in haste as if someone had shaken a stick
+in its wearer's face.  Then I looked, and saw Captain Littlepage
+passing the nearest window; the next moment he tapped politely at
+the door.
+
+"Come in, sir," I said, rising to meet him; and he entered,
+bowing with much courtesy.  I stepped down from the desk and
+offered him a chair by the window, where he seated himself at once,
+being sadly spent by his climb.  I returned to my fixed seat behind
+the teacher's desk, which gave him the lower place of a scholar.
+
+"You ought to have the place of honor, Captain Littlepage," I
+said.
+
+
+"A happy, rural seat of various views,"
+
+he quoted, as he gazed out into the sunshine and up the long wooded
+shore.  Then he glanced at me, and looked all about him as pleased
+as a child.
+
+"My quotation was from Paradise Lost: the greatest of poems,
+I suppose you know?" and I nodded.  "There's nothing that ranks, to
+my mind, with Paradise Lost; it's all lofty, all lofty," he
+continued.  "Shakespeare was a great poet; he copied life, but you
+have to put up with a great deal of low talk."
+
+I now remembered that Mrs. Todd had told me one day that
+Captain Littlepage had overset his mind with too much reading; she
+had also made dark reference to his having "spells" of some
+unexplainable nature.  I could not help wondering what errand had
+brought him out in search of me.  There was something quite
+charming in his appearance: it was a face thin and delicate with
+refinement, but worn into appealing lines, as if he had suffered
+from loneliness and misapprehension.  He looked, with his
+careful precision of dress, as if he were the object of cherishing
+care on the part of elderly unmarried sisters, but I knew Mari'
+Harris to be a very common-place, inelegant person, who would have
+no such standards; it was plain that the captain was his own
+attentive valet.  He sat looking at me expectantly.  I could not
+help thinking that, with his queer head and length of thinness, he
+was made to hop along the road of life rather than to walk.  The
+captain was very grave indeed, and I bade my inward spirit keep
+close to discretion.
+
+"Poor Mrs. Begg has gone," I ventured to say.  I still wore my
+Sunday gown by way of showing respect.
+
+"She has gone," said the captain,--"very easy at the last, I
+was informed; she slipped away as if she were glad of the
+opportunity."
+
+I thought of the Countess of Carberry, and felt that history
+repeated itself.
+
+"She was one of the old stock," continued Captain Littlepage,
+with touching sincerity.  "She was very much looked up to in this
+town, and will be missed."
+
+I wondered, as I looked at him, if he had sprung from a line
+of ministers; he had the refinement of look and air of command
+which are the heritage of the old ecclesiastical families of New
+England.  But as Darwin says in his autobiography, "there is no
+such king as a sea-captain; he is greater even than a king or a
+schoolmaster!"
+
+Captain Littlepage moved his chair out of the wake of the
+sunshine, and still sat looking at me.  I began to be very eager to
+know upon what errand he had come.
+
+"It may be found out some o' these days," he said earnestly. 
+"We may know it all, the next step; where Mrs. Begg is now, for
+instance.  Certainty, not conjecture, is what we all desire."
+
+"I suppose we shall know it all some day," said I.
+
+"We shall know it while yet below," insisted the captain, with
+a flush of impatience on his thin cheeks.  "We have not looked for
+truth in the right direction.  I know what I speak of; those who
+have laughed at me little know how much reason my ideas are based
+upon."  He waved his hand toward the village below.  "In that
+handful of houses they fancy that they comprehend the universe."
+
+I smiled, and waited for him to go on.
+
+"I am an old man, as you can see," he continued, "and I have
+been a shipmaster the greater part of my life,--forty-three years
+in all.  You may not think it, but I am above eighty years of age."
+
+He did not look so old, and I hastened to say so.
+
+"You must have left the sea a good many years ago, then,
+Captain Littlepage?" I said.
+
+"I should have been serviceable at least five or six years
+more," he answered.  "My acquaintance with certain--my experience
+upon a certain occasion, I might say, gave rise to prejudice.  I do
+not mind telling you that I chanced to learn of one of the greatest
+discoveries that man has ever made."
+
+Now we were approaching dangerous ground, but a sudden sense
+of his sufferings at the hands of the ignorant came to my help, and
+I asked to hear more with all the deference I really felt.  A
+swallow flew into the schoolhouse at this moment as if a kingbird
+were after it, and beat itself against the walls for a minute, and
+escaped again to the open air; but Captain Littlepage took no
+notice whatever of the flurry.
+
+"I had a valuable cargo of general merchandise from the London
+docks to Fort Churchill, a station of the old company on Hudson's
+Bay," said the captain earnestly.  "We were delayed in lading, and
+baffled by head winds and a heavy tumbling sea all the way north-
+about and across.  Then the fog kept us off the coast; and when I
+made port at last, it was too late to delay in those northern
+waters with such a vessel and such a crew as I had.  They cared for
+nothing, and idled me into a fit of sickness; but my first mate was
+a good, excellent man, with no more idea of being frozen in there
+until spring than I had, so we made what speed we could to get
+clear of Hudson's Bay and off the coast.  I owned an eighth of the
+vessel, and he owned a sixteenth of her.  She was a full-rigged
+ship, called the Minerva, but she was getting old and leaky.  I
+meant it should be my last v'y'ge in her, and so it proved.  She
+had been an excellent vessel in her day.  Of the cowards aboard her
+I can't say so much."
+
+"Then you were wrecked?" I asked, as he made a long pause.
+
+"I wa'n't caught astern o' the lighter by any fault of mine,"
+said the captain gloomily.  "We left Fort Churchill and run out
+into the Bay with a light pair o' heels; but I had been vexed to
+death with their red-tape rigging at the company's office, and
+chilled with stayin' on deck an' tryin' to hurry up things, and
+when we were well out o' sight o' land, headin' for Hudson's
+Straits, I had a bad turn o' some sort o' fever, and had to stay
+below.  The days were getting short, and we made good runs, all
+well on board but me, and the crew done their work by dint of hard
+driving."
+
+I began to find this unexpected narrative a little dull. 
+Captain Littlepage spoke with a kind of slow correctness that
+lacked the longshore high flavor to which I had grown used; but I
+listened respectfully while he explained the winds having become
+contrary, and talked on in a dreary sort of way about his voyage,
+the bad weather, and the disadvantages he was under in the
+lightness of his ship, which bounced about like a chip in a
+bucket, and would not answer the rudder or properly respond to the
+most careful setting of sails.
+
+"So there we were blowin' along anyways," he complained; but
+looking at me at this moment, and seeing that my thoughts were
+unkindly wandering, he ceased to speak.
+
+"It was a hard life at sea in those days, I am sure," said I,
+with redoubled interest.
+
+"It was a dog's life," said the poor old gentleman, quite
+reassured, "but it made men of those who followed it.  I see a
+change for the worse even in our own town here; full of loafers
+now, small and poor as 'tis, who once would have followed the sea,
+every lazy soul of 'em.  There is no occupation so fit for just
+that class o' men who never get beyond the fo'cas'le.  I view it,
+in addition, that a community narrows down and grows dreadful
+ignorant when it is shut up to its own affairs, and gets no
+knowledge of the outside world except from a cheap, unprincipled
+newspaper.  In the old days, a good part o' the best men here knew
+a hundred ports and something of the way folks lived in them.  They
+saw the world for themselves, and like's not their wives and
+children saw it with them.  They may not have had the best of
+knowledge to carry with 'em sight-seein', but they were some
+acquainted with foreign lands an' their laws, an' could see outside
+the battle for town clerk here in Dunnet; they got some sense o'
+proportion.  Yes, they lived more dignified, and their houses were
+better within an' without.  Shipping's a terrible loss to this part
+o' New England from a social point o' view, ma'am."
+
+"I have thought of that myself," I returned, with my interest
+quite awakened.  "It accounts for the change in a great many
+things,--the sad disappearance of sea-captains,--doesn't it?"
+
+"A shipmaster was apt to get the habit of reading," said my
+companion, brightening still more, and taking on a most touching
+air of unreserve.  "A captain is not expected to be familiar with
+his crew, and for company's sake in dull days and nights he turns
+to his book.  Most of us old shipmasters came to know 'most
+everything about something; one would take to readin' on farming
+topics, and some were great on medicine,--but Lord help their poor
+crews!--or some were all for history, and now and then there'd be
+one like me that gave his time to the poets.  I was well acquainted
+with a shipmaster that was all for bees an' beekeepin'; and if you
+met him in port and went aboard, he'd sit and talk a terrible while
+about their havin' so much information, and the money that could be
+made out of keepin' 'em.  He was one of the smartest captains that
+ever sailed the seas, but they used to call the Newcastle,
+a great bark he commanded for many years, Tuttle's beehive.  There
+was old Cap'n Jameson: he had notions of Solomon's Temple, and made
+a very handsome little model of the same, right from the Scripture
+measurements, same's other sailors make little ships and design new
+tricks of rigging and all that.  No, there's nothing to take the
+place of shipping in a place like ours.  These bicycles offend me
+dreadfully; they don't afford no real opportunities of experience
+such as a man gained on a voyage.  No: when folks left home in the
+old days they left it to some purpose, and when they got home they
+stayed there and had some pride in it.  There's no large-minded way
+of thinking now: the worst have got to be best and rule everything;
+we're all turned upside down and going back year by year."
+
+"Oh no, Captain Littlepage, I hope not," said I, trying to
+soothe his feelings.
+
+There was a silence in the schoolhouse, but we could hear the
+noise of the water on a beach below.  It sounded like the strange
+warning wave that gives notice of the turn of the tide.  A late
+golden robin, with the most joyful and eager of voices, was singing
+close by in a thicket of wild roses.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+The Waiting Place
+
+"HOW DID YOU manage with the rest of that rough voyage on the
+Minerva?" I asked.
+
+"I shall be glad to explain to you," said Captain Littlepage,
+forgetting his grievances for the moment.  "If I had a map at hand
+I could explain better.  We were driven to and fro 'way up toward
+what we used to call Parry's Discoveries, and lost our bearings. 
+It was thick and foggy, and at last I lost my ship; she drove on a
+rock, and we managed to get ashore on what I took to be a barren
+island, the few of us that were left alive.  When she first struck,
+the sea was somewhat calmer than it had been, and most of the crew,
+against orders, manned the long-boat and put off in a hurry, and
+were never heard of more.  Our own boat upset, but the carpenter
+kept himself and me above water, and we drifted in.  I had no
+strength to call upon after my recent fever, and laid down to die;
+but he found the tracks of a man and dog the second day, and
+got along the shore to one of those far missionary stations that
+the Moravians support.  They were very poor themselves, and in
+distress; 'twas a useless place.  There were but few Esquimaux left
+in that region.  There we remained for some time, and I became
+acquainted with strange events.
+
+The captain lifted his head and gave me a questioning glance. 
+I could not help noticing that the dulled look in his eyes had
+gone, and there was instead a clear intentness that made them seem
+dark and piercing.
+
+"There was a supply ship expected, and the pastor, an
+excellent Christian man, made no doubt that we should get passage
+in her.  He was hoping that orders would come to break up the
+station; but everything was uncertain, and we got on the best we
+could for a while.  We fished, and helped the people in other ways;
+there was no other way of paying our debts.  I was taken to the
+pastor's house until I got better; but they were crowded, and I
+felt myself in the way, and made excuse to join with an old seaman,
+a Scotchman, who had built him a warm cabin, and had room in it for
+another.  He was looked upon with regard, and had stood by the
+pastor in some troubles with the people.  He had been on one of
+those English exploring parties that found one end of the road to
+the north pole, but never could find the other.  We lived like dogs
+in a kennel, or so you'd thought if you had seen the hut from the
+outside; but the main thing was to keep warm; there were piles of
+bird-skins to lie on, and he'd made him a good bunk, and there was
+another for me.  'Twas dreadful dreary waitin' there; we begun to
+think the supply steamer was lost, and my poor ship broke up and
+strewed herself all along the shore.  We got to watching on the
+headlands; my men and me knew the people were short of supplies and
+had to pinch themselves.  It ought to read in the Bible, 'Man
+cannot live by fish alone,' if they'd told the truth of things;
+'taint bread that wears the worst on you!  First part of the time,
+old Gaffett, that I lived with, seemed speechless, and I didn't
+know what to make of him, nor he of me, I dare say; but as we got
+acquainted, I found he'd been through more disasters than I had,
+and had troubles that wa'n't going to let him live a great while. 
+It used to ease his mind to talk to an understanding person, so we
+used to sit and talk together all day, if it rained or blew so that
+we couldn't get out.  I'd got a bad blow on the back of my head at
+the time we came ashore, and it pained me at times, and my strength
+was broken, anyway; I've never been so able since."
+
+Captain Littlepage fell into a reverie.
+
+"Then I had the good of my reading," he explained presently. 
+"I had no books; the pastor spoke but little English, and all his
+books were foreign; but I used to say over all I could remember. 
+The old poets little knew what comfort they could be to a
+man.  I was well acquainted with the works of Milton, but up there
+it did seem to me as if Shakespeare was the king; he has his sea
+terms very accurate, and some beautiful passages were calming to
+the mind.  I could say them over until I shed tears; there was
+nothing beautiful to me in that place but the stars above and those
+passages of verse.
+
+"Gaffett was always brooding and brooding, and talking to
+himself; he was afraid he should never get away, and it preyed upon
+his mind.  He thought when I got home I could interest the
+scientific men in his discovery: but they're all taken up with
+their own notions; some didn't even take pains to answer the
+letters I wrote.  You observe that I said this crippled man Gaffett
+had been shipped on a voyage of discovery.  I now tell you that the
+ship was lost on its return, and only Gaffett and two officers were
+saved off the Greenland coast, and he had knowledge later that
+those men never got back to England; the brig they shipped on was
+run down in the night.  So no other living soul had the facts, and
+he gave them to me.  There is a strange sort of a country 'way up
+north beyond the ice, and strange folks living in it.  Gaffett
+believed it was the next world to this."
+
+"What do you mean, Captain Littlepage?" I exclaimed.  The old
+man was bending forward and whispering; he looked over his shoulder
+before he spoke the last sentence.
+
+"To hear old Gaffett tell about it was something awful," he
+said, going on with his story quite steadily after the moment of
+excitement had passed.  "'Twas first a tale of dogs and sledges,
+and cold and wind and snow.  Then they begun to find the ice grow
+rotten; they had been frozen in, and got into a current flowing
+north, far up beyond Fox Channel, and they took to their boats when
+the ship got crushed, and this warm current took them out of sight
+of the ice, and into a great open sea; and they still followed it
+due north, just the very way they had planned to go.  Then they
+struck a coast that wasn't laid down or charted, but the cliffs
+were such that no boat could land until they found a bay and struck
+across under sail to the other side where the shore looked lower;
+they were scant of provisions and out of water, but they got sight
+of something that looked like a great town.  'For God's sake,
+Gaffett!' said I, the first time he told me.  'You don't mean a
+town two degrees farther north than ships had ever been?' for he'd
+got their course marked on an old chart that he'd pieced out at the
+top; but he insisted upon it, and told it over and over again, to
+be sure I had it straight to carry to those who would be
+interested.  There was no snow and ice, he said, after they had
+sailed some days with that warm current, which seemed to come right
+from under the ice that they'd been pinched up in and had
+been crossing on foot for weeks."
+
+"But what about the town?" I asked.  "Did they get to the
+town?"
+
+"They did," said the captain, "and found inhabitants; 'twas an
+awful condition of things.  It appeared, as near as Gaffett could
+express it, like a place where there was neither living nor dead. 
+They could see the place when they were approaching it by sea
+pretty near like any town, and thick with habitations; but all at
+once they lost sight of it altogether, and when they got close
+inshore they could see the shapes of folks, but they never could
+get near them,--all blowing gray figures that would pass along
+alone, or sometimes gathered in companies as if they were watching. 
+The men were frightened at first, but the shapes never came near
+them,--it was as if they blew back; and at last they all got bold
+and went ashore, and found birds' eggs and sea fowl, like any wild
+northern spot where creatures were tame and folks had never been,
+and there was good water.  Gaffett said that he and another man
+came near one o' the fog-shaped men that was going along slow with
+the look of a pack on his back, among the rocks, an' they chased
+him; but, Lord! he flittered away out o' sight like a leaf the wind
+takes with it, or a piece of cobweb.  They would make as if they
+talked together, but there was no sound of voices, and 'they acted
+as if they didn't see us, but only felt us coming towards them,'
+says Gaffett one day, trying to tell the particulars.  They
+couldn't see the town when they were ashore.  One day the captain
+and the doctor were gone till night up across the high land where
+the town had seemed to be, and they came back at night beat out and
+white as ashes, and wrote and wrote all next day in their
+notebooks, and whispered together full of excitement, and they were
+sharp-spoken with the men when they offered to ask any questions.
+
+"Then there came a day," said Captain Littlepage, leaning
+toward me with a strange look in his eyes, and whispering quickly. 
+"The men all swore they wouldn't stay any longer; the man on watch
+early in the morning gave the alarm, and they all put off in the
+boat and got a little way out to sea.  Those folks, or whatever
+they were, come about 'em like bats; all at once they raised
+incessant armies, and come as if to drive 'em back to sea.  They
+stood thick at the edge o' the water like the ridges o' grim war;
+no thought o' flight, none of retreat.  Sometimes a standing fight,
+then soaring on main wing tormented all the air.  And when they'd
+got the boat out o' reach o' danger, Gaffett said they looked back,
+and there was the town again, standing up just as they'd seen it
+first, comin' on the coast.  Say what you might, they all believed
+'twas a kind of waiting-place between this world an' the next."
+
+The captain had sprung to his feet in his excitement, and made
+excited gestures, but he still whispered huskily.
+
+"Sit down, sir," I said as quietly as I could, and he sank
+into his chair quite spent.
+
+"Gaffett thought the officers were hurrying home to report and
+to fit out a new expedition when they were all lost.  At the time,
+the men got orders not to talk over what they had seen," the old
+man explained presently in a more natural tone.
+
+"Weren't they all starving, and wasn't it a mirage or
+something of that sort?" I ventured to ask.  But he looked at me
+blankly.
+
+"Gaffett had got so that his mind ran on nothing else," he
+went on.  "The ship's surgeon let fall an opinion to the captain,
+one day, that 'twas some condition o' the light and the magnetic
+currents that let them see those folks.  'Twa'n't a right-feeling
+part of the world, anyway; they had to battle with the compass to
+make it serve, an' everything seemed to go wrong.  Gaffett had
+worked it out in his own mind that they was all common ghosts, but
+the conditions were unusual favorable for seeing them.  He was
+always talking about the Ge'graphical Society, but he never took
+proper steps, as I viewed it now, and stayed right there at the
+mission.  He was a good deal crippled, and thought they'd confine
+him in some jail of a hospital.  He said he was waiting to find the
+right men to tell, somebody bound north.  Once in a while they
+stopped there to leave a mail or something.  He was set in his
+notions, and let two or three proper explorin' expeditions go by
+him because he didn't like their looks; but when I was there he had
+got restless, fearin' he might be taken away or something.  He had
+all his directions written out straight as a string to give the
+right ones.  I wanted him to trust 'em to me, so I might have
+something to show, but he wouldn't.  I suppose he's dead now.  I
+wrote to him an' I done all I could.  'Twill be a great exploit
+some o' these days."
+
+I assented absent-mindedly, thinking more just then of my
+companion's alert, determined look and the seafaring, ready aspect
+that had come to his face; but at this moment there fell a sudden
+change, and the old, pathetic, scholarly look returned.  Behind me
+hung a map of North America, and I saw, as I turned a little, that
+his eyes were fixed upon the northernmost regions and their careful
+recent outlines with a look of bewilderment.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+The Outer Island
+
+
+GAFFETT WITH HIS good bunk and the bird-skins, the story of
+the wreck of the Minerva, the human-shaped creatures of fog and
+cobweb, the great words of Milton with which he described their
+onslaught upon the crew, all this moving tale had such an air of
+truth that I could not argue with Captain Littlepage.  The old man
+looked away from the map as if it had vaguely troubled him, and
+regarded me appealingly.
+
+"We were just speaking of"--and he stopped.  I saw that he had
+suddenly forgotten his subject.
+
+"There were a great many persons at the funeral," I hastened
+to say.
+
+"Oh yes," the captain answered, with satisfaction.  "All
+showed respect who could.  The sad circumstances had for a moment
+slipped my mind.  Yes, Mrs. Begg will be very much missed.  She was
+a capital manager for her husband when he was at sea.  Oh yes,
+shipping is a very great loss."  And he sighed heavily.  "There was
+hardly a man of any standing who didn't interest himself in some
+way in navigation.  It always gave credit to a town.  I call it
+low-water mark now here in Dunnet."
+
+He rose with dignity to take leave, and asked me to stop at
+his house some day, when he would show me some outlandish things
+that he had brought home from sea.  I was familiar with the subject
+of the decadence of shipping interests in all its affecting
+branches, having been already some time in Dunnet, and I felt sure
+that Captain Littlepage's mind had now returned to a safe level.
+
+As we came down the hill toward the village our ways divided,
+and when I had seen the old captain well started on a smooth piece
+of sidewalk which would lead him to his own door, we parted, the
+best of friends.  "Step in some afternoon," he said, as
+affectionately as if I were a fellow-shipmaster wrecked on the lee
+shore of age like himself.  I turned toward home, and presently met
+Mrs. Todd coming toward me with an anxious expression.
+
+"I see you sleevin' the old gentleman down the hill," she
+suggested.
+
+"Yes.  I've had a very interesting afternoon with him," I
+answered, and her face brightened.
+
+"Oh, then he's all right.  I was afraid 'twas one o' his
+flighty spells, an' Mari' Harris wouldn't"--
+
+"Yes," I returned, smiling, "he has been telling me some old
+stories, but we talked about Mrs. Begg and the funeral beside, and
+Paradise Lost."
+
+"I expect he got tellin' of you some o' his great narratives,"
+she answered, looking at me shrewdly.  "Funerals always sets him
+goin'.  Some o' them tales hangs together toler'ble well," she
+added, with a sharper look than before.  "An' he's been a great
+reader all his seafarin' days.  Some thinks he overdid, and
+affected his head, but for a man o' his years he's amazin' now when
+he's at his best.  Oh, he used to be a beautiful man!"
+
+
+We were standing where there was a fine view of the harbor and
+its long stretches of shore all covered by the great army of the
+pointed firs, darkly cloaked and standing as if they waited to
+embark.  As we looked far seaward among the outer islands, the
+trees seemed to march seaward still, going steadily over the
+heights and down to the water's edge.
+
+It had been growing gray and cloudy, like the first evening of
+autumn, and a shadow had fallen on the darkening shore.  Suddenly,
+as we looked, a gleam of golden sunshine struck the outer islands,
+and one of them shone out clear in the light, and revealed itself
+in a compelling way to our eyes.  Mrs. Todd was looking off across
+the bay with a face full of affection and interest.  The sunburst
+upon that outermost island made it seem like a sudden revelation of
+the world beyond this which some believe to be so near.
+
+"That's where mother lives," said Mrs. Todd.  "Can't we see it
+plain?  I was brought up out there on Green Island.  I know every
+rock an' bush on it."
+
+"Your mother!" I exclaimed, with great interest.
+
+"Yes, dear, cert'in; I've got her yet, old's I be.  She's one
+of them spry, light-footed little women; always was, an' light-
+hearted, too," answered Mrs. Todd, with satisfaction.  "She's seen
+all the trouble folks can see, without it's her last sickness; an'
+she's got a word of courage for everybody.  Life ain't spoilt her
+a mite.  She's eighty-six an' I'm sixty-seven, and I've seen the
+time I've felt a good sight the oldest.  'Land sakes alive!' says
+she, last time I was out to see her.  'How you do lurch about
+steppin' into a bo't?'  I laughed so I liked to have gone right
+over into the water; an' we pushed off, an' left her laughin' there
+on the shore."
+
+The light had faded as we watched.  Mrs. Todd had mounted a
+gray rock, and stood there grand and architectural, like a
+caryatide.  Presently she stepped down, and we continued our
+way homeward.
+
+"You an' me, we'll take a bo't an' go out some day and see
+mother," she promised me.  "'Twould please her very much,
+an' there's one or two sca'ce herbs grows better on the island than
+anywhere else.  I ain't seen their like nowheres here on the main."
+
+"Now I'm goin' right down to get us each a mug o' my beer,"
+she announced as we entered the house, "an' I believe I'll sneak in
+a little mite o' camomile.  Goin' to the funeral an' all, I feel to
+have had a very wearin' afternoon."
+
+I heard her going down into the cool little cellar, and then
+there was considerable delay.  When she returned, mug in hand, I
+noticed the taste of camomile, in spite of my protest; but its
+flavor was disguised by some other herb that I did not know, and
+she stood over me until I drank it all and said that I liked it.
+
+"I don't give that to everybody," said Mrs. Todd kindly; and
+I felt for a moment as if it were part of a spell and incantation,
+and as if my enchantress would now begin to look like the cobweb
+shapes of the arctic town.  Nothing happened but a quiet evening
+and some delightful plans that we made about going to Green Island,
+and on the morrow there was the clear sunshine and blue sky of
+another day.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+Green Island
+
+ONE MORNING, very early, I heard Mrs. Todd in the garden outside my
+window.  By the unusual loudness of her remarks to a passer-by, and
+the notes of a familiar hymn which she sang as she worked among the
+herbs, and which came as if directed purposely to the sleepy ears
+of my consciousness, I knew that she wished I would wake up and
+come and speak to her.
+
+In a few minutes she responded to a morning voice from behind
+the blinds.  "I expect you're goin' up to your schoolhouse to pass
+all this pleasant day; yes, I expect you're goin' to be dreadful
+busy," she said despairingly.
+
+"Perhaps not," said I.  "Why, what's going to be the matter
+with you, Mrs. Todd?"  For I supposed that she was tempted by the
+fine weather to take one of her favorite expeditions along the
+shore pastures to gather herbs and simples, and would like to have
+me keep the house.
+
+"No, I don't want to go nowhere by land," she answered
+gayly,--"no, not by land; but I don't know's we shall have a better
+day all the rest of the summer to go out to Green Island an' see
+mother.  I waked up early thinkin' of her.  The wind's light
+northeast,--'twill take us right straight out, an' this time o'
+year it's liable to change round southwest an' fetch us home
+pretty, 'long late in the afternoon.  Yes, it's goin' to be a good
+day."
+
+"Speak to the captain and the Bowden boy, if you see anybody
+going by toward the landing," said I.  "We'll take the big boat."
+
+"Oh, my sakes! now you let me do things my way," said Mrs.
+Todd scornfully.  "No, dear, we won't take no big bo't.  I'll just
+git a handy dory, an' Johnny Bowden an' me, we'll man her
+ourselves.  I don't want no abler bo't than a good dory, an' a nice
+light breeze ain't goin' to make no sea; an' Johnny's my cousin's
+son,--mother'll like to have him come; an' he'll be down to the
+herrin' weirs all the time we're there, anyway; we don't want to
+carry no men folks havin' to be considered every minute an' takin'
+up all our time.  No, you let me do; we'll just slip out an' see
+mother by ourselves.  I guess what breakfast you'll want's about
+ready now."
+
+I had become well acquainted with Mrs. Todd as landlady, herb-
+gatherer, and rustic philosopher; we had been discreet fellow-
+passengers once or twice when I had sailed up the coast to a larger
+town than Dunnet Landing to do some shopping; but I was yet to
+become acquainted with her as a mariner.  An hour later we pushed
+off from the landing in the desired dory.  The tide was just on the
+turn, beginning to fall, and several friends and acquaintances
+stood along the side of the dilapidated wharf and cheered us by
+their words and evident interest.  Johnny Bowden and I were both
+rowing in haste to get out where we could catch the breeze and put
+up the small sail which lay clumsily furled along the gunwale. 
+Mrs. Todd sat aft, a stern and unbending lawgiver.
+
+"You better let her drift; we'll get there 'bout as quick; the
+tide'll take her right out from under these old buildin's; there's
+plenty wind outside."
+
+"Your bo't ain't trimmed proper, Mis' Todd!" exclaimed a voice
+from shore.  "You're lo'ded so the bo't'll drag; you can't git her
+before the wind, ma'am.  You set 'midships, Mis' Todd, an' let the
+boy hold the sheet 'n' steer after he gits the sail up; you won't
+never git out to Green Island that way.  She's lo'ded bad, your
+bo't is,--she's heavy behind's she is now!"
+
+Mrs. Todd turned with some difficulty and regarded the anxious
+adviser, my right oar flew out of water, and we seemed about to
+capsize. "That you, Asa?  Good-mornin'," she said politely. 
+"I al'ays liked the starn seat best.  When'd you git back from up
+country?"
+
+This allusion to Asa's origin was not lost upon the rest of
+the company.  We were some little distance from shore, but we could
+hear a chuckle of laughter, and Asa, a person who was too ready
+with his criticism and advice on every possible subject, turned and
+walked indignantly away.
+
+When we caught the wind we were soon on our seaward course,
+and only stopped to underrun a trawl, for the floats of which Mrs.
+Todd looked earnestly, explaining that her mother might not be
+prepared for three extra to dinner; it was her brother's trawl, and
+she meant to just run her eye along for the right sort of a little
+haddock.  I leaned over the boat's side with great interest and
+excitement, while she skillfully handled the long line of hooks,
+and made scornful remarks upon worthless, bait-consuming creatures
+of the sea as she reviewed them and left them on the trawl or shook
+them off into the waves.  At last we came to what she pronounced a
+proper haddock, and having taken him on board and ended his life
+resolutely, we went our way.
+
+As we sailed along I listened to an increasingly delightful
+commentary upon the islands, some of them barren rocks, or at best
+giving sparse pasturage for sheep in the early summer.  On one of
+these an eager little flock ran to the water's edge and bleated at
+us so affectingly that I would willingly have stopped; but Mrs.
+Todd steered away from the rocks, and scolded at the sheep's mean
+owner, an acquaintance of hers, who grudged the little salt and
+still less care which the patient creatures needed.  The hot
+midsummer sun makes prisons of these small islands that are a
+paradise in early June, with their cool springs and short thick-
+growing grass.  On a larger island, farther out to sea, my
+entertaining companion showed me with glee the small houses of two
+farmers who shared the island between them, and declared that for
+three generations the people had not spoken to each other even in
+times of sickness or death or birth.  "When the news come that the
+war was over, one of 'em knew it a week, and never stepped across
+his wall to tell the other," she said.  "There, they enjoy it;
+they've got to have somethin' to interest 'em in such a place; 'tis
+a good deal more tryin' to be tied to folks you don't like than
+'tis to be alone.  Each of 'em tell the neighbors their wrongs;
+plenty likes to hear and tell again; them as fetch a bone'll carry
+one, an' so they keep the fight a-goin'.  I must say I like variety
+myself; some folks washes Monday an' irons Tuesday the whole year
+round, even if the circus is goin' by!"
+
+A long time before we landed at Green Island we could see the
+small white house, standing high like a beacon, where Mrs. Todd was
+born and where her mother lived, on a green slope above the
+water, with dark spruce woods still higher.  There were crops in
+the fields, which we presently distinguished from one another. 
+Mrs. Todd examined them while we were still far at sea.  "Mother's
+late potatoes looks backward; ain't had rain enough so far," she
+pronounced her opinion.  "They look weedier than what they call
+Front Street down to Cowper Centre.  I expect brother William is so
+occupied with his herrin' weirs an' servin' out bait to the
+schooners that he don't think once a day of the land."
+
+"What's the flag for, up above the spruces there behind the
+house?" I inquired, with eagerness.
+
+"Oh, that's the sign for herrin'," she explained kindly, while
+Johnny Bowden regarded me with contemptuous surprise.  "When they
+get enough for schooners they raise that flag; an' when 'tis a poor
+catch in the weir pocket they just fly a little signal down by the
+shore, an' then the small bo'ts comes and get enough an' over for
+their trawls.  There, look! there she is: mother sees us; she's
+wavin' somethin' out o' the fore door!  She'll be to the landin'-
+place quick's we are."
+
+I looked, and could see a tiny flutter in the doorway, but a
+quicker signal had made its way from the heart on shore to the
+heart on the sea.
+
+"How do you suppose she knows it is me?" said Mrs. Todd, with
+a tender smile on her broad face.  "There, you never get over bein'
+a child long's you have a mother to go to.  Look at the chimney,
+now; she's gone right in an' brightened up the fire.  Well, there,
+I'm glad mother's well; you'll enjoy seein' her very much."
+
+Mrs. Todd leaned back into her proper position, and the boat
+trimmed again.  She took a firmer grasp of the sheet, and gave an
+impatient look up at the gaff and the leech of the little sail, and
+twitched the sheet as if she urged the wind like a horse.  There
+came at once a fresh gust, and we seemed to have doubled our speed. 
+Soon we were near enough to see a tiny figure with handkerchiefed
+head come down across the field and stand waiting for us at the
+cove above a curve of pebble beach.
+
+Presently the dory grated on the pebbles, and Johnny Bowden,
+who had been kept in abeyance during the voyage, sprang out and
+used manful exertions to haul us up with the next wave, so that
+Mrs. Todd could make a dry landing.
+
+"You don that very well," she said, mounting to her feet, and
+coming ashore somewhat stiffly, but with great dignity, refusing
+our outstretched hands, and returning to possess herself of a bag
+which had lain at her feet.
+
+"Well, mother, here I be!" she announced with indifference;
+but they stood and beamed in each other's faces.
+
+"Lookin' pretty well for an old lady, ain't she?" said Mrs.
+Todd's mother, turning away from her daughter to speak to me.  She
+was a delightful little person herself, with bright eyes and an
+affectionate air of expectation like a child on a holiday.  You
+felt as if Mrs. Blackett were an old and dear friend before you let
+go her cordial hand.  We all started together up the hill.
+
+"Now don't you haste too fast, mother," said Mrs. Todd
+warningly; "'tis a far reach o' risin' ground to the fore door, and
+you won't set an' get your breath when you're once there, but go
+trotting about.  Now don't you go a mite faster than we proceed
+with this bag an' basket.  Johnny, there, 'll fetch up the haddock. 
+I just made one stop to underrun William's trawl till I come to
+jes' such a fish's I thought you'd want to make one o' your nice
+chowders of.  I've brought an onion with me that was layin' about
+on the window-sill at home."
+
+"That's just what I was wantin'," said the hostess.  "I give
+a sigh when you spoke o' chowder, knowin' my onions was out. 
+William forgot to replenish us last time he was to the Landin'. 
+Don't you haste so yourself Almiry, up this risin' ground.  I hear
+you commencin' to wheeze a'ready."
+
+This mild revenge seemed to afford great pleasure to both
+giver and receiver.  They laughed a little, and looked at each
+other affectionately, and then at me.  Mrs. Todd considerately
+paused, and faced about to regard the wide sea view.  I was glad to
+stop, being more out of breath than either of my companions, and I
+prolonged the halt by asking the names of the neighboring islands. 
+There was a fine breeze blowing, which we felt more there on the
+high land than when we were running before it in the dory.
+
+"Why, this ain't that kitten I saw when I was out last, the
+one that I said didn't appear likely?" exclaimed Mrs. Todd as we
+went our way.
+
+"That's the one, Almiry," said her mother.  "She always had a
+likely look to me, an' she's right after business.  I never see
+such a mouser for one of her age.  If't wan't for William, I never
+should have housed that other dronin' old thing so long; but he
+sets by her on account of her havin' a bob tail.  I don't deem it
+advisable to maintain cats just on account of their havin' bob
+tails; they're like all other curiosities, good for them that wants
+to see 'm twice.  This kitten catches mice for both, an' keeps me
+respectable as I ain't been for a year.  She's a real understandin'
+little help, this kitten is.  I picked her from among five Miss
+Augusta Pernell had over to Burnt Island," said the old woman,
+trudging along with the kitten close at her skirts.  "Augusta, she
+says to me, 'Why, Mis' Blackett, you've took and homeliest;'
+and, says I, 'I've got the smartest; I'm satisfied.'"
+
+"I'd trust nobody sooner'n you to pick out a kitten, mother,"
+said the daughter handsomely, and we went on in peace and harmony.
+
+The house was just before us now, on a green level that looked
+as if a huge hand had scooped it out of the long green field we had
+been ascending.  A little way above, the dark, spruce woods began
+to climb the top of the hill and cover the seaward slopes of the
+island.  There was just room for the small farm and the forest; we
+looked down at the fish-house and its rough sheds, and the weirs
+stretching far out into the water.  As we looked upward, the tops
+of the firs came sharp against the blue sky.  There was a great
+stretch of rough pasture-land round the shoulder of the island to
+the eastward, and here were all the thick-scattered gray rocks that
+kept their places, and the gray backs of many sheep that forever
+wandered and fed on the thin sweet pasturage that fringed the
+ledges and made soft hollows and strips of green turf like growing
+velvet.  I could see the rich green of bayberry bushes here and
+there, where the rocks made room.  The air was very sweet; one
+could not help wishing to be a citizen of such a complete and tiny
+continent and home of fisherfolk.
+
+The house was broad and clean, with a roof that looked heavy
+on its low walls.  It was one of the houses that seem firm-rooted
+in the ground, as if they were two-thirds below the surface, like
+icebergs.  The front door stood hospitably open in expectation of
+company, and an orderly vine grew at each side; but our path led to
+the kitchen door at the house-end, and there grew a mass of gay
+flowers and greenery, as if they had been swept together by some
+diligent garden broom into a tangled heap: there were portulacas
+all along under the lower step and straggling off into the grass,
+and clustering mallows that crept as near as they dared, like poor
+relations.  I saw the bright eyes and brainless little heads of two
+half-grown chickens who were snuggled down among the mallows as if
+they had been chased away from the door more than once, and
+expected to be again.
+
+"It seems kind o' formal comin' in this way," said Mrs. Todd
+impulsively, as we passed the flowers and came to the front
+doorstep; but she was mindful of the proprieties, and walked before
+us into the best room on the left.
+
+"Why, mother, if you haven't gone an' turned the carpet!" she
+exclaimed, with something in her voice that spoke of awe and
+admiration.  "When'd you get to it?  I s'pose Mis' Addicks come
+over an' helped you, from White Island Landing?"
+
+"No, she didn't," answered the old woman, standing proudly
+erect, and making the most of a great moment.  "I done it all
+myself with William's help.  He had a spare day, an' took right
+holt with me; an' 'twas all well beat on the grass, an' turned, an'
+put down again afore we went to bed.  I ripped an' sewed over two
+o' them long breadths.  I ain't had such a good night's sleep for
+two years."
+
+"There, what do you think o' havin' such a mother as that for
+eighty-six year old?" said Mrs. Todd, standing before us like a
+large figure of Victory.
+
+As for the mother, she took on a sudden look of youth; you
+felt as if she promised a great future, and was beginning, not
+ending, her summers and their happy toils.
+
+"My, my!" exclaimed Mrs. Todd.  "I couldn't ha' done it
+myself, I've got to own it."
+
+"I was much pleased to have it off my mind," said Mrs.
+Blackett, humbly; "the more so because along at the first of the
+next week I wasn't very well.  I suppose it may have been the
+change of weather."
+
+Mrs. Todd could not resist a significant glance at me, but,
+with charming sympathy, she forbore to point the lesson or to
+connect this illness with its apparent cause.  She loomed larger
+than ever in the little old-fashioned best room, with its few
+pieces of good furniture and pictures of national interest.  The
+green paper curtains were stamped with conventional landscapes of
+a foreign order,--castles on inaccessible crags, and lovely lakes
+with steep wooded shores; under-foot the treasured carpet was
+covered thick with home-made rugs.  There were empty glass lamps
+and crystallized bouquets of grass and some fine shells on the
+narrow mantelpiece.
+
+"I was married in this room," said Mrs. Todd unexpectedly; and
+I heard her give a sigh after she had spoken, as if she could not
+help the touch of regret that would forever come with all her
+thoughts of happiness.
+
+"We stood right there between the windows," she added, "and
+the minister stood here.  William wouldn't come in.  He was always
+odd about seein' folks, just's he is now.  I run to meet 'em from
+a child, an' William, he'd take an' run away."
+
+"I've been the gainer," said the old mother cheerfully. 
+"William has been son an' daughter both since you was married off
+the island.  He's been 'most too satisfied to stop at home 'long o'
+his old mother, but I always tell 'em I'm the gainer."
+
+We were all moving toward the kitchen as if by common
+instinct.  The best room was too suggestive of serious occasions,
+and the shades were all pulled down to shut out the summer
+light and air.  It was indeed a tribute to Society to find a room
+set apart for her behests out there on so apparently neighborless
+and remote an island.  Afternoon visits and evening festivals must
+be few in such a bleak situation at certain seasons of the year,
+but Mrs. Blackett was of those who do not live to themselves, and
+who have long since passed the line that divides mere self-concern
+from a valued share in whatever Society can give and take.  There
+were those of her neighbors who never had taken the trouble to
+furnish a best room, but Mrs. Blackett was one who knew the uses of
+a parlor.
+
+"Yes, do come right out into the old kitchen; I shan't make
+any stranger of you," she invited us pleasantly, after we had been
+properly received in the room appointed to formality.  "I expect
+Almiry, here, 'll be driftin' out 'mongst the pasture-weeds quick's
+she can find a good excuse.  'Tis hot now.  You'd better content
+yourselves till you get nice an' rested, an' 'long after dinner the
+sea-breeze 'll spring up, an' then you can take your walks, an' go
+up an' see the prospect from the big ledge.  Almiry'll want to show
+off everything there is.  Then I'll get you a good cup o' tea
+before you start to go home.  The days are plenty long now."
+
+While we were talking in the best room the selected fish had
+been mysteriously brought up from the shore, and lay all cleaned
+and ready in an earthen crock on the table.
+
+"I think William might have just stopped an' said a word,"
+remarked Mrs. Todd, pouting with high affront as she caught sight
+of it.  "He's friendly enough when he comes ashore, an' was
+remarkable social the last time, for him."
+
+"He ain't disposed to be very social with the ladies,"
+explained William's mother, with a delightful glance at me, as if
+she counted upon my friendship and tolerance.  "He's very
+particular, and he's all in his old fishin'-clothes to-day.  He'll
+want me to tell him everything you said and done, after you've
+gone.  William has very deep affections.  He'll want to see you,
+Almiry.  Yes, I guess he'll be in by an' by."
+
+"I'll search for him by 'n' by, if he don't," proclaimed Mrs.
+Todd, with an air of unalterable resolution.  "I know all of his
+burrows down 'long the shore.  I'll catch him by hand 'fore he
+knows it.  I've got some business with William, anyway.  I brought
+forty-two cents with me that was due him for them last lobsters he
+brought in."
+
+"You can leave it with me," suggested the little old mother,
+who was already stepping about among her pots and pans in the
+pantry, and preparing to make the chowder.
+
+I became possessed of a sudden unwonted curiosity in regard to
+William, and felt that half the pleasure of my visit would be lost
+if I could not make his interesting acquaintance.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+William
+
+MRS. TODD HAD taken the onion out of her basket and laid it down
+upon the kitchen table.  "There's Johnny Bowden come with us, you
+know," she reminded her mother.  "He'll be hungry enough to eat his
+size."
+
+"I've got new doughnuts, dear," said the little old lady. 
+"You don't often catch William 'n' me out o' provisions.  I expect
+you might have chose a somewhat larger fish, but I'll try an' make
+it do.  I shall have to have a few extra potatoes, but there's a
+field full out there, an' the hoe's leanin' against the well-house,
+in 'mongst the climbin'-beans."  She smiled and gave her daughter
+a commanding nod.
+
+"Land sakes alive!  Le's blow the horn for William," insisted
+Mrs. Todd, with some excitement.  "He needn't break his spirit so
+far's to come in.  He'll know you need him for something
+particular, an' then we can call to him as he comes up the path. 
+I won't put him to no pain."
+
+Mrs. Blackett's old face, for the first time, wore a look of
+trouble, and I found it necessary to counteract the teasing spirit
+of Almira.  It was too pleasant to stay indoors altogether, even in
+such rewarding companionship; besides, I might meet William; and,
+straying out presently, I found the hoe by the well-house and an
+old splint basket at the woodshed door, and also found my way down
+to the field where there was a great square patch of rough, weedy
+potato-tops and tall ragweed.  One corner was already dug, and I
+chose a fat-looking hill where the tops were well withered.  There
+is all the pleasure that one can have in gold-digging in finding
+one's hopes satisfied in the riches of a good hill of potatoes.  I
+longed to go on; but it did not seem frugal to dig any longer after
+my basket was full, and at last I took my hoe by the middle and
+lifted the basket to go back up the hill.  I was sure that Mrs.
+Blackett must be waiting impatiently to slice the potatoes into the
+chowder, layer after layer, with the fish.
+
+"You let me take holt o' that basket, ma'am," said the
+pleasant, anxious voice behind me.
+
+I turned, startled in the silence of the wide field, and saw
+an elderly man, bent in the shoulders as fishermen often are, gray-
+headed and clean-shaven, and with a timid air.  It was William.  He
+looked just like his mother, and I had been imagining that he was
+large and stout like his sister, Almira Todd; and, strange to say,
+my fancy had led me to picture him not far from thirty and a little
+loutish.  It was necessary instead to pay William the respect due
+to age.
+
+I accustomed myself to plain facts on the instant, and we said
+good-morning like old friends.  The basket was really heavy, and I
+put the hoe through its handle and offered him one end; then we
+moved easily toward the house together, speaking of the fine
+weather and of mackerel which were reported to be striking in all
+about the bay.  William had been out since three o'clock, and had
+taken an extra fare of fish.  I could feel that Mrs. Todd's eyes
+were upon us as we approached the house, and although I fell behind
+in the narrow path, and let William take the basket alone and
+precede me at some little distance the rest of the way, I could
+plainly hear her greet him.
+
+"Got round to comin' in, didn't you?" she inquired, with
+amusement.  "Well, now, that's clever.  Didn't know's I should see
+you to-day, William, an' I wanted to settle an account."
+
+I felt somewhat disturbed and responsible, but when I joined
+them they were on most simple and friendly terms.  It became
+evident that, with William, it was the first step that cost, and
+that, having once joined in social interests, he was able to pursue
+them with more or less pleasure.  He was about sixty, and not
+young-looking for his years, yet so undying is the spirit of youth,
+and bashfulness has such a power of survival, that I felt all the
+time as if one must try to make the occasion easy for some one who
+was young and new to the affairs of social life.  He asked politely
+if I would like to go up to the great ledge while dinner was
+getting ready; so, not without a deep sense of pleasure, and a
+delighted look of surprise from the two hostesses, we started,
+William and I, as if both of us felt much younger than we looked. 
+Such was the innocence and simplicity of the moment that when I
+heard Mrs. Todd laughing behind us in the kitchen I laughed too,
+but William did not even blush.  I think he was a little deaf, and
+he stepped along before me most businesslike and intent upon his
+errand.
+
+We went from the upper edge of the field above the house into
+a smooth, brown path among the dark spruces.  The hot sun brought
+out the fragrance of the pitchy bark, and the shade was pleasant as
+we climbed the hill.  William stopped once or twice to show
+me a great wasps'-nest close by, or some fishhawks'-nests below in
+a bit of swamp.  He picked a few sprigs of late-blooming linnaea as
+we came out upon an open bit of pasture at the top of the island,
+and gave them to me without speaking, but he knew as well as I that
+one could not say half he wished about linnaea.  Through this piece
+of rough pasture ran a huge shape of stone like the great backbone
+of an enormous creature.  At the end, near the woods, we could
+climb up on it and walk along to the highest point; there above the
+circle of pointed firs we could look down over all the island, and
+could see the ocean that circled this and a hundred other bits of
+island ground, the mainland shore and all the far horizons.  It
+gave a sudden sense of space, for nothing stopped the eye or hedged
+one in,--that sense of liberty in space and time which great
+prospects always give.
+
+"There ain't no such view in the world, I expect," said
+William proudly, and I hastened to speak my heartfelt tribute of
+praise; it was impossible not to feel as if an untraveled boy had
+spoken, and yet one loved to have him value his native heath.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+
+Where Pennyroyal Grew
+
+WE WERE a little late to dinner, but Mrs. Blackett and Mrs. Todd
+were lenient, and we all took our places after William had paused
+to wash his hands, like a pious Brahmin, at the well, and put on a
+neat blue coat which he took from a peg behind the kitchen door. 
+Then he resolutely asked a blessing in words that I could not hear,
+and we ate the chowder and were thankful.  The kitten went round
+and round the table, quite erect, and, holding on by her fierce
+young claws, she stopped to mew with pathos at each elbow, or
+darted off to the open door when a song sparrow forgot himself and
+lit in the grass too near.  William did not talk much, but his
+sister Todd occupied the time and told all the news there was to
+tell of Dunnet Landing and its coasts, while the old mother
+listened with delight.  Her hospitality was something exquisite;
+she had the gift which so many women lack, of being able to make
+themselves and their houses belong entirely to a guest's
+pleasure,--that charming surrender for the moment of themselves and
+whatever belongs to them, so that they make a part of one's
+own life that can never be forgotten.  Tact is after all a kind of
+mindreading, and my hostess held the golden gift.  Sympathy is of
+the mind as well as the heart, and Mrs. Blackett's world and mine
+were one from the moment we met.  Besides, she had that final, that
+highest gift of heaven, a perfect self-forgetfulness.  Sometimes,
+as I watched her eager, sweet old face, I wondered why she had been
+set to shine on this lonely island of the northern coast.  It must
+have been to keep the balance true, and make up to all her
+scattered and depending neighbors for other things which they may
+have lacked.
+
+When we had finished clearing away the old blue plates, and
+the kitten had taken care of her share of the fresh haddock, just
+as we were putting back the kitchen chairs in their places, Mrs.
+Todd said briskly that she must go up into the pasture now to
+gather the desired herbs.
+
+"You can stop here an' rest, or you can accompany me," she
+announced.  "Mother ought to have her nap, and when we come back
+she an' William'll sing for you.  She admires music," said Mrs.
+Todd, turning to speak to her mother.
+
+But Mrs. Blackett tried to say that she couldn't sing as she
+used, and perhaps William wouldn't feel like it.  She looked tired,
+the good old soul, or I should have liked to sit in the peaceful
+little house while she slept; I had had much pleasant experience of
+pastures already in her daughter's company.  But it seemed best to
+go with Mrs. Todd, and off we went.
+
+Mrs. Todd carried the gingham bag which she had brought from
+home, and a small heavy burden in the bottom made it hang straight
+and slender from her hand.  The way was steep, and she soon grew
+breathless, so that we sat down to rest awhile on a convenient
+large stone among the bayberry.
+
+"There, I wanted you to see this,--'tis mother's picture,"
+said Mrs. Todd; "'twas taken once when she was up to Portland soon
+after she was married.  That's me," she added, opening another worn
+case, and displaying the full face of the cheerful child she looked
+like still in spite of being past sixty.  "And here's William an'
+father together.  I take after father, large and heavy, an' William
+is like mother's folks, short an' thin.  He ought to have made
+something o' himself, bein' a man an' so like mother; but though
+he's been very steady to work, an' kept up the farm, an' done his
+fishin' too right along, he never had mother's snap an' power o'
+seein' things just as they be.  He's got excellent judgment, too,"
+meditated William's sister, but she could not arrive at any
+satisfactory decision upon what she evidently thought his failure
+in life.  "I think it is well to see any one so happy an' makin'
+the most of life just as it falls to hand," she said as she began
+to put the daguerreotypes away again; but I reached out my
+hand to see her mother's once more, a most flowerlike face of a
+lovely young woman in quaint dress.  There was in the eyes a look
+of anticipation and joy, a far-off look that sought the horizon;
+one often sees it in seafaring families, inherited by girls and
+boys alike from men who spend their lives at sea, and are always
+watching for distant sails or the first loom of the land.  At sea
+there is nothing to be seen close by, and this has its counterpart
+in a sailor's character, in the large and brave and patient traits
+that are developed, the hopeful pleasantness that one loves so in
+a seafarer.
+
+When the family pictures were wrapped again in a big
+handkerchief, we set forward in a narrow footpath and made our way
+to a lonely place that faced northward, where there was more
+pasturage and fewer bushes, and we went down to the edge of short
+grass above some rocky cliffs where the deep sea broke with a great
+noise, though the wind was down and the water looked quiet a little
+way from shore.  Among the grass grew such pennyroyal as the rest
+of the world could not provide.  There was a fine fragrance in the
+air as we gathered it sprig by sprig and stepped along carefully,
+and Mrs. Todd pressed her aromatic nosegay between her hands and
+offered it to me again and again.
+
+"There's nothin' like it," she said; "oh no, there's no such
+pennyr'yal as this in the state of Maine.  It's the right pattern
+of the plant, and all the rest I ever see is but an imitation. 
+Don't it do you good?"  And I answered with enthusiasm.
+
+"There, dear, I never showed nobody else but mother where to
+find this place; 'tis kind of sainted to me.  Nathan, my husband,
+an' I used to love this place when we was courtin', and"--she
+hesitated, and then spoke softly--"when he was lost, 'twas just off
+shore tryin' to get in by the short channel out there between Squaw
+Islands, right in sight o' this headland where we'd set an' made
+our plans all summer long."
+
+I had never heard her speak of her husband before, but I felt
+that we were friends now since she had brought me to this place.
+
+"'Twas but a dream with us," Mrs. Todd said.  "I knew it when
+he was gone.  I knew it"--and she whispered as if she were at
+confession--"I knew it afore he started to go to sea.  My heart was
+gone out o' my keepin' before I ever saw Nathan; but he loved me
+well, and he made me real happy, and he died before he ever knew
+what he'd had to know if we'd lived long together.  'Tis very
+strange about love.  No, Nathan never found out, but my heart was
+troubled when I knew him first.  There's more women likes to be
+loved than there is of those that loves.  I spent some happy hours
+right here.  I always liked Nathan, and he never knew.  But this
+pennyr'yal always reminded me, as I'd sit and gather it and hear
+him talkin'--it always would remind me of--the other one."
+
+She looked away from me, and presently rose and went on by
+herself.  There was something lonely and solitary about her great
+determined shape.  She might have been Antigone alone on the Theban
+plain.  It is not often given in a noisy world to come to the
+places of great grief and silence.  An absolute, archaic grief
+possessed this countrywoman; she seemed like a renewal of some
+historic soul, with her sorrows and the remoteness of a daily life
+busied with rustic simplicities and the scents of primeval herbs.
+
+
+I was not incompetent at herb-gathering, and after a while,
+when I had sat long enough waking myself to new thoughts, and
+reading a page of remembrance with new pleasure, I gathered some
+bunches, as I was bound to do, and at last we met again higher up
+the shore, in the plain every-day world we had left behind when we
+went down to the penny-royal plot.  As we walked together along the
+high edge of the field we saw a hundred sails about the bay and
+farther seaward; it was mid-afternoon or after, and the day was
+coming to an end.
+
+"Yes, they're all makin' towards the shore,--the small craft
+an' the lobster smacks an' all," said my companion.  "We must spend
+a little time with mother now, just to have our tea, an' then put
+for home."
+
+"No matter if we lose the wind at sundown; I can row in with
+Johnny," said I; and Mrs. Todd nodded reassuringly and kept to her
+steady plod, not quickening her gait even when we saw William come
+round the corner of the house as if to look for us, and wave his
+hand and disappear.
+
+"Why, William's right on deck; I didn't know's we should see
+any more of him!" exclaimed Mrs. Todd.  "Now mother'll put the
+kettle right on; she's got a good fire goin'."  I too could see the
+blue smoke thicken, and then we both walked a little faster, while
+Mrs. Todd groped in her full bag of herbs to find the
+daguerreotypes and be ready to put them in their places.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+
+The Old Singers
+
+WILLIAM WAS sitting on the side door step, and the old mother was
+busy making her tea; she gave into my hand an old flowered-glass
+tea-caddy.
+
+"William thought you'd like to see this, when he was settin'
+the table.  My father brought it to my mother from the island
+of Tobago; an' here's a pair of beautiful mugs that came with it." 
+She opened the glass door of a little cupboard beside the chimney. 
+"These I call my best things, dear," she said.  "You'd laugh to see
+how we enjoy 'em Sunday nights in winter: we have a real company
+tea 'stead o' livin' right along just the same, an' I make
+somethin' good for a s'prise an' put on some o' my preserves, an'
+we get a'talkin' together an' have real pleasant times."
+
+Mrs. Todd laughed indulgently, and looked to see what I
+thought of such childishness.
+
+"I wish I could be here some Sunday evening," said I.
+
+"William an' me'll be talkin' about you an' thinkin' o' this
+nice day," said Mrs. Blackett affectionately, and she glanced at
+William, and he looked up bravely and nodded.  I began to discover
+that he and his sister could not speak their deeper feelings before
+each other.
+
+"Now I want you an' mother to sing," said Mrs. Todd abruptly,
+with an air of command, and I gave William much sympathy in his
+evident distress.
+
+"After I've had my cup o' tea, dear," answered the old hostess
+cheerfully; and so we sat down and took our cups and made merry
+while they lasted.  It was impossible not to wish to stay on
+forever at Green Island, and I could not help saying so.
+
+"I'm very happy here, both winter an' summer," said old Mrs.
+Blackett.  "William an' I never wish for any other home, do we,
+William?  I'm glad you find it pleasant; I wish you'd come an'
+stay, dear, whenever you feel inclined.  But here's Almiry; I
+always think Providence was kind to plot an' have her husband leave
+her a good house where she really belonged.  She'd been very
+restless if she'd had to continue here on Green Island.  You wanted
+more scope, didn't you, Almiry, an' to live in a large place where
+more things grew?  Sometimes folks wonders that we don't live
+together; perhaps we shall some time," and a shadow of sadness and
+apprehension flitted across her face.  "The time o' sickness an'
+failin' has got to come to all.  But Almiry's got an herb that's
+good for everything."  She smiled as she spoke, and looked bright
+again.
+
+"There's some herb that's good for everybody, except for them
+that thinks they're sick when they ain't," announced Mrs. Todd,
+with a truly professional air of finality.  "Come, William, let's
+have Sweet Home, an' then mother'll sing Cupid an' the Bee for us."
+
+Then followed a most charming surprise.  William mastered his
+timidity and began to sing.  His voice was a little faint and
+frail, like the family daguerreotypes, but it was a tenor voice,
+and perfectly true and sweet.  I have never heard Home, Sweet Home
+sung as touchingly and seriously as he sang it; he seemed to
+make it quite new; and when he paused for a moment at the end of
+the first line and began the next, the old mother joined him and
+they sang together, she missing only the higher notes, where he
+seemed to lend his voice to hers for the moment and carry on her
+very note and air.  It was the silent man's real and only means of
+expression, and one could have listened forever, and have asked for
+more and more songs of old Scotch and English inheritance and the
+best that have lived from the ballad music of the war.  Mrs. Todd
+kept time visibly, and sometimes audibly, with her ample foot.  I
+saw the tears in her eyes sometimes, when I could see beyond the
+tears in mine.  But at last the songs ended and the time came to
+say good-by; it was the end of a great pleasure.
+
+Mrs. Blackett, the dear old lady, opened the door of her
+bedroom while Mrs. Todd was tying up the herb bag, and William had
+gone down to get the boat ready and to blow the horn for Johnny
+Bowden, who had joined a roving boat party who were off the shore
+lobstering.
+
+I went to the door of the bedroom, and thought how pleasant it
+looked, with its pink-and-white patchwork quilt and the brown
+unpainted paneling of its woodwork.
+
+"Come right in, dear," she said.  "I want you to set down in
+my old quilted rockin'-chair there by the window; you'll say it's
+the prettiest view in the house.  I set there a good deal to rest
+me and when I want to read."
+
+There was a worn red Bible on the lightstand, and Mrs.
+Blackett's heavy silver-bowed glasses; her thimble was on the
+narrow window-ledge, and folded carefully on the table was a thick
+striped-cotton shirt that she was making for her son.  Those dear
+old fingers and their loving stitches, that heart which had made
+the most of everything that needed love!  Here was the real home,
+the heart of the old house on Green Island!  I sat in the rocking-
+chair, and felt that it was a place of peace, the little brown
+bedroom, and the quiet outlook upon field and sea and sky.
+
+I looked up, and we understood each other without speaking. 
+"I shall like to think o' your settin' here to-day," said Mrs.
+Blackett.  "I want you to come again.  It has been so pleasant for
+William."
+
+The wind served us all the way home, and did not fall or let
+the sail slacken until we were close to the shore.  We had a
+generous freight of lobsters in the boat, and new potatoes which
+William had put aboard, and what Mrs. Todd proudly called a full
+"kag" of prime number one salted mackerel; and when we landed we
+had to make business arrangements to have these conveyed to her
+house in a wheelbarrow.
+
+I never shall forget the day at Green Island.  The town of
+Dunnet Landing seemed large and noisy and oppressive as we came
+ashore.  Such is the power of contrast; for the village was
+so still that I could hear the shy whippoorwills singing that night
+as I lay awake in my downstairs bedroom, and the scent of Mrs.
+Todd's herb garden under the window blew in again and again with
+every gentle rising of the seabreeze.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+
+A Strange Sail
+
+EXCEPT FOR a few stray guests, islanders or from the inland
+country, to whom Mrs. Todd offered the hospitalities of a single
+meal, we were quite by ourselves all summer; and when there were
+signs of invasion, late in July, and a certain Mrs. Fosdick
+appeared like a strange sail on the far horizon, I suffered much
+from apprehension.  I had been living in the quaint little house
+with as much comfort and unconsciousness as if it were a larger
+body, or a double shell, in whose simple convolutions Mrs. Todd and
+I had secreted ourselves, until some wandering hermit crab of a
+visitor marked the little spare room for her own.  Perhaps now and
+then a castaway on a lonely desert island dreads the thought of
+being rescued.  I heard of Mrs. Fosdick for the first time with a
+selfish sense of objection; but after all, I was still vacation-
+tenant of the schoolhouse, where I could always be alone, and it
+was impossible not to sympathize with Mrs. Todd, who, in spite of
+some preliminary grumbling, was really delighted with the prospect
+of entertaining an old friend.
+
+For nearly a month we received occasional news of Mrs.
+Fosdick, who seemed to be making a royal progress from house to
+house in the inland neighborhood, after the fashion of Queen
+Elizabeth.  One Sunday after another came and went, disappointing
+Mrs. Todd in the hope of seeing her guest at church and fixing the
+day for the great visit to begin; but Mrs. Fosdick was not ready to
+commit herself to a date.  An assurance of "some time this week"
+was not sufficiently definite from a free-footed housekeeper's
+point of view, and Mrs. Todd put aside all herb-gathering plans,
+and went through the various stages of expectation, provocation,
+and despair.  At last she was ready to believe that Mrs. Fosdick
+must have forgotten her promise and returned to her home, which was
+vaguely said to be over Thomaston way.  But one evening, just as
+the supper-table was cleared and "readied up," and Mrs. Todd had
+put her large apron over her head and stepped forth for an
+evening stroll in the garden, the unexpected happened.  She heard
+the sound of wheels, and gave an excited cry to me, as I sat by the
+window, that Mrs. Fosdick was coming right up the street.
+
+"She may not be considerate, but she's dreadful good company,"
+said Mrs. Todd hastily, coming back a few steps from the
+neighborhood of the gate.  "No, she ain't a mite considerate, but
+there's a small lobster left over from your tea; yes, it's a real
+mercy there's a lobster.  Susan Fosdick might just as well have
+passed the compliment o' comin' an hour ago."
+
+"Perhaps she has had her supper," I ventured to suggest,
+sharing the housekeeper's anxiety, and meekly conscious of an
+inconsiderate appetite for my own supper after a long expedition up
+the bay.  There were so few emergencies of any sort at Dunnet
+Landing that this one appeared overwhelming.
+
+"No, she's rode 'way over from Nahum Brayton's place.  I
+expect they were busy on the farm, and couldn't spare the horse in
+proper season.  You just sly out an' set the teakittle on again,
+dear, an' drop in a good han'ful o' chips; the fire's all alive. 
+I'll take her right up to lay off her things, as she'll be occupied
+with explanations an' gettin' her bunnit off, so you'll have plenty
+o' time.  She's one I shouldn't like to have find me unprepared."
+
+Mrs. Fosdick was already at the gate, and Mrs. Todd now turned
+with an air of complete surprise and delight to welcome her.
+
+"Why, Susan Fosdick," I heard her exclaim in a fine unhindered
+voice, as if she were calling across a field, "I come near giving
+of you up!  I was afraid you'd gone an' 'portioned out my visit to
+somebody else.  I s'pose you've been to supper?"
+
+"Lor', no, I ain't, Almiry Todd," said Mrs. Fosdick
+cheerfully, as she turned, laden with bags and bundles, from making
+her adieux to the boy driver.  "I ain't had a mite o' supper, dear. 
+I've been lottin' all the way on a cup o' that best tea o' yourn,--
+some o' that Oolong you keep in the little chist.  I don't want
+none o' your useful herbs."
+
+"I keep that tea for ministers' folks," gayly responded Mrs.
+Todd.  "Come right along in, Susan Fosdick.  I declare if you ain't
+the same old sixpence!"
+
+As they came up the walk together, laughing like girls, I
+fled, full of cares, to the kitchen, to brighten the fire and be
+sure that the lobster, sole dependence of a late supper, was well
+out of reach of the cat.  There proved to be fine reserves of wild
+raspberries and bread and butter, so that I regained my composure,
+and waited impatiently for my own share of this illustrious visit
+to begin.  There was an instant sense of high festivity in
+the evening air from the moment when our guest had so frankly
+demanded the Oolong tea.
+
+The great moment arrived.  I was formally presented at the
+stair-foot, and the two friends passed on to the kitchen, where I
+soon heard a hospitable clink of crockery and the brisk stirring of
+a tea-cup.  I sat in my high-backed rocking-chair by the window in
+the front room with an unreasonable feeling of being left out, like
+the child who stood at the gate in Hans Andersen's story.  Mrs.
+Fosdick did not look, at first sight, like a person of great social
+gifts.  She was a serious-looking little bit of an old woman, with
+a birdlike nod of the head.  I had often been told that she was the
+"best hand in the world to make a visit,"--as if to visit were the
+highest of vocations; that everybody wished for her, while few
+could get her; and I saw that Mrs. Todd felt a comfortable sense of
+distinction in being favored with the company of this eminent
+person who "knew just how."  It was certainly true that Mrs.
+Fosdick gave both her hostess and me a warm feeling of enjoyment
+and expectation, as if she had the power of social suggestion to
+all neighboring minds.
+
+The two friends did not reappear for at least an hour.  I
+could hear their busy voices, loud and low by turns, as they ranged
+from public to confidential topics.  At last Mrs. Todd kindly
+remembered me and returned, giving my door a ceremonious knock
+before she stepped in, with the small visitor in her wake.  She
+reached behind her and took Mrs. Fosdick's hand as if she were
+young and bashful, and gave her a gentle pull forward.
+
+"There, I don't know whether you're goin' to take to each
+other or not; no, nobody can't tell whether you'll suit each other,
+but I expect you'll get along some way, both having seen the
+world," said our affectionate hostess.  "You can inform Mis'
+Fosdick how we found the folks out to Green Island the other day. 
+She's always been well acquainted with mother.  I'll slip out now
+an' put away the supper things an' set my bread to rise, if you'll
+both excuse me.  You can come an' keep me company when you get
+ready, either or both."  And Mrs. Todd, large and amiable,
+disappeared and left us.
+
+Being furnished not only with a subject of conversation, but
+with a safe refuge in the kitchen in case of incompatibility, Mrs.
+Fosdick and I sat down, prepared to make the best of each other. 
+I soon discovered that she, like many of the elder women of the
+coast, had spent a part of her life at sea, and was full of a good
+traveler's curiosity and enlightenment.  By the time we thought it
+discreet to join our hostess we were already sincere friends.
+
+You may speak of a visit's setting in as well as a tide's, and
+it was impossible, as Mrs. Todd whispered to me, not to be
+pleased at the way this visit was setting in; a new impulse and
+refreshing of the social currents and seldom visited bays of memory
+appeared to have begun.  Mrs. Fosdick had been the mother of a
+large family of sons and daughters,--sailors and sailors' wives,--
+and most of them had died before her.  I soon grew more or less
+acquainted with the histories of all their fortunes and
+misfortunes, and subjects of an intimate nature were no more
+withheld from my ears than if I had been a shell on the
+mantelpiece.  Mrs. Fosdick was not without a touch of dignity and
+elegance; she was fashionable in her dress, but it was a curiously
+well-preserved provincial fashion of some years back.  In a wider
+sphere one might have called her a woman of the world, with her
+unexpected bits of modern knowledge, but Mrs. Todd's wisdom was an
+intimation of truth itself.  She might belong to any age, like an
+idyl of Theocritus; but while she always understood Mrs. Fosdick,
+that entertaining pilgrim could not always understand Mrs. Todd.
+
+That very first evening my friends plunged into a borderless
+sea of reminiscences and personal news.  Mrs. Fosdick had been
+staying with a family who owned the farm where she was born, and
+she had visited every sunny knoll and shady field corner; but when
+she said that it might be for the last time, I detected in her tone
+something expectant of the contradiction which Mrs. Todd promptly
+offered.
+
+"Almiry," said Mrs. Fosdick, with sadness, "you may say what
+you like, but I am one of nine brothers and sisters brought up on
+the old place, and we're all dead but me."
+
+"Your sister Dailey ain't gone, is she?  Why, no, Louisa ain't
+gone!" exclaimed Mrs. Todd, with surprise.  "Why, I never heard of
+that occurrence!"
+
+"Yes'm; she passed away last October, in Lynn.  She had made
+her distant home in Vermont State, but she was making a visit to
+her youngest daughter.  Louisa was the only one of my family whose
+funeral I wasn't able to attend, but 'twas a mere accident.  All
+the rest of us were settled right about home.  I thought it was
+very slack of 'em in Lynn not to fetch her to the old place; but
+when I came to hear about it, I learned that they'd recently put up
+a very elegant monument, and my sister Dailey was always great for
+show.  She'd just been out to see the monument the week before she
+was taken down, and admired it so much that they felt sure of her
+wishes."
+
+"So she's really gone, and the funeral was up to Lynn!"
+repeated Mrs. Todd, as if to impress the sad fact upon her mind. 
+"She was some years younger than we be, too.  I recollect the first
+day she ever came to school; 'twas that first year mother
+sent me inshore to stay with aunt Topham's folks and get my
+schooling.  You fetched little Louisa to school one Monday mornin'
+in a pink dress an' her long curls, and she set between you an' me,
+and got cryin' after a while, so the teacher sent us home with her
+at recess."
+
+"She was scared of seeing so many children about her; there
+was only her and me and brother John at home then; the older boys
+were to sea with father, an' the rest of us wa'n't born," explained
+Mrs. Fosdick.  "That next fall we all went to sea together.  Mother
+was uncertain till the last minute, as one may say.  The ship was
+waiting orders, but the baby that then was, was born just in time,
+and there was a long spell of extra bad weather, so mother got
+about again before they had to sail, an' we all went.  I remember
+my clothes were all left ashore in the east chamber in a basket
+where mother'd took them out o' my chist o' drawers an' left 'em
+ready to carry aboard.  She didn't have nothing aboard, of her own,
+that she wanted to cut up for me, so when my dress wore out she
+just put me into a spare suit o' John's, jacket and trousers.  I
+wasn't but eight years old an' he was most seven and large of his
+age.  Quick as we made a port she went right ashore an' fitted me
+out pretty, but we was bound for the East Indies and didn't put in
+anywhere for a good while.  So I had quite a spell o' freedom. 
+Mother made my new skirt long because I was growing, and I poked
+about the deck after that, real discouraged, feeling the hem at my
+heels every minute, and as if youth was past and gone.  I liked the
+trousers best; I used to climb the riggin' with 'em and frighten
+mother till she said an' vowed she'd never take me to sea again."
+
+I thought by the polite absent-minded smile on Mrs. Todd's
+face this was no new story.
+
+"Little Louisa was a beautiful child; yes, I always thought
+Louisa was very pretty," Mrs. Todd said.  "She was a dear little
+girl in those days.  She favored your mother; the rest of you took
+after your father's folks."
+
+"We did certain," agreed Mrs. Fosdick, rocking steadily. 
+"There, it does seem so pleasant to talk with an old acquaintance
+that knows what you know.  I see so many of these new folks
+nowadays, that seem to have neither past nor future. 
+Conversation's got to have some root in the past, or else you've
+got to explain every remark you make, an' it wears a person out."
+
+Mrs. Todd gave a funny little laugh.  "Yes'm, old friends is
+always best, 'less you can catch a new one that's fit to make an
+old one out of," she said, and we gave an affectionate glance at
+each other which Mrs. Fosdick could not have understood, being the
+latest comer to the house.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+
+Poor Joanna
+
+ONE EVENING my ears caught a mysterious allusion which Mrs. Todd
+made to Shell-heap Island.  It was a chilly night of cold
+northeasterly rain, and I made a fire for the first time in the
+Franklin stove in my room, and begged my two housemates to come in
+and keep me company.  The weather had convinced Mrs. Todd that it
+was time to make a supply of cough-drops, and she had been bringing
+forth herbs from dark and dry hiding-places, until now the pungent
+dust and odor of them had resolved themselves into one mighty
+flavor of spearmint that came from a simmering caldron of syrup in
+the kitchen.  She called it done, and well done, and had
+ostentatiously left it to cool, and taken her knitting-work because
+Mrs. Fosdick was busy with hers.  They sat in the two rocking-
+chairs, the small woman and the large one, but now and then I could
+see that Mrs. Todd's thoughts remained with the cough-drops.  The
+time of gathering herbs was nearly over, but the time of syrups and
+cordials had begun.
+
+The heat of the open fire made us a little drowsy, but
+something in the way Mrs. Todd spoke of Shell-heap Island waked my
+interest.  I waited to see if she would say any more, and then took
+a roundabout way back to the subject by saying what was first in my
+mind: that I wished the Green Island family were there to spend the
+evening with us,--Mrs. Todd's mother and her brother William.
+
+Mrs. Todd smiled, and drummed on the arm of the rocking-chair. 
+"Might scare William to death," she warned me; and Mrs. Fosdick
+mentioned her intention of going out to Green Island to stay two or
+three days, if the wind didn't make too much sea.
+
+"Where is Shell-heap Island?" I ventured to ask, seizing the
+opportunity.
+
+"Bears nor-east somewheres about three miles from Green
+Island; right off-shore, I should call it about eight miles out,"
+said Mrs. Todd.  "You never was there, dear; 'tis off the
+thoroughfares, and a very bad place to land at best."
+
+"I should think 'twas," agreed Mrs. Fosdick, smoothing down
+her black silk apron.  "'Tis a place worth visitin' when you once
+get there.  Some o' the old folks was kind o' fearful about it. 
+'Twas 'counted a great place in old Indian times; you can
+pick up their stone tools 'most any time if you hunt about. 
+There's a beautiful spring o' water, too.  Yes, I remember when
+they used to tell queer stories about Shell-heap Island.  Some said
+'twas a great bangeing-place for the Indians, and an old chief
+resided there once that ruled the winds; and others said they'd
+always heard that once the Indians come down from up country an'
+left a captive there without any bo't, an' 'twas too far to swim
+across to Black Island, so called, an' he lived there till he
+perished."
+
+"I've heard say he walked the island after that, and sharp-
+sighted folks could see him an' lose him like one o' them citizens
+Cap'n Littlepage was acquainted with up to the north pole,"
+announced Mrs. Todd grimly.  "Anyway, there was Indians--you can
+see their shell-heap that named the island; and I've heard myself
+that 'twas one o' their cannibal places, but I never could believe
+it.  There never was no cannibals on the coast o' Maine.  All the
+Indians o' these regions are tame-looking folks."
+
+"Sakes alive, yes!" exclaimed Mrs. Fosdick.  "Ought to see
+them painted savages I've seen when I was young out in the South
+Sea Islands!  That was the time for folks to travel, 'way back in
+the old whalin' days!"
+
+"Whalin' must have been dull for a lady, hardly ever makin' a
+lively port, and not takin' in any mixed cargoes," said Mrs. Todd. 
+"I never desired to go a whalin' v'y'ge myself."
+
+"I used to return feelin' very slack an' behind the times,
+'tis true," explained Mrs. Fosdick, "but 'twas excitin', an' we
+always done extra well, and felt rich when we did get ashore.  I
+liked the variety.  There, how times have changed; how few
+seafarin' families there are left!  What a lot o' queer folks there
+used to be about here, anyway, when we was young, Almiry. 
+Everybody's just like everybody else, now; nobody to laugh about,
+and nobody to cry about."
+
+It seemed to me that there were peculiarities of character in
+the region of Dunnet Landing yet, but I did not like to interrupt.
+
+"Yes," said Mrs. Todd after a moment of meditation, "there was
+certain a good many curiosities of human natur' in this
+neighborhood years ago.  There was more energy then, and in some
+the energy took a singular turn.  In these days the young folks is
+all copy-cats, 'fraid to death they won't be all just alike; as for
+the old folks, they pray for the advantage o' bein' a little
+different."
+
+"I ain't heard of a copy-cat this great many years," said Mrs.
+Fosdick, laughing; "'twas a favorite term o' my grandfather's.  No,
+I wa'n't thinking o' those things, but of them strange straying
+creatur's that used to rove the country.  You don't see them now,
+or the ones that used to hive away in their own houses with some
+strange notion or other."
+
+I thought again of Captain Littlepage, but my companions were
+not reminded of his name; and there was brother William at Green
+Island, whom we all three knew.
+
+"I was talking o' poor Joanna the other day.  I hadn't thought
+of her for a great while," said Mrs. Fosdick abruptly.  "Mis'
+Brayton an' I recalled her as we sat together sewing.  She was one
+o' your peculiar persons, wa'n't she?  Speaking of such persons,"
+she turned to explain to me, "there was a sort of a nun or hermit
+person lived out there for years all alone on Shell-heap Island. 
+Miss Joanna Todd, her name was,--a cousin o' Almiry's late
+husband."
+
+I expressed my interest, but as I glanced at Mrs. Todd I saw
+that she was confused by sudden affectionate feeling and
+unmistakable desire for reticence.
+
+"I never want to hear Joanna laughed about," she said
+anxiously.
+
+"Nor I," answered Mrs. Fosdick reassuringly.  "She was crossed
+in love,--that was all the matter to begin with; but as I look
+back, I can see that Joanna was one doomed from the first to fall
+into a melancholy.  She retired from the world for good an' all,
+though she was a well-off woman.  All she wanted was to get away
+from folks; she thought she wasn't fit to live with anybody, and
+wanted to be free.  Shell-heap Island come to her from her father,
+and first thing folks knew she'd gone off out there to live, and
+left word she didn't want no company.  'Twas a bad place to get to,
+unless the wind an' tide were just right; 'twas hard work to make
+a landing."
+
+"What time of year was this?" I asked.
+
+"Very late in the summer," said Mrs. Fosdick.  "No, I never
+could laugh at Joanna, as some did.  She set everything by the
+young man, an' they were going to marry in about a month, when he
+got bewitched with a girl 'way up the bay, and married her, and
+went off to Massachusetts.  He wasn't well thought of,--there were
+those who thought Joanna's money was what had tempted him; but
+she'd given him her whole heart, an' she wa'n't so young as she had
+been.  All her hopes were built on marryin', an' havin' a real home
+and somebody to look to; she acted just like a bird when its nest
+is spoilt.  The day after she heard the news she was in dreadful
+woe, but the next she came to herself very quiet, and took the
+horse and wagon, and drove fourteen miles to the lawyer's, and
+signed a paper givin' her half of the farm to her brother.  They
+never had got along very well together, but he didn't want to sign
+it, till she acted so distressed that he gave in.  Edward Todd's
+wife was a good woman, who felt very bad indeed, and used every
+argument with Joanna; but Joanna took a poor old boat that had been
+her father's and lo'ded in a few things, and off she put all
+alone, with a good land breeze, right out to sea.  Edward Todd ran
+down to the beach, an' stood there cryin' like a boy to see her go,
+but she was out o' hearin'.  She never stepped foot on the mainland
+again long as she lived."
+
+"How large an island is it?  How did she manage in winter?" I
+asked.
+
+"Perhaps thirty acres, rocks and all," answered Mrs. Todd,
+taking up the story gravely.  "There can't be much of it that the
+salt spray don't fly over in storms.  No, 'tis a dreadful small
+place to make a world of; it has a different look from any of the
+other islands, but there's a sheltered cove on the south side, with
+mud-flats across one end of it at low water where there's excellent
+clams, and the big shell-heap keeps some o' the wind off a little
+house her father took the trouble to build when he was a young man. 
+They said there was an old house built o' logs there before that,
+with a kind of natural cellar in the rock under it.  He used to
+stay out there days to a time, and anchor a little sloop he had,
+and dig clams to fill it, and sail up to Portland.  They said the
+dealers always gave him an extra price, the clams were so noted. 
+Joanna used to go out and stay with him.  They were always great
+companions, so she knew just what 'twas out there.  There was a few
+sheep that belonged to her brother an' her, but she bargained for
+him to come and get them on the edge o' cold weather.  Yes, she
+desired him to come for the sheep; an' his wife thought perhaps
+Joanna'd return, but he said no, an' lo'ded the bo't with warm
+things an' what he thought she'd need through the winter.  He come
+home with the sheep an' left the other things by the house, but she
+never so much as looked out o' the window.  She done it for a
+penance.  She must have wanted to see Edward by that time."
+
+Mrs. Fosdick was fidgeting with eagerness to speak.
+
+"Some thought the first cold snap would set her ashore, but
+she always remained," concluded Mrs. Todd soberly.
+
+"Talk about the men not having any curiosity!" exclaimed Mrs.
+Fosdick scornfully.  "Why, the waters round Shell-heap Island were
+white with sails all that fall.  'Twas never called no great of a
+fishin'-ground before.  Many of 'em made excuse to go ashore to get
+water at the spring; but at last she spoke to a bo't-load, very
+dignified and calm, and said that she'd like it better if they'd
+make a practice of getting water to Black Island or somewheres else
+and leave her alone, except in case of accident or trouble.  But
+there was one man who had always set everything by her from a boy. 
+He'd have married her if the other hadn't come about an' spoilt his
+chance, and he used to get close to the island, before light, on
+his way out fishin', and throw a little bundle way up the green
+slope front o' the house.  His sister told me she happened to see,
+the first time, what a pretty choice he made o' useful
+things that a woman would feel lost without.  He stood off fishin',
+and could see them in the grass all day, though sometimes she'd
+come out and walk right by them.  There was other bo'ts near, out
+after mackerel.  But early next morning his present was gone.  He
+didn't presume too much, but once he took her a nice firkin o'
+things he got up to Portland, and when spring come he landed her a
+hen and chickens in a nice little coop.  There was a good many old
+friends had Joanna on their minds."
+
+"Yes," said Mrs. Todd, losing her sad reserve in the growing
+sympathy of these reminiscences.  "How everybody used to notice
+whether there was smoke out of the chimney!  The Black Island folks
+could see her with their spy-glass, and if they'd ever missed
+getting some sign o' life they'd have sent notice to her folks. 
+But after the first year or two Joanna was more and more forgotten
+as an every-day charge.  Folks lived very simple in those days, you
+know," she continued, as Mrs. Fosdick's knitting was taking much
+thought at the moment.  "I expect there was always plenty of
+driftwood thrown up, and a poor failin' patch of spruces covered
+all the north side of the island, so she always had something to
+burn.  She was very fond of workin' in the garden ashore, and that
+first summer she began to till the little field out there, and
+raised a nice parcel o' potatoes.  She could fish, o' course, and
+there was all her clams an' lobsters.  You can always live well in
+any wild place by the sea when you'd starve to death up country,
+except 'twas berry time.  Joanna had berries out there,
+blackberries at least, and there was a few herbs in case she needed
+them.  Mullein in great quantities and a plant o' wormwood I
+remember seeing once when I stayed there, long before she fled out
+to Shell-heap.  Yes, I recall the wormwood, which is always a
+planted herb, so there must have been folks there before the Todds'
+day.  A growin' bush makes the best gravestone; I expect that
+wormwood always stood for somebody's solemn monument.  Catnip, too,
+is a very endurin' herb about an old place."
+
+"But what I want to know is what she did for other things,"
+interrupted Mrs. Fosdick.  "Almiry, what did she do for clothin'
+when she needed to replenish, or risin' for her bread, or the
+piece-bag that no woman can live long without?"
+
+"Or company," suggested Mrs. Todd.  "Joanna was one that loved
+her friends.  There must have been a terrible sight o' long winter
+evenin's that first year."
+
+"There was her hens," suggested Mrs. Fosdick, after reviewing
+the melancholy situation.  "She never wanted the sheep after that
+first season.  There wa'n't no proper pasture for sheep after the
+June grass was past, and she ascertained the fact and couldn't bear
+to see them suffer; but the chickens done well.  I remember
+sailin' by one spring afternoon, an' seein' the coops out front o'
+the house in the sun.  How long was it before you went out with the
+minister?  You were the first ones that ever really got ashore to
+see Joanna."
+
+I had been reflecting upon a state of society which admitted
+such personal freedom and a voluntary hermitage.  There was
+something mediaeval in the behavior of poor Joanna Todd under a
+disappointment of the heart.  The two women had drawn closer
+together, and were talking on, quite unconscious of a listener.
+
+"Poor Joanna!" said Mrs. Todd again, and sadly shook her head
+as if there were things one could not speak about.
+
+"I called her a great fool," declared Mrs. Fosdick, with
+spirit, "but I pitied her then, and I pity her far more now.  Some
+other minister would have been a great help to her,--one that
+preached self-forgetfulness and doin' for others to cure our own
+ills; but Parson Dimmick was a vague person, well meanin', but very
+numb in his feelin's.  I don't suppose at that troubled time Joanna
+could think of any way to mend her troubles except to run off and
+hide."
+
+"Mother used to say she didn't see how Joanna lived without
+having nobody to do for, getting her own meals and tending her own
+poor self day in an' day out," said Mrs. Todd sorrowfully.
+
+"There was the hens," repeated Mrs. Fosdick kindly.  "I expect
+she soon came to makin' folks o' them.  No, I never went to work to
+blame Joanna, as some did.  She was full o' feeling, and her
+troubles hurt her more than she could bear.  I see it all now as I
+couldn't when I was young."
+
+"I suppose in old times they had their shut-up convents for
+just such folks," said Mrs. Todd, as if she and her friend had
+disagreed about Joanna once, and were now in happy harmony.  She
+seemed to speak with new openness and freedom.  "Oh yes, I was only
+too pleased when the Reverend Mr. Dimmick invited me to go out with
+him.  He hadn't been very long in the place when Joanna left home
+and friends.  'Twas one day that next summer after she went, and I
+had been married early in the spring.  He felt that he ought to go
+out and visit her.  She was a member of the church, and might wish
+to have him consider her spiritual state.  I wa'n't so sure o'
+that, but I always liked Joanna, and I'd come to be her cousin by
+marriage.  Nathan an' I had conversed about goin' out to pay her a
+visit, but he got his chance to sail sooner'n he expected.  He
+always thought everything of her, and last time he come home,
+knowing nothing of her change, he brought her a beautiful coral pin
+from a port he'd touched at somewheres up the Mediterranean.  So I
+wrapped the little box in a nice piece of paper and put it
+in my pocket, and picked her a bunch of fresh lemon balm, and off
+we started."
+
+Mrs. Fosdick laughed.  "I remember hearin' about your trials
+on the v'y'ge," she said."
+
+"Why, yes," continued Mrs. Todd in her company manner.  "I
+picked her the balm, an' we started.  Why, yes, Susan, the minister
+liked to have cost me my life that day.  He would fasten the sheet,
+though I advised against it.  He said the rope was rough an' cut
+his hand.  There was a fresh breeze, an' he went on talking rather
+high flown, an' I felt some interested.  All of a sudden there come
+up a gust, and he gave a screech and stood right up and called for
+help, 'way out there to sea.  I knocked him right over into the
+bottom o' the bo't, getting by to catch hold of the sheet an' untie
+it.  He wasn't but a little man; I helped him right up after the
+squall passed, and made a handsome apology to him, but he did act
+kind o' offended."
+
+"I do think they ought not to settle them landlocked folks in
+parishes where they're liable to be on the water," insisted Mrs.
+Fosdick.  "Think of the families in our parish that was scattered
+all about the bay, and what a sight o' sails you used to see, in
+Mr. Dimmick's day, standing across to the mainland on a pleasant
+Sunday morning, filled with church-going folks, all sure to want
+him some time or other!  You couldn't find no doctor that would
+stand up in the boat and screech if a flaw struck her."
+
+"Old Dr. Bennett had a beautiful sailboat, didn't he?"
+responded Mrs. Todd.  "And how well he used to brave the weather! 
+Mother always said that in time o' trouble that tall white sail
+used to look like an angel's wing comin' over the sea to them that
+was in pain.  Well, there's a difference in gifts.  Mr. Dimmick was
+not without light."
+
+"'Twas light o' the moon, then," snapped Mrs. Fosdick; "he was
+pompous enough, but I never could remember a single word he said. 
+There, go on, Mis' Todd; I forget a great deal about that day you
+went to see poor Joanna."
+
+"I felt she saw us coming, and knew us a great way off; yes,
+I seemed to feel it within me," said our friend, laying down her
+knitting.  "I kept my seat, and took the bo't inshore without
+saying a word; there was a short channel that I was sure Mr.
+Dimmick wasn't acquainted with, and the tide was very low.  She
+never came out to warn us off nor anything, and I thought, as I
+hauled the bo't up on a wave and let the Reverend Mr. Dimmick step
+out, that it was somethin' gained to be safe ashore.  There was a
+little smoke out o' the chimney o' Joanna's house, and it did look
+sort of homelike and pleasant with wild mornin'-glory vines trained
+up; an' there was a plot o' flowers under the front window,
+portulacas and things.  I believe she'd made a garden once,
+when she was stopping there with her father, and some things must
+have seeded in.  It looked as if she might have gone over to the
+other side of the island.  'Twas neat and pretty all about the
+house, and a lovely day in July.  We walked up from the beach
+together very sedate, and I felt for poor Nathan's little pin to
+see if 'twas safe in my dress pocket.  All of a sudden Joanna come
+right to the fore door and stood there, not sayin' a word."
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+
+The Hermitage
+
+MY COMPANION and I had been so intent upon the subject of the
+conversation that we had not heard any one open the gate, but at
+this moment, above the noise of the rain, we heard a loud knocking. 
+We were all startled as we sat by the fire, and Mrs. Todd rose
+hastily and went to answer the call, leaving her rocking-chair in
+violent motion.  Mrs. Fosdick and I heard an anxious voice at the
+door speaking of a sick child, and Mrs. Todd's kind, motherly voice
+inviting the messenger in: then we waited in silence.  There was a
+sound of heavy dropping of rain from the eaves, and the distant
+roar and undertone of the sea.  My thoughts flew back to the lonely
+woman on her outer island; what separation from humankind she must
+have felt, what terror and sadness, even in a summer storm like
+this!
+
+"You send right after the doctor if she ain't better in half
+an hour," said Mrs. Todd to her worried customer as they parted;
+and I felt a warm sense of comfort in the evident resources of even
+so small a neighborhood, but for the poor hermit Joanna there was
+no neighbor on a winter night.
+
+
+"How did she look?" demanded Mrs. Fosdick, without preface, as
+our large hostess returned to the little room with a mist about her
+from standing long in the wet doorway, and the sudden draught of
+her coming beat out the smoke and flame from the Franklin stove. 
+"How did poor Joanna look?"
+
+"She was the same as ever, except I thought she looked
+smaller," answered Mrs. Todd after thinking a moment; perhaps it
+was only a last considering thought about her patient. 
+"Yes, she was just the same, and looked very nice, Joanna did.  I
+had been married since she left home, an' she treated me like her
+own folks.  I expected she'd look strange, with her hair turned
+gray in a night or somethin', but she wore a pretty gingham dress
+I'd often seen her wear before she went away; she must have kept it
+nice for best in the afternoons.  She always had beautiful, quiet
+manners.  I remember she waited till we were close to her, and then
+kissed me real affectionate, and inquired for Nathan before she
+shook hands with the minister, and then she invited us both in. 
+'Twas the same little house her father had built him when he was a
+bachelor, with one livin'-room, and a little mite of a bedroom out
+of it where she slept, but 'twas neat as a ship's cabin.  There was
+some old chairs, an' a seat made of a long box that might have held
+boat tackle an' things to lock up in his fishin' days, and a good
+enough stove so anybody could cook and keep warm in cold weather. 
+I went over once from home and stayed 'most a week with Joanna when
+we was girls, and those young happy days rose up before me.  Her
+father was busy all day fishin' or clammin'; he was one o' the
+pleasantest men in the world, but Joanna's mother had the grim
+streak, and never knew what 'twas to be happy.  The first minute my
+eyes fell upon Joanna's face that day I saw how she had grown to
+look like Mis' Todd.  'Twas the mother right over again."
+
+"Oh dear me!" said Mrs. Fosdick.
+
+"Joanna had done one thing very pretty.  There was a little
+piece o' swamp on the island where good rushes grew plenty, and
+she'd gathered 'em, and braided some beautiful mats for the floor
+and a thick cushion for the long bunk.  She'd showed a good deal of
+invention; you see there was a nice chance to pick up pieces o'
+wood and boards that drove ashore, and she'd made good use o' what
+she found.  There wasn't no clock, but she had a few dishes on a
+shelf, and flowers set about in shells fixed to the walls, so it
+did look sort of homelike, though so lonely and poor.  I couldn't
+keep the tears out o' my eyes, I felt so sad.  I said to myself, I
+must get mother to come over an' see Joanna; the love in mother's
+heart would warm her, an' she might be able to advise."
+
+"Oh no, Joanna was dreadful stern," said Mrs. Fosdick.
+
+"We were all settin' down very proper, but Joanna would keep
+stealin' glances at me as if she was glad I come.  She had but
+little to say; she was real polite an' gentle, and yet forbiddin'. 
+The minister found it hard," confessed Mrs. Todd; "he got
+embarrassed, an' when he put on his authority and asked her if she
+felt to enjoy religion in her present situation, an' she replied
+that she must be excused from answerin', I thought I should fly. 
+She might have made it easier for him; after all, he was the
+minister and had taken some trouble to come out, though 'twas kind
+of cold an' unfeelin' the way he inquired.  I thought he might have
+seen the little old Bible a-layin' on the shelf close by him, an'
+I wished he knew enough to just lay his hand on it an' read
+somethin' kind an' fatherly 'stead of accusin' her, an' then given
+poor Joanna his blessin' with the hope she might be led to comfort. 
+He did offer prayer, but 'twas all about hearin' the voice o' God
+out o' the whirlwind; and I thought while he was goin' on that
+anybody that had spent the long cold winter all alone out on Shell-
+heap Island knew a good deal more about those things than he did. 
+I got so provoked I opened my eyes and stared right at him.
+
+"She didn't take no notice, she kep' a nice respectful manner
+towards him, and when there come a pause she asked if he had any
+interest about the old Indian remains, and took down some queer
+stone gouges and hammers off of one of her shelves and showed them
+to him same's if he was a boy.  He remarked that he'd like to walk
+over an' see the shell-heap; so she went right to the door and
+pointed him the way.  I see then that she'd made her some kind o'
+sandal-shoes out o' the fine rushes to wear on her feet; she
+stepped light an' nice in 'em as shoes."
+
+Mrs. Fosdick leaned back in her rocking-chair and gave a heavy
+sigh.
+
+"I didn't move at first, but I'd held out just as long as I
+could," said Mrs. Todd, whose voice trembled a little.  "When
+Joanna returned from the door, an' I could see that man's stupid
+back departin' among the wild rose bushes, I just ran to her an'
+caught her in my arms.  I wasn't so big as I be now, and she was
+older than me, but I hugged her tight, just as if she was a child. 
+'Oh, Joanna dear,' I says, 'won't you come ashore an' live 'long o'
+me at the Landin', or go over to Green Island to mother's when
+winter comes?  Nobody shall trouble you an' mother finds it hard
+bein' alone.  I can't bear to leave you here'--and I burst right
+out crying.  I'd had my own trials, young as I was, an' she knew
+it.  Oh, I did entreat her; yes, I entreated Joanna."
+
+"What did she say then?" asked Mrs. Fosdick, much moved.
+
+"She looked the same way, sad an' remote through it all," said
+Mrs. Todd mournfully.  "She took hold of my hand, and we sat down
+close together; 'twas as if she turned round an' made a child of
+me.  'I haven't got no right to live with folks no more,' she said. 
+'You must never ask me again, Almiry: I've done the only thing I
+could do, and I've made my choice.  I feel a great comfort in your
+kindness, but I don't deserve it.  I have committed the
+unpardonable sin; you don't understand,' says she humbly.  'I was
+in great wrath and trouble, and my thoughts was so wicked towards
+God that I can't expect ever to be forgiven.  I have come to
+know what it is to have patience, but I have lost my hope.  You
+must tell those that ask how 'tis with me,' she said, 'an' tell
+them I want to be alone.'  I couldn't speak; no, there wa'n't
+anything I could say, she seemed so above everything common.  I was
+a good deal younger then than I be now, and I got Nathan's little
+coral pin out o' my pocket and put it into her hand; and when she
+saw it and I told her where it come from, her face did really light
+up for a minute, sort of bright an' pleasant.  'Nathan an' I was
+always good friends; I'm glad he don't think hard of me,' says she. 
+'I want you to have it, Almiry, an' wear it for love o' both o'
+us,' and she handed it back to me.  'You give my love to Nathan,--
+he's a dear good man,' she said; 'an' tell your mother, if I should
+be sick she mustn't wish I could get well, but I want her to be the
+one to come.'  Then she seemed to have said all she wanted to, as
+if she was done with the world, and we sat there a few minutes
+longer together.  It was real sweet and quiet except for a good
+many birds and the sea rollin' up on the beach; but at last she
+rose, an' I did too, and she kissed me and held my hand in hers a
+minute, as if to say good-by; then she turned and went right away
+out o' the door and disappeared.
+
+"The minister come back pretty soon, and I told him I was all
+ready, and we started down to the bo't.  He had picked up some
+round stones and things and was carrying them in his pocket-
+handkerchief; an' he sat down amidships without making any
+question, and let me take the rudder an' work the bo't, an' made no
+remarks for some time, until we sort of eased it off speaking of
+the weather, an' subjects that arose as we skirted Black Island,
+where two or three families lived belongin' to the parish.  He
+preached next Sabbath as usual, somethin' high soundin' about the
+creation, and I couldn't help thinkin' he might never get no
+further; he seemed to know no remedies, but he had a great use of
+words."
+
+Mrs. Fosdick sighed again.  "Hearin' you tell about Joanna
+brings the time right back as if 'twas yesterday," she said.  "Yes,
+she was one o' them poor things that talked about the great sin; we
+don't seem to hear nothing about the unpardonable sin now, but you
+may say 'twas not uncommon then."
+
+"I expect that if it had been in these days, such a person
+would be plagued to death with idle folks," continued Mrs. Todd,
+after a long pause.  "As it was, nobody trespassed on her; all the
+folks about the bay respected her an' her feelings; but as time
+wore on, after you left here, one after another ventured to make
+occasion to put somethin' ashore for her if they went that way.  I
+know mother used to go to see her sometimes, and send William over
+now and then with something fresh an' nice from the farm. 
+There is a point on the sheltered side where you can lay a boat
+close to shore an' land anything safe on the turf out o' reach o'
+the water.  There were one or two others, old folks, that she would
+see, and now an' then she'd hail a passin' boat an' ask for
+somethin'; and mother got her to promise that she would make some
+sign to the Black Island folks if she wanted help.  I never saw her
+myself to speak to after that day."
+
+"I expect nowadays, if such a thing happened, she'd have gone
+out West to her uncle's folks or up to Massachusetts and had a
+change, an' come home good as new.  The world's bigger an' freer
+than it used to be," urged Mrs. Fosdick.
+
+"No," said her friend.  "'Tis like bad eyesight, the mind of
+such a person: if your eyes don't see right there may be a remedy,
+but there's no kind of glasses to remedy the mind.  No, Joanna was
+Joanna, and there she lays on her island where she lived and did
+her poor penance.  She told mother the day she was dyin' that she
+always used to want to be fetched inshore when it come to the last;
+but she'd thought it over, and desired to be laid on the island, if
+'twas thought right.  So the funeral was out there, a Saturday
+afternoon in September.  'Twas a pretty day, and there wa'n't
+hardly a boat on the coast within twenty miles that didn't head for
+Shell-heap cram-full o' folks an' all real respectful, same's if
+she'd always stayed ashore and held her friends.  Some went out o'
+mere curiosity, I don't doubt,--there's always such to every
+funeral; but most had real feelin', and went purpose to show it. 
+She'd got most o' the wild sparrows as tame as could be, livin' out
+there so long among 'em, and one flew right in and lit on the
+coffin an' begun to sing while Mr. Dimmick was speakin'.  He was
+put out by it, an' acted as if he didn't know whether to stop or go
+on.  I may have been prejudiced, but I wa'n't the only one thought
+the poor little bird done the best of the two."
+
+"What became o' the man that treated her so, did you ever
+hear?" asked Mrs. Fosdick.  "I know he lived up to Massachusetts
+for a while.  Somebody who came from the same place told me that he
+was in trade there an' doin' very well, but that was years ago."
+
+"I never heard anything more than that; he went to the war in
+one o' the early regiments.  No, I never heard any more of him,"
+answered Mrs. Todd.  "Joanna was another sort of person, and
+perhaps he showed good judgment in marryin' somebody else, if only
+he'd behaved straight-forward and manly.  He was a shifty-eyed,
+coaxin' sort of man, that got what he wanted out o' folks, an' only
+gave when he wanted to buy, made friends easy and lost 'em without
+knowin' the difference.  She'd had a piece o' work tryin' to make
+him walk accordin' to her right ideas, but she'd have had
+too much variety ever to fall into a melancholy.  Some is meant to
+be the Joannas in this world, an' 'twas her poor lot."
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+
+On Shell-heap Island
+
+SOME TIME AFTER Mrs. Fosdick's visit was over and we had returned
+to our former quietness, I was out sailing alone with Captain
+Bowden in his large boat.  We were taking the crooked northeasterly
+channel seaward, and were well out from shore while it was still
+early in the afternoon.  I found myself presently among some
+unfamiliar islands, and suddenly remembered the story of poor
+Joanna.  There is something in the fact of a hermitage that cannot
+fail to touch the imagination; the recluses are a sad kindred, but
+they are never commonplace.  Mrs. Todd had truly said that Joanna
+was like one of the saints in the desert; the loneliness of sorrow
+will forever keep alive their sad succession.
+
+"Where is Shell-heap Island?" I asked eagerly.
+
+"You see Shell-heap now, layin' 'way out beyond Black Island
+there," answered the captain, pointing with outstretched arm as he
+stood, and holding the rudder with his knee.
+
+"I should like very much to go there," said I, and the
+captain, without comment, changed his course a little more to the
+eastward and let the reef out of his mainsail.
+
+"I don't know's we can make an easy landin' for ye," he
+remarked doubtfully.  "May get your feet wet; bad place to land. 
+Trouble is I ought to have brought a tag-boat; but they clutch on
+to the water so, an' I do love to sail free.  This gre't boat gets
+easy bothered with anything trailin'.  'Tain't breakin' much on the
+meetin'-house ledges; guess I can fetch in to Shell-heap."
+
+"How long is it since Miss Joanna Todd died?" I asked, partly
+by way of explanation.
+
+"Twenty-two years come September," answered the captain, after
+reflection.  "She died the same year as my oldest boy was born, an'
+the town house was burnt over to the Port.  I didn't know but you
+merely wanted to hunt for some o' them Indian relics.  Long's you
+want to see where Joanna lived--No, 'tain't breakin' over
+the ledges; we'll manage to fetch across the shoals somehow, 'tis
+such a distance to go 'way round, and tide's a-risin'," he ended
+hopefully, and we sailed steadily on, the captain speechless with
+intent watching of a difficult course, until the small island with
+its low whitish promontory lay in full view before us under the
+bright afternoon sun.
+
+The month was August, and I had seen the color of the islands
+change from the fresh green of June to a sunburnt brown that made
+them look like stone, except where the dark green of the spruces
+and fir balsam kept the tint that even winter storms might deepen,
+but not fade.  The few wind-bent trees on Shell-heap Island were
+mostly dead and gray, but there were some low-growing bushes, and
+a stripe of light green ran along just above the shore, which I
+knew to be wild morning-glories.  As we came close I could see the
+high stone walls of a small square field, though there were no
+sheep left to assail it; and below, there was a little harbor-like
+cove where Captain Bowden was boldly running the great boat in to
+seek a landing-place.  There was a crooked channel of deep water
+which led close up against the shore.
+
+"There, you hold fast for'ard there, an' wait for her to lift
+on the wave.  You'll make a good landin' if you're smart; right on
+the port-hand side!" the captain called excitedly; and I, standing
+ready with high ambition, seized my chance and leaped over to the
+grassy bank.
+
+"I'm beat if I ain't aground after all!" mourned the captain
+despondently.
+
+But I could reach the bowsprit, and he pushed with the boat-
+hook, while the wind veered round a little as if on purpose and
+helped with the sail; so presently the boat was free and began to
+drift out from shore.
+
+"Used to call this p'int Joanna's wharf privilege, but 't has
+worn away in the weather since her time.  I thought one or two
+bumps wouldn't hurt us none,--paint's got to be renewed, anyway,--
+but I never thought she'd tetch.  I figured on shyin' by," the
+captain apologized.  "She's too gre't a boat to handle well in
+here; but I used to sort of shy by in Joanna's day, an' cast a
+little somethin' ashore--some apples or a couple o' pears if I had
+'em--on the grass, where she'd be sure to see."
+
+I stood watching while Captain Bowden cleverly found his way
+back to deeper water.  "You needn't make no haste," he called to
+me; "I'll keep within call.  Joanna lays right up there in the far
+corner o' the field.  There used to be a path led to the place.  I
+always knew her well.  I was out here to the funeral."
+
+I found the path; it was touching to discover that this lonely
+spot was not without its pilgrims.  Later generations will know
+less and less of Joanna herself, but there are paths trodden to the
+shrines of solitude the world over,--the world cannot forget
+them, try as it may; the feet of the young find them out because of
+curiosity and dim foreboding; while the old bring hearts full of
+remembrance.  This plain anchorite had been one of those whom
+sorrow made too lonely to brave the sight of men, too timid to
+front the simple world she knew, yet valiant enough to live alone
+with her poor insistent human nature and the calms and passions of
+the sea and sky.
+
+The birds were flying all about the field; they fluttered up
+out of the grass at my feet as I walked along, so tame that I liked
+to think they kept some happy tradition from summer to summer of
+the safety of nests and good fellowship of mankind.  Poor Joanna's
+house was gone except the stones of its foundations, and there was
+little trace of her flower garden except a single faded sprig of
+much-enduring French pinks, which a great bee and a yellow
+butterfly were befriending together.  I drank at the spring, and
+thought that now and then some one would follow me from the busy,
+hard-worked, and simple-thoughted countryside of the mainland,
+which lay dim and dreamlike in the August haze, as Joanna must have
+watched it many a day.  There was the world, and here was she with
+eternity well begun.  In the life of each of us, I said to myself,
+there is a place remote and islanded, and given to endless regret
+or secret happiness; we are each the uncompanioned hermit and
+recluse of an hour or a day; we understand our fellows of the cell
+to whatever age of history they may belong.
+
+But as I stood alone on the island, in the sea-breeze,
+suddenly there came a sound of distant voices; gay voices and
+laughter from a pleasure-boat that was going seaward full of boys
+and girls.  I knew, as if she had told me, that poor Joanna must
+have heard the like on many and many a summer afternoon, and must
+have welcomed the good cheer in spite of hopelessness and winter
+weather, and all the sorrow and disappointment in the world.
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+
+The Great Expedition
+
+MRS. TODD never by any chance gave warning over night of her great
+projects and adventures by sea and land.  She first came to an
+understanding with the primal forces of nature, and never trusted
+to any preliminary promise of good weather, but examined the
+day for herself in its infancy.  Then, if the stars were
+propitious, and the wind blew from a quarter of good inheritance
+whence no surprises of sea-turns or southwest sultriness might be
+feared, long before I was fairly awake I used to hear a rustle and
+knocking like a great mouse in the walls, and an impatient tread on
+the steep garret stairs that led to Mrs. Todd's chief place of
+storage.  She went and came as if she had already started on her
+expedition with utmost haste and kept returning for something that
+was forgotten.  When I appeared in quest of my breakfast, she would
+be absent-minded and sparing of speech, as if I had displeased her,
+and she was now, by main force of principle, holding herself back
+from altercation and strife of tongues.
+
+These signs of a change became familiar to me in the course of
+time, and Mrs. Todd hardly noticed some plain proofs of divination
+one August morning when I said, without preface, that I had just
+seen the Beggs' best chaise go by, and that we should have to take
+the grocery.  Mrs. Todd was alert in a moment.
+
+"There!  I might have known!" she exclaimed.  "It's the 15th
+of August, when he goes and gets his money.  He heired an annuity
+from an uncle o' his on his mother's side.  I understood the uncle
+said none o' Sam Begg's wife's folks should make free with it, so
+after Sam's gone it'll all be past an' spent, like last summer. 
+That's what Sam prospers on now, if you can call it prosperin'. 
+Yes, I might have known.  'Tis the 15th o' August with him, an' he
+gener'ly stops to dinner with a cousin's widow on the way home. 
+Feb'uary n' August is the times.  Takes him 'bout all day to go an'
+come."
+
+I heard this explanation with interest.  The tone of Mrs.
+Todd's voice was complaining at the last.
+
+"I like the grocery just as well as the chaise," I hastened to
+say, referring to a long-bodied high wagon with a canopy-top, like
+an attenuated four-posted bedstead on wheels, in which we sometimes
+journeyed.  "We can put things in behind--roots and flowers and
+raspberries, or anything you are going after--much better than if
+we had the chaise."
+
+Mrs. Todd looked stony and unwilling.  "I counted upon the
+chaise," she said, turning her back to me, and roughly pushing back
+all the quiet tumblers on the cupboard shelf as if they had been
+impertinent.  "Yes, I desired the chaise for once.  I ain't goin'
+berryin' nor to fetch home no more wilted vegetation this year. 
+Season's about past, except for a poor few o' late things," she
+added in a milder tone.  "I'm goin' up country.  No, I ain't
+intendin' to go berryin'.  I've been plottin' for it the past
+fortnight and hopin' for a good day."
+
+"Would you like to have me go too?" I asked frankly, but not
+without a humble fear that I might have mistaken the purpose of
+this latest plan.
+
+"Oh certain, dear!" answered my friend affectionately.  "Oh
+no, I never thought o' any one else for comp'ny, if it's convenient
+for you, long's poor mother ain't come.  I ain't nothin' like so
+handy with a conveyance as I be with a good bo't.  Comes o' my
+early bringing-up.  I expect we've got to make that great high
+wagon do.  The tires want settin' and 'tis all loose-jointed, so I
+can hear it shackle the other side o' the ridge.  We'll put the
+basket in front.  I ain't goin' to have it bouncin' an' twirlin'
+all the way.  Why, I've been makin' some nice hearts and rounds to
+carry."
+
+These were signs of high festivity, and my interest deepened
+moment by moment.
+
+"I'll go down to the Beggs' and get the horse just as soon as
+I finish my breakfast," said I.  "Then we can start whenever you
+are ready."
+
+Mrs. Todd looked cloudy again.  "I don't know but you look
+nice enough to go just as you be," she suggested doubtfully.  "No,
+you wouldn't want to wear that pretty blue dress o' yourn 'way up
+country.  'Taint dusty now, but it may be comin' home.  No, I
+expect you'd rather not wear that and the other hat."
+
+"Oh yes.  I shouldn't think of wearing these clothes," said I,
+with sudden illumination.  "Why, if we're going up country and are
+likely to see some of your friends, I'll put on my blue dress, and
+you must wear your watch; I am not going at all if you mean to wear
+the big hat."
+
+"Now you're behavin' pretty," responded Mrs. Todd, with a gay
+toss of her head and a cheerful smile, as she came across the room,
+bringing a saucerful of wild raspberries, a pretty piece of salvage
+from supper-time.  "I was cast down when I see you come to
+breakfast.  I didn't think 'twas just what you'd select to wear to
+the reunion, where you're goin' to meet everybody."
+
+"What reunion do you mean?" I asked, not without amazement. 
+"Not the Bowden Family's?  I thought that was going to take place
+in September."
+
+"To-day's the day.  They sent word the middle o' the week.  I
+thought you might have heard of it.  Yes, they changed the day.  I
+been thinkin' we'd talk it over, but you never can tell beforehand
+how it's goin' to be, and 'taint worth while to wear a day all out
+before it comes."  Mrs. Todd gave no place to the pleasures of
+anticipation, but she spoke like the oracle that she was.  "I wish
+mother was here to go," she continued sadly.  "I did look for her
+last night, and I couldn't keep back the tears when the dark really
+fell and she wa'n't here, she does so enjoy a great occasion.  If
+William had a mite o' snap an' ambition, he'd take the lead
+at such a time.  Mother likes variety, and there ain't but a few
+nice opportunities 'round here, an' them she has to miss 'less she
+contrives to get ashore to me.  I do re'lly hate to go to the
+reunion without mother, an' 'tis a beautiful day; everybody'll be
+asking where she is.  Once she'd have got here anyway.  Poor
+mother's beginnin' to feel her age."
+
+"Why, there's your mother now!" I exclaimed with joy, I was so
+glad to see the dear old soul again.  "I hear her voice at the
+gate."  But Mrs. Todd was out of the door before me.
+
+There, sure enough, stood Mrs. Blackett, who must have left
+Green Island before daylight.  She had climbed the steep road from
+the waterside so eagerly that she was out of breath, and was
+standing by the garden fence to rest.  She held an old-fashioned
+brown wicker cap-basket in her hand, as if visiting were a thing of
+every day, and looked up at us as pleased and triumphant as a
+child.
+
+"Oh, what a poor, plain garden!  Hardly a flower in it except
+your bush o' balm!" she said.  "But you do keep your garden neat,
+Almiry.  Are you both well, an' goin' up country with me?"  She
+came a step or two closer to meet us, with quaint politeness and
+quite as delightful as if she were at home.  She dropped a quick
+little curtsey before Mrs. Todd.
+
+"There, mother, what a girl you be!  I am so pleased!  I was
+just bewailin' you," said the daughter, with unwonted feeling.  "I
+was just bewailin' you, I was so disappointed, an' I kep' myself
+awake a good piece o' the night scoldin' poor William.  I watched
+for the boat till I was ready to shed tears yisterday, and when
+'twas comin' dark I kep' making errands out to the gate an' down
+the road to see if you wa'n't in the doldrums somewhere down the
+bay."
+
+"There was a head-wind, as you know," said Mrs. Blackett,
+giving me the cap-basket, and holding my hand affectionately as we
+walked up the clean-swept path to the door.  "I was partly ready to
+come, but dear William said I should be all tired out and might get
+cold, havin' to beat all the way in.  So we give it up, and set
+down and spent the evenin' together.  It was a little rough and
+windy outside, and I guess 'twas better judgment; we went to bed
+very early and made a good start just at daylight.  It's been a
+lovely mornin' on the water.  William thought he'd better fetch
+across beyond Bird Rocks, rowin' the greater part o' the way; then
+we sailed from there right over to the landin', makin' only one
+tack.  William'll be in again for me to-morrow, so I can come back
+here an' rest me over night, an' go to meetin' to-morrow, and have
+a nice, good visit."
+
+"She was just havin' her breakfast," said Mrs. Todd, who had
+listened eagerly to the long explanation without a word of
+disapproval, while her face shone more and more with joy.  "You
+just sit right down an' have a cup of tea and rest you while we
+make our preparations.  Oh, I am so gratified to think you've come! 
+Yes, she was just havin' her breakfast, and we were speakin' of
+you.  Where's William?"
+
+"He went right back; said he expected some schooners in about
+noon after bait, but he'll come an' have his dinner with us
+tomorrow, unless it rains; then next day.  I laid his best things
+out all ready," explained Mrs. Blackett, a little anxiously.  "This
+wind will serve him nice all the way home.  Yes, I will take a cup
+of tea, dear,--a cup of tea is always good; and then I'll rest a
+minute and be all ready to start."
+
+"I do feel condemned for havin' such hard thoughts o'
+William," openly confessed Mrs. Todd.  She stood before us so large
+and serious that we both laughed and could not find it in our
+hearts to convict so rueful a culprit.  "He shall have a good
+dinner to-morrow, if it can be got, and I shall be real glad to see
+William," the confession ended handsomely, while Mrs. Blackett
+smiled approval and made haste to praise the tea.  Then I hurried
+away to make sure of the grocery wagon.  Whatever might be the good
+of the reunion, I was going to have the pleasure and delight of a
+day in Mrs. Blackett's company, not to speak of Mrs. Todd's.
+
+The early morning breeze was still blowing, and the warm,
+sunshiny air was of some ethereal northern sort, with a cool
+freshness as it came over new-fallen snow.  The world was filled
+with a fragrance of fir-balsam and the faintest flavor of seaweed
+from the ledges, bare and brown at low tide in the little harbor. 
+It was so still and so early that the village was but half awake. 
+I could hear no voices but those of the birds, small and great,--
+the constant song sparrows, the clink of a yellow-hammer over in
+the woods, and the far conversation of some deliberate crows.  I
+saw William Blackett's escaping sail already far from land, and
+Captain Littlepage was sitting behind his closed window as I passed
+by, watching for some one who never came.  I tried to speak to him,
+but he did not see me.  There was a patient look on the old man's
+face, as if the world were a great mistake and he had nobody with
+whom to speak his own language or find companionship.
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+
+A Country Road
+
+WHATEVER DOUBTS and anxieties I may have had about the
+inconvenience of the Begg's high wagon for a person of Mrs.
+Blackett's age and shortness, they were happily overcome by the aid
+of a chair and her own valiant spirit.  Mrs. Todd bestowed great
+care upon seating us as if we were taking passage by boat, but she
+finally pronounced that we were properly trimmed.  When we had gone
+only a little way up the hill she remembered that she had left the
+house door wide open, though the large key was safe in her pocket. 
+I offered to run back, but my offer was met with lofty scorn, and
+we lightly dismissed the matter from our minds, until two or three
+miles further on we met the doctor, and Mrs. Todd asked him to stop
+and ask her nearest neighbor to step over and close the door if the
+dust seemed to blow in the afternoon.
+
+"She'll be there in her kitchen; she'll hear you the minute
+you call; 'twont give you no delay," said Mrs. Todd to the doctor. 
+"Yes, Mis' Dennett's right there, with the windows all open.  It
+isn't as if my fore door opened right on the road, anyway."  At
+which proof of composure Mrs. Blackett smiled wisely at me.
+
+The doctor seemed delighted to see our guest; they were
+evidently the warmest friends, and I saw a look of affectionate
+confidence in their eyes.  The good man left his carriage to speak
+to us, but as he took Mrs. Blackett's hand he held it a moment,
+and, as if merely from force of habit, felt her pulse as they
+talked; then to my delight he gave the firm old wrist a commending
+pat.
+
+"You're wearing well; good for another ten years at this
+rate," he assured her cheerfully, and she smiled back.  "I like to
+keep a strict account of my old stand-bys," and he turned to me. 
+"Don't you let Mrs. Todd overdo to-day,--old folks like her are apt
+to be thoughtless;" and then we all laughed, and, parting, went our
+ways gayly.
+
+"I suppose he puts up with your rivalry the same as ever?"
+asked Mrs. Blackett.  "You and he are as friendly as ever, I see,
+Almiry," and Almira sagely nodded.
+
+"He's got too many long routes now to stop to 'tend to all his
+door patients," she said, "especially them that takes pleasure in
+talkin' themselves over.  The doctor and me have got to be kind of
+partners; he's gone a good deal, far an' wide.  Looked
+tired, didn't he?  I shall have to advise with him an' get him off
+for a good rest.  He'll take the big boat from Rockland an' go off
+up to Boston an' mouse round among the other doctors, one in two or
+three years, and come home fresh as a boy.  I guess they think
+consider'ble of him up there."  Mrs. Todd shook the reins and
+reached determinedly for the whip, as if she were compelling public
+opinion.
+
+Whatever energy and spirit the white horse had to begin with
+were soon exhausted by the steep hills and his discernment of a
+long expedition ahead.  We toiled slowly along.  Mrs. Blackett and
+I sat together, and Mrs. Todd sat alone in front with much majesty
+and the large basket of provisions.  Part of the way the road was
+shaded by thick woods, but we also passed one farmhouse after
+another on the high uplands, which we all three regarded with deep
+interest, the house itself and the barns and garden-spots and
+poultry all having to suffer an inspection of the shrewdest sort. 
+This was a highway quite new to me; in fact, most of my journeys
+with Mrs. Todd had been made afoot and between the roads, in open
+pasturelands.  My friends stopped several times for brief dooryard
+visits, and made so many promises of stopping again on the way home
+that I began to wonder how long the expedition would last.  I had
+often noticed how warmly Mrs. Todd was greeted by her friends, but
+it was hardly to be compared with the feeling now shown toward Mrs.
+Blackett.  A look of delight came to the faces of those who
+recognized the plain, dear old figure beside me; one revelation
+after another was made of the constant interest and intercourse
+that had linked the far island and these scattered farms into a
+golden chain of love and dependence.
+
+"Now, we mustn't stop again if we can help it," insisted Mrs.
+Todd at last.  "You'll get tired, mother, and you'll think the less
+o' reunions.  We can visit along here any day.  There, if they
+ain't frying doughnuts in this next house, too!  These are new
+folks, you know, from over St. George way; they took this old
+Talcot farm last year.  'Tis the best water on the road, and the
+check-rein's come undone--yes, we'd best delay a little and water
+the horse."
+
+We stopped, and seeing a party of pleasure-seekers in holiday
+attire, the thin, anxious mistress of the farmhouse came out with
+wistful sympathy to hear what news we might have to give.  Mrs.
+Blackett first spied her at the half-closed door, and asked with
+such cheerful directness if we were trespassing that, after a few
+words, she went back to her kitchen and reappeared with a plateful
+of doughnuts.
+
+"Entertainment for man and beast," announced Mrs. Todd with
+satisfaction.  "Why, we've perceived there was new doughnuts
+all along the road, but you're the first that has treated us."
+
+Our new acquaintance flushed with pleasure, but said nothing.
+
+"They're very nice; you've had good luck with 'em," pronounced
+Mrs. Todd.  "Yes, we've observed there was doughnuts all the way
+along; if one house is frying all the rest is; 'tis so with a great
+many things."
+
+"I don't suppose likely you're goin' up to the Bowden
+reunion?" asked the hostess as the white horse lifted his head and
+we were saying good-by.
+
+"Why, yes," said Mrs. Blackett and Mrs. Todd and I, all
+together.
+
+"I am connected with the family.  Yes, I expect to be there
+this afternoon.  I've been lookin' forward to it," she told us
+eagerly.
+
+"We shall see you there.  Come and sit with us if it's
+convenient," said dear Mrs. Blackett, and we drove away.
+
+"I wonder who she was before she was married?" said Mrs. Todd,
+who was usually unerring in matters of genealogy.  "She must have
+been one of that remote branch that lived down beyond Thomaston. 
+We can find out this afternoon.  I expect that the families'll
+march together, or be sorted out some way.  I'm willing to own a
+relation that has such proper ideas of doughnuts."
+
+"I seem to see the family looks," said Mrs. Blackett.  "I wish
+we'd asked her name.  She's a stranger, and I want to help make it
+pleasant for all such."
+
+"She resembles Cousin Pa'lina Bowden about the forehead," said
+Mrs. Todd with decision.
+
+We had just passed a piece of woodland that shaded the road,
+and come out to some open fields beyond, when Mrs. Todd suddenly
+reined in the horse as if somebody had stood on the roadside and
+stopped her.  She even gave that quick reassuring nod of her head
+which was usually made to answer for a bow, but I discovered that
+she was looking eagerly at a tall ash-tree that grew just inside
+the field fence.
+
+"I thought 'twas goin' to do well," she said complacently as
+we went on again.  "Last time I was up this way that tree was kind
+of drooping and discouraged.  Grown trees act that way sometimes,
+same's folks; then they'll put right to it and strike their roots
+off into new ground and start all over again with real good
+courage.  Ash-trees is very likely to have poor spells; they ain't
+got the resolution of other trees."
+
+I listened hopefully for more; it was this peculiar wisdom
+that made one value Mrs. Todd's pleasant company.
+
+"There's sometimes a good hearty tree growin' right out of the
+bare rock, out o' some crack that just holds the roots;" she went
+on to say, "right on the pitch o' one o' them bare stony hills
+where you can't seem to see a wheel-barrowful o' good earth
+in a place, but that tree'll keep a green top in the driest summer. 
+You lay your ear down to the ground an' you'll hear a little stream
+runnin'.  Every such tree has got its own livin' spring; there's
+folk made to match 'em."
+
+I could not help turning to look at Mrs. Blackett, close
+beside me.  Her hands were clasped placidly in their thin black
+woolen gloves, and she was looking at the flowery wayside as we
+went slowly along, with a pleased, expectant smile.  I do not think
+she had heard a word about the trees.
+
+"I just saw a nice plant o' elecampane growin' back there,"
+she said presently to her daughter.
+
+"I haven't got my mind on herbs to-day," responded Mrs. Todd,
+in the most matter-of-fact way.  "I'm bent on seeing folks," and
+she shook the reins again.
+
+I for one had no wish to hurry, it was so pleasant in the
+shady roads.  The woods stood close to the road on the right; on
+the left were narrow fields and pastures where there were as many
+acres of spruces and pines as there were acres of bay and juniper
+and huckleberry, with a little turf between.  When I thought we
+were in the heart of the inland country, we reached the top of a
+hill, and suddenly there lay spread out before us a wonderful great
+view of well-cleared fields that swept down to the wide water of a
+bay.  Beyond this were distant shores like another country in the
+midday haze which half hid the hills beyond, and the faraway pale
+blue mountains on the northern horizon.  There was a schooner with
+all sails set coming down the bay from a white village that was
+sprinkled on the shore, and there were many sailboats flitting
+about it.  It was a noble landscape, and my eyes, which had grown
+used to the narrow inspection of a shaded roadside, could hardly
+take it in.
+
+"Why, it's the upper bay," said Mrs. Todd.  "You can see 'way
+over into the town of Fessenden.  Those farms 'way over there are
+all in Fessenden.  Mother used to have a sister that lived up that
+shore.  If we started as early's we could on a summer mornin', we
+couldn't get to her place from Green Island till late afternoon,
+even with a fair, steady breeze, and you had to strike the time
+just right so as to fetch up 'long o' the tide and land near the
+flood.  'Twas ticklish business, an' we didn't visit back an' forth
+as much as mother desired.  You have to go 'way down the co'st to
+Cold Spring Light an' round that long point,--up here's what they
+call the Back Shore."
+
+"No, we were 'most always separated, my dear sister and me,
+after the first year she was married," said Mrs. Blackett.  "We had
+our little families an' plenty o' cares.  We were always lookin'
+forward to the time we could see each other more.  Now and then
+she'd get out to the island for a few days while her husband'd go
+fishin'; and once he stopped with her an' two children, and
+made him some flakes right there and cured all his fish for winter. 
+We did have a beautiful time together, sister an' me; she used to
+look back to it long's she lived.
+
+"I do love to look over there where she used to live," Mrs.
+Blackett went on as we began to go down the hill.  "It seems as if
+she must still be there, though she's long been gone.  She loved
+their farm,--she didn't see how I got so used to our island; but
+somehow I was always happy from the first."
+
+"Yes, it's very dull to me up among those slow farms,"
+declared Mrs. Todd.  "The snow troubles 'em in winter.  They're all
+besieged by winter, as you may say; 'tis far better by the shore
+than up among such places.  I never thought I should like to live
+up country."
+
+"Why, just see the carriages ahead of us on the next rise!"
+exclaimed Mrs. Blackett.  "There's going to be a great gathering,
+don't you believe there is, Almiry?  It hasn't seemed up to now as
+if anybody was going but us.  An' 'tis such a beautiful day, with
+yesterday cool and pleasant to work an' get ready, I shouldn't
+wonder if everybody was there, even the slow ones like Phebe Ann
+Brock."
+
+Mrs. Blackett's eyes were bright with excitement, and even
+Mrs. Todd showed remarkable enthusiasm.  She hurried the horse and
+caught up with the holiday-makers ahead.  "There's all the
+Dep'fords goin', six in the wagon," she told us joyfully; "an' Mis'
+Alva Tilley's folks are now risin' the hill in their new carry-
+all."
+
+Mrs. Blackett pulled at the neat bow of her black bonnet-
+strings, and tied them again with careful precision.  I believe
+your bonnet's on a little bit sideways, dear," she advised Mrs.
+Todd as if she were a child; but Mrs. Todd was too much occupied to
+pay proper heed.  We began to feel a new sense of gayety and of
+taking part in the great occasion as we joined the little train.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+
+The Bowden Reunion
+
+IT IS VERY RARE in country life, where high days and holidays are
+few, that any occasion of general interest proves to be less than
+great.  Such is the hidden fire of enthusiasm in the New England
+nature that, once given an outlet, it shines forth with
+almost volcanic light and heat.  In quiet neighborhoods such inward
+force does not waste itself upon those petty excitements of every
+day that belong to cities, but when, at long intervals, the altars
+to patriotism, to friendship, to the ties of kindred, are reared in
+our familiar fields, then the fires glow, the flames come up as if
+from the inexhaustible burning heart of the earth; the primal fires
+break through the granite dust in which our souls are set.  Each
+heart is warm and every face shines with the ancient light.  Such
+a day as this has transfiguring powers, and easily makes friends of
+those who have been cold-hearted, and gives to those who are dumb
+their chance to speak, and lends some beauty to the plainest face.
+
+"Oh, I expect I shall meet friends today that I haven't seen
+in a long while," said Mrs. Blackett with deep satisfaction. 
+"'Twill bring out a good many of the old folks, 'tis such a lovely
+day.  I'm always glad not to have them disappointed."
+
+"I guess likely the best of 'em'll be there," answered Mrs.
+Todd with gentle humor, stealing a glance at me.  "There's one
+thing certain: there's nothing takes in this whole neighborhood
+like anything related to the Bowdens.  Yes, I do feel that when you
+call upon the Bowdens you may expect most families to rise up
+between the Landing and the far end of the Back Cove.  Those that
+aren't kin by blood are kin by marriage."
+
+"There used to be an old story goin' about when I was a girl,"
+said Mrs. Blackett, with much amusement.  "There was a great many
+more Bowdens then than there are now, and the folks was all setting
+in meeting a dreadful hot Sunday afternoon, and a scatter-witted
+little bound girl came running to the meetin'-house door all out o'
+breath from somewheres in the neighborhood.  'Mis' Bowden, Mis'
+Bowden!' says she.  'Your baby's in a fit!'  They used to tell that
+the whole congregation was up on its feet in a minute and right out
+into the aisles.  All the Mis' Bowdens was setting right out for
+home; the minister stood there in the pulpit tryin' to keep sober,
+an' all at once he burst right out laughin'.  He was a very nice
+man, they said, and he said he'd better give 'em the benediction,
+and they could hear the sermon next Sunday, so he kept it over.  My
+mother was there, and she thought certain 'twas me."
+
+"None of our family was ever subject to fits," interrupted
+Mrs. Todd severely.  "No, we never had fits, none of us; and 'twas
+lucky we didn't 'way out there to Green Island.  Now these folks
+right in front; dear sakes knows the bunches o' soothing catnip an'
+yarrow I've had to favor old Mis' Evins with dryin'!  You can see
+it right in their expressions, all them Evins folks.  There, just
+you look up to the crossroads, mother," she suddenly exclaimed. 
+"See all the teams ahead of us.  And, oh, look down on the
+bay; yes, look down on the bay!  See what a sight o' boats, all
+headin' for the Bowden place cove!"
+
+"Oh, ain't it beautiful!" said Mrs. Blackett, with all the
+delight of a girl.  She stood up in the high wagon to see
+everything, and when she sat down again she took fast hold of my
+hand.
+
+"Hadn't you better urge the horse a little, Almiry?" she
+asked.  "He's had it easy as we came along, and he can rest when we
+get there.  The others are some little ways ahead, and I don't want
+to lose a minute."
+
+We watched the boats drop their sails one by one in the cove
+as we drove along the high land.  The old Bowden house stood, low-
+storied and broad-roofed, in its green fields as if it were a
+motherly brown hen waiting for the flock that came straying toward
+it from every direction.  The first Bowden settler had made his
+home there, and it was still the Bowden farm; five generations of
+sailors and farmers and soldiers had been its children.  And
+presently Mrs. Blackett showed me the stone-walled burying-ground
+that stood like a little fort on a knoll overlooking the bay, but,
+as she said, there were plenty of scattered Bowdens who were not
+laid there,--some lost at sea, and some out West, and some who died
+in the war; most of the home graves were those of women.
+
+We could see now that there were different footpaths from
+along shore and across country.  In all these there were straggling
+processions walking in single file, like old illustrations of the
+Pilgrim's Progress.  There was a crowd about the house as if huge
+bees were swarming in the lilac bushes.  Beyond the fields and cove
+a higher point of land ran out into the bay, covered with woods
+which must have kept away much of the northwest wind in winter. 
+Now there was a pleasant look of shade and shelter there for the
+great family meeting.
+
+We hurried on our way, beginning to feel as if we were very
+late, and it was a great satisfaction at last to turn out of the
+stony highroad into a green lane shaded with old apple-trees.  Mrs.
+Todd encouraged the horse until he fairly pranced with gayety as we
+drove round to the front of the house on the soft turf.  There was
+an instant cry of rejoicing, and two or three persons ran toward us
+from the busy group.
+
+"Why, dear Mis' Blackett!--here's Mis' Blackett!" I heard them
+say, as if it were pleasure enough for one day to have a sight of
+her.  Mrs. Todd turned to me with a lovely look of triumph and
+self-forgetfulness.  An elderly man who wore the look of a
+prosperous sea-captain put up both arms and lifted Mrs. Blackett
+down from the high wagon like a child, and kissed her with hearty
+affection.  "I was master afraid she wouldn't be here," he said,
+looking at Mrs. Todd with a face like a happy sunburnt schoolboy,
+while everybody crowded round to give their welcome.
+
+"Mother's always the queen," said Mrs. Todd.  "Yes, they'll
+all make everything of mother; she'll have a lovely time to-day. 
+I wouldn't have had her miss it, and there won't be a thing she'll
+ever regret, except to mourn because William wa'n't here."
+
+Mrs. Blackett having been properly escorted to the house, Mrs.
+Todd received her own full share of honor, and some of the men,
+with a simple kindness that was the soul of chivalry, waited upon
+us and our baskets and led away the white horse.  I already knew
+some of Mrs. Todd's friends and kindred, and felt like an adopted
+Bowden in this happy moment.  It seemed to be enough for anyone to
+have arrived by the same conveyance as Mrs. Blackett, who presently
+had her court inside the house, while Mrs. Todd, large, hospitable,
+and preeminent, was the centre of a rapidly increasing crowd about
+the lilac bushes.  Small companies were continually coming up the
+long green slope from the water, and nearly all the boats had come
+to shore.  I counted three or four that were baffled by the light
+breeze, but before long all the Bowdens, small and great, seemed to
+have assembled, and we started to go up to the grove across the
+field.
+
+Out of the chattering crowd of noisy children, and large-
+waisted women whose best black dresses fell straight to the ground
+in generous folds, and sunburnt men who looked as serious as if it
+were town-meeting day, there suddenly came silence and order.  I
+saw the straight, soldierly little figure of a man who bore a fine
+resemblance to Mrs. Blackett, and who appeared to marshal us with
+perfect ease.  He was imperative enough, but with a grand military
+sort of courtesy, and bore himself with solemn dignity of
+importance.  We were sorted out according to some clear design of
+his own, and stood as speechless as a troop to await his orders. 
+Even the children were ready to march together, a pretty flock, and
+at the last moment Mrs. Blackett and a few distinguished
+companions, the ministers and those who were very old, came out of
+the house together and took their places.  We ranked by fours, and
+even then we made a long procession.
+
+There was a wide path mowed for us across the field, and, as
+we moved along, the birds flew up out of the thick second crop of
+clover, and the bees hummed as if it still were June.  There was a
+flashing of white gulls over the water where the fleet of boats
+rode the low waves together in the cove, swaying their small masts
+as if they kept time to our steps.  The plash of the water could be
+heard faintly, yet still be heard; we might have been a company of
+ancient Greeks going to celebrate a victory, or to worship the god
+of harvests, in the grove above.  It was strangely moving to see
+this and to make part of it.  The sky, the sea, have watched
+poor humanity at its rites so long; we were no more a New England
+family celebrating its own existence and simple progress; we
+carried the tokens and inheritance of all such households from
+which this had descended, and were only the latest of our line.  We
+possessed the instincts of a far, forgotten childhood; I found
+myself thinking that we ought to be carrying green branches and
+singing as we went.  So we came to the thick shaded grove still
+silent, and were set in our places by the straight trees that
+swayed together and let sunshine through here and there like a
+single golden leaf that flickered down, vanishing in the cool
+shade.
+
+The grove was so large that the great family looked far
+smaller than it had in the open field; there was a thick growth of
+dark pines and firs with an occasional maple or oak that gave a
+gleam of color like a bright window in the great roof.  On three
+sides we could see the water, shining behind the tree-trunks, and
+feel the cool salt breeze that began to come up with the tide just
+as the day reached its highest point of heat.  We could see the
+green sunlit field we had just crossed as if we looked out at it
+from a dark room, and the old house and its lilacs standing
+placidly in the sun, and the great barn with a stockade of
+carriages from which two or three care-taking men who had lingered
+were coming across the field together.  Mrs. Todd had taken off her
+warm gloves and looked the picture of content.
+
+"There!" she exclaimed.  "I've always meant to have you see
+this place, but I never looked for such a beautiful opportunity--
+weather an' occasion both made to match.  Yes, it suits me: I don't
+ask no more.  I want to know if you saw mother walkin' at the head! 
+It choked me right up to see mother at the head, walkin' with the
+ministers," and Mrs. Todd turned away to hide the feelings she
+could not instantly control.
+
+"Who was the marshal?" I hastened to ask.  "Was he an old
+soldier?"
+
+"Don't he do well?" answered Mrs. Todd with satisfaction.
+
+"He don't often have such a chance to show off his gifts,"
+said Mrs. Caplin, a friend from the Landing who had joined us. 
+"That's Sant Bowden; he always takes the lead, such days.  Good for
+nothing else most o' his time; trouble is, he"--
+
+I turned with interest to hear the worst.  Mrs. Caplin's tone
+was both zealous and impressive.
+
+"Stim'lates," she explained scornfully.
+
+"No, Santin never was in the war," said Mrs. Todd with lofty
+indifference.  "It was a cause of real distress to him.  He kep'
+enlistin', and traveled far an' wide about here, an' even took the
+bo't and went to Boston to volunteer; but he ain't a sound man, an'
+they wouldn't have him.  They say he knows all their
+tactics, an' can tell all about the battle o' Waterloo well's he
+can Bunker Hill.  I told him once the country'd lost a great
+general, an' I meant it, too."
+
+"I expect you're near right," said Mrs. Caplin, a little
+crestfallen and apologetic.
+
+"I be right," insisted Mrs. Todd with much amiability.  "'Twas
+most too bad to cramp him down to his peaceful trade, but he's a
+most excellent shoemaker at his best, an' he always says it's a
+trade that gives him time to think an' plan his maneuvers.  Over to
+the Port they always invite him to march Decoration Day, same as
+the rest, an' he does look noble; he comes of soldier stock."
+
+I had been noticing with great interest the curiously French
+type of face which prevailed in this rustic company.  I had said to
+myself before that Mrs. Blackett was plainly of French descent, in
+both her appearance and her charming gifts, but this is not
+surprising when one has learned how large a proportion of the early
+settlers on this northern coast of New England were of Huguenot
+blood, and that it is the Norman Englishman, not the Saxon, who
+goes adventuring to a new world.
+
+"They used to say in old times," said Mrs. Todd modestly,
+"that our family came of very high folks in France, and one of 'em
+was a great general in some o' the old wars.  I sometimes think
+that Santin's ability has come 'way down from then.  'Tain't
+nothin' he's ever acquired; 'twas born in him.  I don't know's he
+ever saw a fine parade, or met with those that studied up such
+things.  He's figured it all out an' got his papers so he knows how
+to aim a cannon right for William's fish-house five miles out on
+Green Island, or up there on Burnt Island where the signal is.  He
+had it all over to me one day, an' I tried hard to appear
+interested.  His life's all in it, but he will have those poor
+gloomy spells come over him now an' then, an' then he has to
+drink."
+
+Mrs. Caplin gave a heavy sigh.
+
+"There's a great many such strayaway folks, just as there is
+plants," continued Mrs. Todd, who was nothing if not botanical.  "I
+know of just one sprig of laurel that grows over back here in a
+wild spot, an' I never could hear of no other on this coast.  I had
+a large bunch brought me once from Massachusetts way, so I know it. 
+This piece grows in an open spot where you'd think 'twould do well,
+but it's sort o' poor-lookin'.  I've visited it time an' again,
+just to notice its poor blooms.  'Tis a real Sant Bowden, out of
+its own place."
+
+Mrs. Caplin looked bewildered and blank.  "Well, all I know
+is, last year he worked out some kind of plan so's to parade the
+county conference in platoons, and got 'em all flustered up tryin'
+to sense his ideas of a holler square," she burst forth. 
+"They was holler enough anyway after ridin' 'way down from up
+country into the salt air, and they'd been treated to a sermon on
+faith an' works from old Fayther Harlow that never knows when to
+cease.  'Twa'n't no time for tactics then,--they wa'n't a'thinkin'
+of the church military.  Sant, he couldn't do nothin' with 'em. 
+All he thinks of, when he sees a crowd, is how to march 'em.  'Tis
+all very well when he don't 'tempt too much.  He never did act like
+other folks."
+
+"Ain't I just been maintainin' that he ain't like 'em?" urged
+Mrs. Todd decidedly.  "Strange folks has got to have strange ways,
+for what I see."
+
+"Somebody observed once that you could pick out the likeness
+of 'most every sort of a foreigner when you looked about you in our
+parish," said Sister Caplin, her face brightening with sudden
+illumination.  "I didn't see the bearin' of it then quite so plain. 
+I always did think Mari' Harris resembled a Chinee."
+
+"Mari' Harris was pretty as a child, I remember," said the
+pleasant voice of Mrs. Blackett, who, after receiving the
+affectionate greetings of nearly the whole company, came to join
+us,--to see, as she insisted, that we were out of mischief.
+
+"Yes, Mari' was one o' them pretty little lambs that make
+dreadful homely old sheep," replied Mrs. Todd with energy.  "Cap'n
+Littlepage never'd look so disconsolate if she was any sort of a
+proper person to direct things.  She might divert him; yes, she
+might divert the old gentleman, an' let him think he had his own
+way, 'stead o' arguing everything down to the bare bone. 
+'Twouldn't hurt her to sit down an' hear his great stories once in
+a while."
+
+"The stories are very interesting," I ventured to say.
+
+"Yes, you always catch yourself a-thinkin' what if they all
+was true, and he had the right of it," answered Mrs. Todd.  "He's
+a good sight better company, though dreamy, than such sordid
+creatur's as Mari' Harris."
+
+"Live and let live," said dear old Mrs. Blackett gently.  "I
+haven't seen the captain for a good while, now that I ain't so
+constant to meetin'," she added wistfully.  "We always have known
+each other."
+
+"Why, if it is a good pleasant day tomorrow, I'll get William
+to call an' invite the capt'in to dinner.  William'll be in early
+so's to pass up the street without meetin' anybody."
+
+"There, they're callin' out it's time to set the tables," said
+Mrs. Caplin, with great excitement.
+
+"Here's Cousin Sarah Jane Blackett!  Well, I am pleased,
+certain!" exclaimed Mrs. Todd, with unaffected delight; and these
+kindred spirits met and parted with the promise of a good talk
+later on.  After this there was no more time for
+conversation until we were seated in order at the long tables.
+
+"I'm one that always dreads seeing some o' the folks that I
+don't like, at such a time as this," announced Mrs. Todd privately
+to me after a season of reflection.  We were just waiting for the
+feast to begin.  "You wouldn't think such a great creatur' 's I be
+could feel all over pins an' needles.  I remember, the day I
+promised to Nathan, how it come over me, just's I was feelin'
+happy's I could, that I'd got to have an own cousin o' his for my
+near relation all the rest o' my life, an' it seemed as if die I
+should.  Poor Nathan saw somethin' had crossed me,--he had very
+nice feelings,--and when he asked what 'twas, I told him.  'I never
+could like her myself,' said he.  'You sha'n't be bothered, dear,'
+he says; an' 'twas one o' the things that made me set a good deal
+by Nathan, he did not make a habit of always opposin', like some
+men.  'Yes,' says I, 'but think o' Thanksgivin' times an' funerals;
+she's our relation, an' we've got to own her.'  Young folks don't
+think o' those things.  There she goes now, do let's pray her by!"
+said Mrs. Todd, with an alarming transition from general opinions
+to particular animosities.  "I hate her just the same as I always
+did; but she's got on a real pretty dress.  I do try to remember
+that she's Nathan's cousin.  Oh dear, well; she's gone by after
+all, an' ain't seen me.  I expected she'd come pleasantin' round
+just to show off an' say afterwards she was acquainted."
+
+This was so different from Mrs. Todd's usual largeness of mind
+that I had a moment's uneasiness; but the cloud passed quickly over
+her spirit, and was gone with the offender.
+
+There never was a more generous out-of-door feast along the
+coast then the Bowden family set forth that day.  To call it a
+picnic would make it seem trivial.  The great tables were edged
+with pretty oak-leaf trimming, which the boys and girls made.  We
+brought flowers from the fence-thickets of the great field; and out
+of the disorder of flowers and provisions suddenly appeared as
+orderly a scheme for the feast as the marshal had shaped for the
+procession.  I began to respect the Bowdens for their inheritance
+of good taste and skill and a certain pleasing gift of formality. 
+Something made them do all these things in a finer way than most
+country people would have done them.  As I looked up and down the
+tables there was a good cheer, a grave soberness that shone with
+pleasure, a humble dignity of bearing.  There were some who should
+have sat below the salt for lack of this good breeding; but they
+were not many.  So, I said to myself, their ancestors may have sat
+in the great hall of some old French house in the Middle Ages, when
+battles and sieges and processions and feasts were familiar things. 
+The ministers and Mrs. Blackett, with a few of their rank
+and age, were put in places of honor, and for once that I looked
+any other way I looked twice at Mrs. Blackett's face, serene and
+mindful of privilege and responsibility, the mistress by simple
+fitness of this great day.
+
+Mrs. Todd looked up at the roof of green trees, and then
+carefully surveyed the company.  "I see 'em better now they're all
+settin' down," she said with satisfaction.  "There's old Mr.
+Gilbraith and his sister.  I wish they were sittin' with us;
+they're not among folks they can parley with, an' they look
+disappointed."
+
+As the feast went on, the spirits of my companion steadily
+rose.  The excitement of an unexpectedly great occasion was a
+subtle stimulant to her disposition, and I could see that sometimes
+when Mrs. Todd had seemed limited and heavily domestic, she had
+simply grown sluggish for lack of proper surroundings.  She was not
+so much reminiscent now as expectant, and as alert and gay as a
+girl.  We who were her neighbors were full of gayety, which was but
+the reflected light from her beaming countenance.  It was not the
+first time that I was full of wonder at the waste of human ability
+in this world, as a botanist wonders at the wastefulness of nature,
+the thousand seeds that die, the unused provision of every sort. 
+The reserve force of society grows more and more amazing to one's
+thought.  More than one face among the Bowdens showed that only
+opportunity and stimulus were lacking,--a narrow set of
+circumstances had caged a fine able character and held it captive. 
+One sees exactly the same types in a country gathering as in the
+most brilliant city company.  You are safe to be understood if the
+spirit of your speech is the same for one neighbor as for the
+other.
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+
+The Feast's End
+
+THE FEAST was a noble feast, as has already been said.  There was
+an elegant ingenuity displayed in the form of pies which delighted
+my heart.  Once acknowledge that an American pie is far to be
+preferred to its humble ancestor, the English tart, and it is
+joyful to be reassured at a Bowden reunion that invention has not
+yet failed.  Beside a delightful variety of material, the
+decorations went beyond all my former experience; dates and
+names were wrought in lines of pastry and frosting on the tops. 
+There was even more elaborate reading matter on an excellent early-
+apple pie which we began to share and eat, precept upon precept. 
+Mrs. Todd helped me generously to the whole word BOWDEN, and
+consumed REUNION herself, save an undecipherable fragment;
+but the most renowned essay in cookery on the tables was a model of
+the old Bowden house made of durable gingerbread, with all the
+windows and doors in the right places, and sprigs of genuine lilac
+set at the front.  It must have been baked in sections, in one of
+the last of the great brick ovens, and fastened together on the
+morning of the day.  There was a general sigh when this fell into
+ruin at the feast's end, and it was shared by a great part of the
+assembly, not without seriousness, and as if it were a pledge and
+token of loyalty.  I met the maker of the gingerbread house, which
+had called up lively remembrances of a childish story.  She had the
+gleaming eye of an enthusiast and a look of high ideals.
+
+"I could just as well have made it all of frosted cake," she
+said, "but 'twouldn't have been the right shade; the old house, as
+you observe, was never painted, and I concluded that plain
+gingerbread would represent it best.  It wasn't all I expected it
+would be," she said sadly, as many an artist had said before her of
+his work.
+
+There were speeches by the ministers; and there proved to be
+a historian among the Bowdens, who gave some fine anecdotes of the
+family history; and then appeared a poetess, whom Mrs. Todd
+regarded with wistful compassion and indulgence, and when the long
+faded garland of verses came to an appealing end, she turned to me
+with words of praise.
+
+"Sounded pretty," said the generous listener.  "Yes, I thought
+she did very well.  We went to school together, an' Mary Anna had
+a very hard time; trouble was, her mother thought she'd given birth
+to a genius, an' Mary Anna's come to believe it herself.  There, I
+don't know what we should have done without her; there ain't nobody
+else that can write poetry between here and 'way up towards
+Rockland; it adds a great deal at such a time.  When she speaks o'
+those that are gone, she feels it all, and so does everybody else,
+but she harps too much.  I'd laid half of that away for next time,
+if I was Mary Anna.  There comes mother to speak to her, an' old
+Mr. Gilbreath's sister; now she'll be heartened right up. 
+Mother'll say just the right thing."
+
+The leave-takings were as affecting as the meetings of these
+old friends had been.  There were enough young persons at the
+reunion, but it is the old who really value such opportunities; as
+for the young, it is the habit of every day to meet their
+comrades,--the time of separation has not come.  To see the
+joy with which these elder kinsfolk and acquaintances had looked in
+one another's faces, and the lingering touch of their friendly
+hands; to see these affectionate meetings and then the reluctant
+partings, gave one a new idea of the isolation in which it was
+possible to live in that after all thinly settled region.  They did
+not expect to see one another again very soon; the steady, hard
+work on the farms, the difficulty of getting from place to place,
+especially in winter when boats were laid up, gave double value to
+any occasion which could bring a large number of families together. 
+Even funerals in this country of the pointed firs were not without
+their social advantages and satisfactions.  I heard the words "next
+summer" repeated many times, though summer was still ours and all
+the leaves were green.
+
+The boats began to put out from shore, and the wagons to drive
+away.  Mrs. Blackett took me into the old house when we came back
+from the grove: it was her father's birthplace and early home, and
+she had spent much of her own childhood there with her grandmother. 
+She spoke of those days as if they had but lately passed; in fact,
+I could imagine that the house looked almost exactly the same to
+her.  I could see the brown rafters of the unfinished roof as I
+looked up the steep staircase, though the best room was as handsome
+with its good wainscoting and touch of ornament on the cornice as
+any old room of its day in a town.
+
+Some of the guests who came from a distance were still sitting
+in the best room when we went in to take leave of the master and
+mistress of the house.  We all said eagerly what a pleasant day it
+had been, and how swiftly the time had passed.  Perhaps it is the
+great national anniversaries which our country has lately kept, and
+the soldiers' meetings that take place everywhere, which have made
+reunions of every sort the fashion.  This one, at least, had been
+very interesting.  I fancied that old feuds had been overlooked,
+and the old saying that blood is thicker than water had again
+proved itself true, though from the variety of names one argued a
+certain adulteration of the Bowden traits and belongings. 
+Clannishness is an instinct of the heart,--it is more than a
+birthright, or a custom; and lesser rights were forgotten in the
+claim to a common inheritance.
+
+We were among the very last to return to our proper lives and
+lodgings.  I came near to feeling like a true Bowden, and parted
+from certain new friends as if they were old friends; we were rich
+with the treasure of a new remembrance.
+
+At last we were in the high wagon again; the old white horse
+had been well fed in the Bowden barn, and we drove away and soon
+began to climb the long hill toward the wooded ridge.  The road was
+new to me, as roads always are, going back.  Most of our companions
+had been full of anxious thoughts of home,--of the cows, or
+of young children likely to fall into disaster,--but we had no
+reasons for haste, and drove slowly along, talking and resting by
+the way.  Mrs. Todd said once that she really hoped her front door
+had been shut on account of the dust blowing in, but added that
+nothing made any weight on her mind except not to forget to turn a
+few late mullein leaves that were drying on a newspaper in the
+little loft.  Mrs. Blackett and I gave our word of honor that we
+would remind her of this heavy responsibility.  The way seemed
+short, we had so much to talk about.  We climbed hills where we
+could see the great bay and the islands, and then went down into
+shady valleys where the air began to feel like evening, cool and
+camp with a fragrance of wet ferns.  Mrs. Todd alighted once or
+twice, refusing all assistance in securing some boughs of a rare
+shrub which she valued for its bark, though she proved
+incommunicative as to her reasons.  We passed the house where we
+had been so kindly entertained with doughnuts earlier in the day,
+and found it closed and deserted, which was a disappointment.
+
+"They must have stopped to tea somewheres and thought they'd
+finish up the day," said Mrs. Todd.  "Those that enjoyed it best'll
+want to get right home so's to think it over."
+
+"I didn't see the woman there after all, did you?" asked Mrs.
+Blackett as the horse stopped to drink at the trough.
+
+"Oh yes, I spoke with her," answered Mrs. Todd, with but scant
+interest or approval.  "She ain't a member o' our family."
+
+"I thought you said she resembled Cousin Pa'lina Bowden about
+the forehead," suggested Mrs. Blackett.
+
+"Well, she don't," answered Mrs. Todd impatiently.  "I ain't
+one that's ord'narily mistaken about family likenesses, and she
+didn't seem to meet with friends, so I went square up to her.  'I
+expect you're a Bowden by your looks,' says I.  'Yes, I can take it
+you're one o' the Bowdens.'  'Lor', no,' says she.  'Dennett was my
+maiden name, but I married a Bowden for my first husband.  I
+thought I'd come an' just see what was a-goin' on!"
+
+Mrs. Blackett laughed heartily.  "I'm goin' to remember to
+tell William o' that," she said.  "There, Almiry, the only thing
+that's troubled me all this day is to think how William would have
+enjoyed it.  I do so wish William had been there."
+
+"I sort of wish he had, myself," said Mrs. Todd frankly.
+
+"There wa'n't many old folks there, somehow," said Mrs.
+Blackett, with a touch of sadness in her voice.  "There ain't so
+many to come as there used to be, I'm aware, but I expected to see
+more."
+
+"I thought they turned out pretty well, when you come to think
+of it; why, everybody was sayin' so an' feelin' gratified,"
+answered Mrs. Todd hastily with pleasing unconsciousness; then I
+saw the quick color flash into her cheek, and presently she made
+some excuse to turn and steal an anxious look at her mother.  Mrs.
+Blackett was smiling and thinking about her happy day, though she
+began to look a little tired.  Neither of my companions was
+troubled by her burden of years.  I hoped in my heart that I might
+be like them as I lived on into age, and then smiled to think that
+I too was no longer very young.  So we always keep the same hearts,
+though our outer framework fails and shows the touch of time.
+
+"'Twas pretty when they sang the hymn, wasn't it?" asked Mrs.
+Blackett at suppertime, with real enthusiasm.  "There was such a
+plenty o' men's voices; where I sat it did sound beautiful.  I had
+to stop and listen when they came to the last verse."
+
+I saw that Mrs. Todd's broad shoulders began to shake.  "There
+was good singers there; yes, there was excellent singers," she
+agreed heartily, putting down her teacup, "but I chanced to drift
+alongside Mis' Peter Bowden o' Great Bay, an' I couldn't help
+thinkin' if she was as far out o' town as she was out o' tune, she
+wouldn't get back in a day."
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+
+Along Shore
+
+ONE DAY as I went along the shore beyond the old wharves and the
+newer, high-stepped fabric of the steamer landing, I saw that all
+the boats were beached, and the slack water period of the early
+afternoon prevailed.  Nothing was going on, not even the most
+leisurely of occupations, like baiting trawls or mending nets, or
+repairing lobster pots; the very boats seemed to be taking an
+afternoon nap in the sun.  I could hardly discover a distant sail
+as I looked seaward, except a weather-beaten lobster smack, which
+seemed to have been taken for a plaything by the light airs that
+blew about the bay.  It drifted and turned about so aimlessly in
+the wide reach off Burnt Island, that I suspected there was nobody
+at the wheel, or that she might have parted her rusty anchor chain
+while all the crew were asleep.
+
+I watched her for a minute or two; she was the old Miranda,
+owned by some of the Caplins, and I knew her by an odd
+shaped patch of newish duck that was set into the peak of her dingy
+mainsail.  Her vagaries offered such an exciting subject for
+conversation that my heart rejoiced at the sound of a hoarse voice
+behind me.  At that moment, before I had time to answer, I saw
+something large and shapeless flung from the Miranda's deck that
+splashed the water high against her black side, and my companion
+gave a satisfied chuckle.  The old lobster smack's sail caught the
+breeze again at this moment, and she moved off down the bay. 
+Turning, I found old Elijah Tilley, who had come softly out of his
+dark fish-house, as if it were a burrow.
+
+"Boy got kind o' drowsy steerin' of her; Monroe he hove him
+right overboard; 'wake now fast enough," explained Mr. Tilley, and
+we laughed together.
+
+I was delighted, for my part, that the vicissitudes and
+dangers of the Miranda, in a rocky channel, should have given me
+this opportunity to make acquaintance with an old fisherman to whom
+I had never spoken.  At first he had seemed to be one of those
+evasive and uncomfortable persons who are so suspicious of you that
+they make you almost suspicious of yourself.  Mr. Elijah Tilley
+appeared to regard a stranger with scornful indifference.  You
+might see him standing on the pebble beach or in a fish-house
+doorway, but when you came nearer he was gone.  He was one of the
+small company of elderly, gaunt-shaped great fisherman whom I used
+to like to see leading up a deep-laden boat by the head, as if it
+were a horse, from the water's edge to the steep slope of the
+pebble beach.  There were four of these large old men at the
+Landing, who were the survivors of an earlier and more vigorous
+generation.  There was an alliance and understanding between them,
+so close that it was apparently speechless.  They gave much time to
+watching one another's boats go out or come in; they lent a ready
+hand at tending one another's lobster traps in rough weather; they
+helped to clean the fish or to sliver porgies for the trawls, as if
+they were in close partnership; and when a boat came in from deep-
+sea fishing they were never too far out of the way, and hastened to
+help carry it ashore, two by two, splashing alongside, or holding
+its steady head, as if it were a willful sea colt.  As a matter of
+fact no boat could help being steady and way-wise under their
+instant direction and companionship.  Abel's boat and Jonathan
+Bowden's boat were as distinct and experienced personalities as the
+men themselves, and as inexpressive.  Arguments and opinions were
+unknown to the conversation of these ancient friends; you would as
+soon have expected to hear small talk in a company of elephants as
+to hear old Mr. Bowden or Elijah Tilley and their two mates waste
+breath upon any form of trivial gossip.  They made brief
+statements to one another from time to time.  As you came to know
+them you wondered more and more that they should talk at all. 
+Speech seemed to be a light and elegant accomplishment, and their
+unexpected acquaintance with its arts made them of new value to the
+listener.  You felt almost as if a landmark pine should suddenly
+address you in regard to the weather, or a lofty-minded old camel
+make a remark as you stood respectfully near him under the circus
+tent.
+
+I often wondered a great deal about the inner life and thought
+of these self-contained old fishermen; their minds seemed to be
+fixed upon nature and the elements rather than upon any
+contrivances of man, like politics or theology.  My friend, Captain
+Bowden, who was the nephew of the eldest of this group, regarded
+them with deference; but he did not belong to their secret
+companionship, though he was neither young nor talkative.
+
+"They've gone together ever since they were boys, they know
+most everything about the sea amon'st them," he told me once. 
+"They was always just as you see 'em now since the memory of man."
+
+These ancient seafarers had houses and lands not outwardly
+different from other Dunnet Landing dwellings, and two of them were
+fathers of families, but their true dwelling places were the sea,
+and the stony beach that edged its familiar shore, and the fish-
+houses, where much salt brine from the mackerel kits had soaked the
+very timbers into a state of brown permanence and petrifaction.  It
+had also affected the old fishermen's hard complexions, until one
+fancied that when Death claimed them it could only be with the aid,
+not of any slender modern dart, but the good serviceable harpoon of
+a seventeenth century woodcut.
+
+Elijah Tilley was such an evasive, discouraged-looking person,
+heavy-headed, and stooping so that one could never look him in the
+face, that even after his friendly exclamation about Monroe
+Pennell, the lobster smack's skipper, and the sleepy boy, I did not
+venture at once to speak again.  Mr. Tilley was carrying a small
+haddock in one hand, and presently shifted it to the other hand
+lest it might touch my skirt.  I knew that my company was accepted,
+and we walked together a little way.
+
+"You mean to have a good supper," I ventured to say, by way of
+friendliness.
+
+"Goin' to have this 'ere haddock an' some o' my good baked
+potatoes; must eat to live," responded my companion with great
+pleasantness and open approval.  I found that I had suddenly left
+the forbidding coast and come into the smooth little harbor of
+friendship.
+
+"You ain't never been up to my place," said the old man. 
+"Folks don't come now as they used to; no, 'tain't no use to
+ask folks now.  My poor dear she was a great hand to draw young
+company."
+
+I remembered that Mrs. Todd had once said that this old
+fisherman had been sore stricken and unconsoled at the death of his
+wife.
+
+"I should like very much to come," said I.  "Perhaps you are
+going to be at home later on?"
+
+Mr. Tilley agreed, by a sober nod, and went his way bent-
+shouldered and with a rolling gait.  There was a new patch high on
+the shoulder of his old waistcoat, which corresponded to the
+renewing of the Miranda's mainsail down the bay, and I wondered if
+his own fingers, clumsy with much deep-sea fishing, had set it in.
+
+"Was there a good catch to-day?" I asked, stopping a moment. 
+"I didn't happen to be on the shore when the boats came in."
+
+"No; all come in pretty light," answered Mr. Tilley.  "Addicks
+an' Bowden they done the best; Abel an' me we had but a slim fare. 
+We went out 'arly, but not so 'arly as sometimes; looked like a
+poor mornin'.  I got nine haddick, all small, and seven fish; the
+rest on 'em got more fish than haddick.  Well, I don't expect they
+feel like bitin' every day; we l'arn to humor 'em a little, an' let
+'em have their way 'bout it.  These plaguey dog-fish kind of worry
+'em."  Mr. Tilley pronounced the last sentence with much sympathy,
+as if he looked upon himself as a true friend of all the haddock
+and codfish that lived on the fishing grounds, and so we parted.
+
+
+Later in the afternoon I went along the beach again until I
+came to the foot of Mr. Tilley's land, and found his rough track
+across the cobblestones and rocks to the field edge, where there
+was a heavy piece of old wreck timber, like a ship's bone, full of
+tree-nails.  From this a little footpath, narrow with one man's
+treading, led up across the small green field that made Mr.
+Tilley's whole estate, except a straggling pasture that tilted on
+edge up the steep hillside beyond the house and road.  I could hear
+the tinkle-tankle of a cow-bell somewhere among the spruces by
+which the pasture was being walked over and forested from every
+side; it was likely to be called the wood before long, but the
+field was unmolested.  I could not see a bush or a brier anywhere
+within its walls, and hardly a stray pebble showed itself.  This
+was most surprising in that country of firm ledges, and scattered
+stones which all the walls that industry could devise had hardly
+begun to clear away off the land.  In the narrow field I noticed
+some stout stakes, apparently planted at random in the grass and
+among the hills of potatoes, but carefully painted yellow and white
+to match the house, a neat sharp-edged little dwelling, which
+looked strangely modern for its owner.  I should have much
+sooner believed that the smart young wholesale egg merchant of the
+Landing was its occupant than Mr. Tilley, since a man's house is
+really but his larger body, and expresses in a way his nature and
+character.
+
+I went up the field, following the smooth little path to the
+side door.  As for using the front door, that was a matter of great
+ceremony; the long grass grew close against the high stone step,
+and a snowberry bush leaned over it, top-heavy with the weight of
+a morning-glory vine that had managed to take what the fishermen
+might call a half hitch about the door-knob.  Elijah Tilley came to
+the side door to receive me; he was knitting a blue yarn stocking
+without looking on, and was warmly dressed for the season in a
+thick blue flannel shirt with white crockery buttons, a faded
+waistcoat and trousers heavily patched at the knees.  These were
+not his fishing clothes.  There was something delightful in the
+grasp of his hand, warm and clean, as if it never touched anything
+but the comfortable woolen yarn, instead of cold sea water and
+slippery fish.
+
+"What are the painted stakes for, down in the field?" I
+hastened to ask, and he came out a step or two along the path to
+see; and looked at the stakes as if his attention were called to
+them for the first time.
+
+"Folks laughed at me when I first bought this place an' come
+here to live," he explained.  "They said 'twa'n't no kind of a
+field privilege at all; no place to raise anything, all full o'
+stones.  I was aware 'twas good land, an' I worked some on it--odd
+times when I didn't have nothin' else on hand--till I cleared them
+loose stones all out.  You never see a prettier piece than 'tis
+now; now did ye?  Well, as for them painted marks, them's my buoys. 
+I struck on to some heavy rocks that didn't show none, but a plow'd
+be liable to ground on 'em, an' so I ketched holt an' buoyed 'em
+same's you see.  They don't trouble me no more'n if they wa'n't
+there."
+
+"You haven't been to sea for nothing," I said laughing.
+
+"One trade helps another," said Elijah with an amiable smile. 
+"Come right in an' set down.  Come in an' rest ye," he exclaimed,
+and led the way into his comfortable kitchen.  The sunshine poured
+in at the two further windows, and a cat was curled up sound asleep
+on the table that stood between them.  There was a new-looking
+light oilcloth of a tiled pattern on the floor, and a crockery
+teapot, large for a household of only one person, stood on the
+bright stove.  I ventured to say that somebody must be a very good
+housekeeper.
+
+"That's me," acknowledged the old fisherman with frankness. 
+"There ain't nobody here but me.  I try to keep things looking
+right, same's poor dear left 'em.  You set down here in this chair,
+then you can look off an' see the water.  None on 'em
+thought I was goin' to get along alone, no way, but I wa'n't goin'
+to have my house turned upsi' down an' all changed about; no, not
+to please nobody.  I was the only one knew just how she liked to
+have things set, poor dear, an' I said I was goin' to make shift,
+and I have made shift.  I'd rather tough it out alone."  And he
+sighed heavily, as if to sigh were his familiar consolation.
+
+We were both silent for a minute; the old man looked out the
+window, as if he had forgotten I was there.
+
+"You must miss her very much?" I said at last.
+
+"I do miss her," he answered, and sighed again.  "Folks all
+kep' repeatin' that time would ease me, but I can't find it does. 
+No, I miss her just the same every day."
+
+"How long is it since she died?" I asked.
+
+"Eight year now, come the first of October.  It don't seem
+near so long.  I've got a sister that comes and stops 'long o' me
+a little spell, spring an' fall, an' odd times if I send after her. 
+I ain't near so good a hand to sew as I be to knit, and she's very
+quick to set everything to rights.  She's a married woman with a
+family; her son's folks lives at home, an' I can't make no great
+claim on her time.  But it makes me a kind o' good excuse, when I
+do send, to help her a little; she ain't none too well off.  Poor
+dear always liked her, and we used to contrive our ways together. 
+'Tis full as easy to be alone.  I set here an' think it all over,
+an' think considerable when the weather's bad to go outside.  I get
+so some days it feels as if poor dear might step right back into
+this kitchen.  I keep a-watchin' them doors as if she might step in
+to ary one.  Yes, ma'am, I keep a-lookin' off an' droppin' o' my
+stitches; that's just how it seems.  I can't git over losin' of her
+no way nor no how.  Yes, ma'am, that's just how it seems to me."
+
+I did not say anything, and he did not look up.
+
+"I git feelin' so sometimes I have to lay everything by an' go
+out door.  She was a sweet pretty creatur' long's she lived," the
+old man added mournfully.  "There's that little rockin' chair o'
+her'n, I set an' notice it an' think how strange 'tis a creatur'
+like her should be gone an' that chair be here right in its old
+place."
+
+
+"I wish I had known her; Mrs. Todd told me about your wife one
+day," I said.
+
+"You'd have liked to come and see her; all the folks did,"
+said poor Elijah.  "She'd been so pleased to hear everything and
+see somebody new that took such an int'rest.  She had a kind o'
+gift to make it pleasant for folks.  I guess likely Almiry Todd
+told you she was a pretty woman, especially in her young days; late
+years, too, she kep' her looks and come to be so pleasant
+lookin'.  There, 'tain't so much matter, I shall be done afore a
+great while.  No; I sha'n't trouble the fish a great sight more."
+
+The old widower sat with his head bowed over his knitting, as
+if he were hastily shortening the very thread of time.  The minutes
+went slowly by.  He stopped his work and clasped his hands firmly
+together.  I saw he had forgotten his guest, and I kept the
+afternoon watch with him.  At last he looked up as if but a moment
+had passed of his continual loneliness.
+
+"Yes, ma'am, I'm one that has seen trouble," he said, and
+began to knit again.
+
+The visible tribute of his careful housekeeping, and the clean
+bright room which had once enshrined his wife, and now enshrined
+her memory, was very moving to me; he had no thought for any one
+else or for any other place.  I began to see her myself in her
+home,--a delicate-looking, faded little woman, who leaned upon his
+rough strength and affectionate heart, who was always watching for
+his boat out of this very window, and who always opened the door
+and welcomed him when he came home.
+
+"I used to laugh at her, poor dear," said Elijah, as if he
+read my thought.  "I used to make light of her timid notions.  She
+used to be fearful when I was out in bad weather or baffled about
+gittin' ashore.  She used to say the time seemed long to her, but
+I've found out all about it now.  I used to be dreadful thoughtless
+when I was a young man and the fish was bitin' well.  I'd stay out
+late some o' them days, an' I expect she'd watch an' watch an' lose
+heart a-waitin'.  My heart alive! what a supper she'd git, an' be
+right there watchin' from the door, with somethin' over her head if
+'twas cold, waitin' to hear all about it as I come up the field. 
+Lord, how I think o' all them little things!"
+
+"This was what she called the best room; in this way," he said
+presently, laying his knitting on the table, and leading the way
+across the front entry and unlocking a door, which he threw open
+with an air of pride.  The best room seemed to me a much sadder and
+more empty place than the kitchen; its conventionalities lacked the
+simple perfection of the humbler room and failed on the side of
+poor ambition; it was only when one remembered what patient saving,
+and what high respect for society in the abstract go to such
+furnishing that the little parlor was interesting at all.  I could
+imagine the great day of certain purchases, the bewildering shops
+of the next large town, the aspiring anxious woman, the clumsy sea-
+tanned man in his best clothes, so eager to be pleased, but at ease
+only when they were safe back in the sailboat again, going down the
+bay with their precious freight, the hoarded money all spent and
+nothing to think of but tiller and sail.  I looked at the unworn
+carpet, the glass vases on the mantelpiece with their prim
+bunches of bleached swamp grass and dusty marsh rosemary, and I
+could read the history of Mrs. Tilley's best room from its very
+beginning.
+
+"You see for yourself what beautiful rugs she could make; now
+I'm going to show you her best tea things she thought so much of,"
+said the master of the house, opening the door of a shallow
+cupboard.  "That's real chiny, all of it on those two shelves," he
+told me proudly.  "I bought it all myself, when we was first
+married, in the port of Bordeaux.  There never was one single piece
+of it broke until--  Well, I used to say, long as she lived, there
+never was a piece broke, but long at the last I noticed she'd look
+kind o' distressed, an' I thought 'twas 'count o' me boastin'. 
+When they asked if they should use it when the folks was here to
+supper, time o' her funeral, I knew she'd want to have everything
+nice, and I said 'certain.'  Some o' the women they come runnin' to
+me an' called me, while they was takin' of the chiny down, an'
+showed me there was one o' the cups broke an' the pieces wropped in
+paper and pushed way back here, corner o' the shelf.  They didn't
+want me to go an' think they done it.  Poor dear!  I had to put
+right out o' the house when I see that.  I knowed in one minute how
+'twas.  We'd got so used to sayin' 'twas all there just's I fetched
+it home, an' so when she broke that cup somehow or 'nother she
+couldn't frame no words to come an' tell me.  She couldn't think
+'twould vex me, 'twas her own hurt pride.  I guess there wa'n't no
+other secret ever lay between us."
+
+The French cups with their gay sprigs of pink and blue, the
+best tumblers, an old flowered bowl and tea caddy, and a japanned
+waiter or two adorned the shelves.  These, with a few
+daguerreotypes in a little square pile, had the closet to
+themselves, and I was conscious of much pleasure in seeing them. 
+One is shown over many a house in these days where the interest may
+be more complex, but not more definite.
+
+"Those were her best things, poor dear," said Elijah as he
+locked the door again.  "She told me that last summer before she
+was taken away that she couldn't think o' anything more she wanted,
+there was everything in the house, an' all her rooms was furnished
+pretty.  I was goin' over to the Port, an' inquired for errands. 
+I used to ask her to say what she wanted, cost or no cost--she was
+a very reasonable woman, an' 'twas the place where she done all but
+her extra shopping.  It kind o' chilled me up when she spoke so
+satisfied."
+
+"You don't go out fishing after Christmas?" I asked, as we
+came back to the bright kitchen.
+
+"No; I take stiddy to my knitting after January sets in," said
+the old seafarer.  "'Tain't worth while, fish make off into deeper
+water an' you can't stand no such perishin' for the sake o'
+what you get.  I leave out a few traps in sheltered coves an' do a
+little lobsterin' on fair days.  The young fellows braves it out,
+some on 'em; but, for me, I lay in my winter's yarn an' set here
+where 'tis warm, an' knit an' take my comfort.  Mother learnt me
+once when I was a lad; she was a beautiful knitter herself.  I was
+laid up with a bad knee, an' she said 'twould take up my time an'
+help her; we was a large family.  They'll buy all the folks can do
+down here to Addicks' store.  They say our Dunnet stockin's is
+gettin' to be celebrated up to Boston,--good quality o' wool an'
+even knittin' or somethin'.  I've always been called a pretty hand
+to do nettin', but seines is master cheap to what they used to be
+when they was all hand worked.  I change off to nettin' long
+towards spring, and I piece up my trawls and lines and get my
+fishin' stuff to rights.  Lobster pots they require attention, but
+I make 'em up in spring weather when it's warm there in the barn. 
+No; I ain't one o' them that likes to set an' do nothin'."
+
+"You see the rugs, poor dear did them; she wa'n't very partial
+to knittin'," old Elijah went on, after he had counted his
+stitches.  "Our rugs is beginnin' to show wear, but I can't master
+none o' them womanish tricks.  My sister, she tinkers 'em up.  She
+said last time she was here that she guessed they'd last my time."
+
+"The old ones are always the prettiest," I said.
+
+"You ain't referrin' to the braided ones now?" answered Mr.
+Tilley.  "You see ours is braided for the most part, an' their good
+looks is all in the beginnin'.  Poor dear used to say they made an
+easier floor.  I go shufflin' round the house same's if 'twas a
+bo't, and I always used to be stubbin' up the corners o' the hooked
+kind.  Her an' me was always havin' our jokes together same's a boy
+an' girl.  Outsiders never'd know nothin' about it to see us.  She
+had nice manners with all, but to me there was nobody so
+entertainin'.  She'd take off anybody's natural talk winter
+evenin's when we set here alone, so you'd think 'twas them a-
+speakin'.  There, there!"
+
+I saw that he had dropped a stitch again, and was snarling the
+blue yarn round his clumsy fingers.  He handled it and threw it off
+at arm's length as if it were a cod line; and frowned impatiently,
+but I saw a tear shining on his cheek.
+
+I said that I must be going, it was growing late, and asked if
+I might come again, and if he would take me out to the fishing
+grounds someday.
+
+"Yes, come any time you want to," said my host, "'tain't so
+pleasant as when poor dear was here.  Oh, I didn't want to lose her
+an' she didn't want to go, but it had to be.  Such things ain't for
+us to say; there's no yes an' no to it."
+
+"You find Almiry Todd one o' the best o' women?" said Mr.
+Tilley as we parted.  He was standing in the doorway and I had
+started off down the narrow green field.  "No, there ain't a better
+hearted woman in the State o' Maine.  I've known her from a girl. 
+She's had the best o' mothers.  You tell her I'm liable to fetch
+her up a couple or three nice good mackerel early tomorrow," he
+said.  "Now don't let it slip your mind.  Poor dear, she always
+thought a sight o' Almiry, and she used to remind me there was
+nobody to fish for her; but I don't rec'lect it as I ought to.  I
+see you drop a line yourself very handy now an' then."
+
+We laughed together like the best of friends, and I spoke
+again about the fishing grounds, and confessed that I had no fancy
+for a southerly breeze and a ground swell.
+
+"Nor me neither," said the old fisherman.  "Nobody likes 'em,
+say what they may.  Poor dear was disobliged by the mere sight of
+a bo't.  Almiry's got the best o' mothers, I expect you know; Mis'
+Blackett out to Green Island; and we was always plannin' to go out
+when summer come; but there, I couldn't pick no day's weather that
+seemed to suit her just right.  I never set out to worry her
+neither, 'twa'n't no kind o' use; she was so pleasant we couldn't
+have no fret nor trouble.  'Twas never 'you dear an' you darlin''
+afore folks, an' 'you divil' behind the door!"
+
+As I looked back from the lower end of the field I saw him
+still standing, a lonely figure in the doorway.  "Poor dear," I
+repeated to myself half aloud; "I wonder where she is and what she
+knows of the little world she left.  I wonder what she has been
+doing these eight years!"
+
+I gave the message about the mackerel to Mrs. Todd.
+
+"Been visitin' with 'Lijah?" she asked with interest.  "I
+expect you had kind of a dull session; he ain't the talkin' kind;
+dwellin' so much long o' fish seems to make 'em lose the gift o'
+speech."  But when I told her that Mr. Tilley had been talking to
+me that day, she interrupted me quickly.
+
+"Then 'twas all about his wife, an' he can't say nothin' too
+pleasant neither.  She was modest with strangers, but there ain't
+one o' her old friends can ever make up her loss.  For me, I don't
+want to go there no more.  There's some folks you miss and some
+folks you don't, when they're gone, but there ain't hardly a day I
+don't think o' dear Sarah Tilley.  She was always right there; yes,
+you knew just where to find her like a plain flower.  'Lijah's
+worthy enough; I do esteem 'Lijah, but he's a ploddin' man."
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+
+The Backward View
+
+AT LAST IT WAS the time of late summer, when the house was cool and
+damp in the morning, and all the light seemed to come through green
+leaves; but at the first step out of doors the sunshine always laid
+a warm hand on my shoulder, and the clear, high sky seemed to lift
+quickly as I looked at it.  There was no autumnal mist on the
+coast, nor any August fog; instead of these, the sea, the sky, all
+the long shore line and the inland hills, with every bush of bay
+and every fir-top, gained a deeper color and a sharper clearness. 
+There was something shining in the air, and a kind of lustre on the
+water and the pasture grass,--a northern look that, except at this
+moment of the year, one must go far to seek.  The sunshine of a
+northern summer was coming to its lovely end.
+
+The days were few then at Dunnet Landing, and I let each of
+them slip away unwillingly as a miser spends his coins.  I wished
+to have one of my first weeks back again, with those long hours
+when nothing happened except the growth of herbs and the course of
+the sun.  Once I had not even known where to go for a walk; now
+there were many delightful things to be done and done again, as if
+I were in London.  I felt hurried and full of pleasant engagements,
+and the days flew by like a handful of flowers flung to the sea
+wind.
+
+At last I had to say good-by to all my Dunnet Landing friends,
+and my homelike place in the little house, and return to the world
+in which I feared to find myself a foreigner.  There may be
+restrictions to such a summer's happiness, but the ease that
+belongs to simplicity is charming enough to make up for whatever a
+simple life may lack, and the gifts of peace are not for those who
+live in the thick of battle.
+
+I was to take the small unpunctual steamer that went down the
+bay in the afternoon, and I sat for a while by my window looking
+out on the green herb garden, with regret for company.  Mrs. Todd
+had hardly spoken all day except in the briefest and most
+disapproving way; it was as if we were on the edge of a quarrel. 
+It seemed impossible to take my departure with anything like
+composure.  At last I heard a footstep, and looked up to find that
+Mrs. Todd was standing at the door.
+
+"I've seen to everything now," she told me in an unusually
+loud and business-like voice.  "Your trunks are on the w'arf by
+this time.  Cap'n Bowden he come and took 'em down himself,
+an' is going to see that they're safe aboard.  Yes, I've seen to
+all your 'rangements," she repeated in a gentler tone.  "These
+things I've left on the kitchen table you'll want to carry by hand;
+the basket needn't be returned.  I guess I shall walk over towards
+the Port now an' inquire how old Mis' Edward Caplin is."
+
+I glanced at my friend's face, and saw a look that touched me
+to the heart.  I had been sorry enough before to go away.
+
+"I guess you'll excuse me if I ain't down there to stand
+around on the w'arf and see you go," she said, still trying to be
+gruff.  "Yes, I ought to go over and inquire for Mis' Edward
+Caplin; it's her third shock, and if mother gets in on Sunday
+she'll want to know just how the old lady is."  With this last word
+Mrs. Todd turned and left me as if with sudden thought of something
+she had forgotten, so that I felt sure she was coming back, but
+presently I heard her go out of the kitchen door and walk down the
+path toward the gate.  I could not part so; I ran after her to say
+good-by, but she shook her head and waved her hand without looking
+back when she heard my hurrying steps, and so went away down the
+street.
+
+When I went in again the little house had suddenly grown
+lonely, and my room looked empty as it had the day I came.  I and
+all my belongings had died out of it, and I knew how it would seem
+when Mrs. Todd came back and found her lodger gone.  So we die
+before our own eyes; so we see some chapters of our lives come to
+their natural end.
+
+I found the little packages on the kitchen table.  There was
+a quaint West Indian basket which I knew its owner had valued, and
+which I had once admired; there was an affecting provision laid
+beside it for my seafaring supper, with a neatly tied bunch of
+southernwood and a twig of bay, and a little old leather box which
+held the coral pin that Nathan Todd brought home to give to poor
+Joanna.
+
+
+There was still an hour to wait, and I went up the hill just
+above the schoolhouse and sat there thinking of things, and looking
+off to sea, and watching for the boat to come in sight.  I could
+see Green Island, small and darkly wooded at that distance; below
+me were the houses of the village with their apple-trees and bits
+of garden ground.  Presently, as I looked at the pastures beyond,
+I caught a last glimpse of Mrs. Todd herself, walking slowly in the
+footpath that led along, following the shore toward the Port.  At
+such a distance one can feel the large, positive qualities that
+control a character.  Close at hand, Mrs. Todd seemed able and
+warm-hearted and quite absorbed in her bustling industries, but her
+distant figure looked mateless and appealing, with something about
+it that was strangely self-possessed and mysterious.  Now
+and then she stooped to pick something,--it might have been her
+favorite pennyroyal,--and at last I lost sight of her as she slowly
+crossed an open space on one of the higher points of land, and
+disappeared again behind a dark clump of juniper and the pointed
+firs.
+
+As I came away on the little coastwise steamer, there was an
+old sea running which made the surf leap high on all the rocky
+shores.  I stood on deck, looking back, and watched the busy gulls
+agree and turn, and sway together down the long slopes of air, then
+separate hastily and plunge into the waves.  The tide was setting
+in, and plenty of small fish were coming with it, unconscious of
+the silver flashing of the great birds overhead and the quickness
+of their fierce beaks.  The sea was full of life and spirit, the
+tops of the waves flew back as if they were winged like the gulls
+themselves, and like them had the freedom of the wind.  Out in the
+main channel we passed a bent-shouldered old fisherman bound for
+the evening round among his lobster traps.  He was toiling along
+with short oars, and the dory tossed and sank and tossed again with
+the steamer's waves.  I saw that it was old Elijah Tilley, and
+though we had so long been strangers we had come to be warm
+friends, and I wished that he had waited for one of his mates, it
+was such hard work to row along shore through rough seas and tend
+the traps alone.  As we passed I waved my hand and tried to call to
+him, and he looked up and answered my farewells by a solemn nod. 
+The little town, with the tall masts of its disabled schooners in
+the inner bay, stood high above the flat sea for a few minutes then
+it sank back into the uniformity of the coast, and became
+indistinguishable from the other towns that looked as if they were
+crumbled on the furzy-green stoniness of the shore.
+
+The small outer islands of the bay were covered among the
+ledges with turf that looked as fresh as the early grass; there had
+been some days of rain the week before, and the darker green of the
+sweet-fern was scattered on all the pasture heights.  It looked
+like the beginning of summer ashore, though the sheep, round and
+warm in their winter wool, betrayed the season to double the long
+sheltering headland of the cape, and when I looked back again, the
+islands and the headland had run together and Dunnet Landing and
+all its coasts were lost to sight.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of "The Country of the Pointed Firs"
+
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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of "The Country of the Pointed Firs"
+by Sarah Orne Jewett
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+The Country of the Pointed Firs
+
+by Sarah Orne Jewett
+
+November, 1995  [Etext #367]
+
+
+The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Country of the Pointed Firs
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+
+
+
+
+The Country of
+the Pointed Firs
+
+SARAH ORNE JEWETT
+
+
+
+Note
+
+SARAH ORNE JEWETT (1849-1909) was born and died in South Berwick,
+Maine.  Her father was the region's most distinguished doctor and,
+as a child, Jewett often accompanied him on his round of patient
+visits.  She began writing poetry at an early age and when she was
+only 19 her short story "Mr. Bruce" was accepted by the Atlantic
+Monthly.  Her association with that magazine continued, and
+William Dean Howells, who was editor at that time, encouraged her
+to publish her first book, Deephaven (1877), a collection of
+sketches published earlier in the Atlantic Monthly.  Through
+her friendship with Howells, Jewett became acquainted with Boston's
+literary elite, including Annie Fields, with whom she developed one
+of the most intimate and lasting relationships of her life.
+
+The Country of the Pointed Firs (1896) is considered
+Jewett's finest work, described by Henry James as her "beautiful
+little quantum of achievement."  Despite James's diminutives, the
+novel remains a classic.  Because it is loosely structured, many
+critics view the book not as a novel, but a series of sketches;
+however, its structure is unified through both setting and theme. 
+Jewett herself felt that her strengths as a writer lay not in plot
+development or dramatic tension, but in character development. 
+Indeed, she determined early in her career to preserve a
+disappearing way of life, and her novel can be read as a study of
+the effects of isolation and hardship on the inhabitants who lived
+in the decaying fishing villages along the Maine coast.
+
+Jewett died in 1909, eight years after an accident that
+effectively ended her writing career.  Her reputation had grown
+during her lifetime, extending far beyond the bounds of the New
+England she loved.
+
+
+
+Contents
+-------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+    I  The Return
+   II  Mrs. Todd
+  III  The Schoolhouse
+   IV  At the Schoolhouse Window
+    V  Captain Littlepage
+   VI  The Waiting Place
+  VII  The Outer Island
+ VIII  Green Island
+   IX  William
+    X  Where Pennyroyal Grew
+   XI  The Old Singers
+  XII  A Strange Sail
+ XIII  Poor Joanna
+  XIV  The Hermitage
+   XV  On Shell-heap Island
+  XVI  The Great Expedition
+ XVII  A Country Road
+XVIII  The Bowden Reunion
+  XIX  The Feast's End
+   XX  Along Shore
+  XXI  The Backward View
+
+
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+The Return
+
+THERE WAS SOMETHING about the coast town of Dunnet which made it
+seem more attractive than other maritime villages of eastern Maine. 
+Perhaps it was the simple fact of acquaintance with that
+neighborhood which made it so attaching, and gave such interest to
+the rocky shore and dark woods, and the few houses which seemed to
+be securely wedged and tree-nailed in among the ledges by the
+Landing.  These houses made the most of their seaward view, and
+there was a gayety and determined floweriness in their bits of
+garden ground; the small-paned high windows in the peaks of their
+steep gables were like knowing eyes that watched the harbor and the
+far sea-line beyond, or looked northward all along the shore and
+its background of spruces and balsam firs.  When one really knows
+a village like this and its surroundings, it is like becoming
+acquainted with a single person.  The process of falling in love at
+first sight is as final as it is swift in such a case, but the
+growth of true friendship may be a lifelong affair.
+
+After a first brief visit made two or three summers before in
+the course of a yachting cruise, a lover of Dunnet Landing returned
+to find the unchanged shores of the pointed firs, the same
+quaintness of the village with its elaborate conventionalities; all
+that mixture of remoteness, and childish certainty of being the
+centre of civilization of which her affectionate dreams had told. 
+One evening in June, a single passenger landed upon the steamboat
+wharf.  The tide was high, there was a fine crowd of spectators,
+and the younger portion of the company followed her with subdued
+excitement up the narrow street of the salt-aired, white-
+clapboarded little town.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+Mrs. Todd
+
+LATER, THERE WAS only one fault to find with this choice of a
+summer lodging-place, and that was its complete lack of seclusion. 
+At first the tiny house of Mrs. Almira Todd, which stood with its
+end to the street, appeared to be retired and sheltered enough from
+the busy world, behind its bushy bit of a green garden, in which
+all the blooming things, two or three gay hollyhocks and some
+London-pride, were pushed back against the gray-shingled wall.  It
+was a queer little garden and puzzling to a stranger, the few
+flowers being put at a disadvantage by so much greenery; but the
+discovery was soon made that Mrs. Todd was an ardent lover of
+herbs, both wild and tame, and the sea-breezes blew into the low
+end-window of the house laden with not only sweet-brier and sweet-
+mary, but balm and sage and borage and mint, wormwood and
+southernwood.  If Mrs. Todd had occasion to step into the far
+corner of her herb plot, she trod heavily upon thyme, and made its
+fragrant presence known with all the rest.  Being a very large
+person, her full skirts brushed and bent almost every slender stalk
+that her feet missed.  You could always tell when she was stepping
+about there, even when you were half awake in the morning, and
+learned to know, in the course of a few weeks' experience, in
+exactly which corner of the garden she might be.
+
+At one side of this herb plot were other growths of a rustic
+pharmacopoeia, great treasures and rarities among the commoner
+herbs.  There were some strange and pungent odors that roused a dim
+sense and remembrance of something in the forgotten past.  Some of
+these might once have belonged to sacred and mystic rites, and have
+had some occult knowledge handed with them down the centuries; but
+now they pertained only to humble compounds brewed at intervals
+with molasses or vinegar or spirits in a small caldron on Mrs.
+Todd's kitchen stove.  They were dispensed to suffering neighbors,
+who usually came at night as if by stealth, bringing their own
+ancient-looking vials to be filled.  One nostrum was called the
+Indian remedy, and its price was but fifteen cents; the whispered
+directions could be heard as customers passed the windows.  With
+most remedies the purchaser was allowed to depart unadmonished from
+the kitchen, Mrs. Todd being a wise saver of steps; but with
+certain vials she gave cautions, standing in the doorway, and
+there were other doses which had to be accompanied on their healing
+way as far as the gate, while she muttered long chapters of
+directions, and kept up an air of secrecy and importance to the
+last.  It may not have been only the common aids of humanity with
+which she tried to cope; it seemed sometimes as if love and hate
+and jealousy and adverse winds at sea might also find their proper
+remedies among the curious wild-looking plants in Mrs. Todd's
+garden.
+
+The village doctor and this learned herbalist were upon the
+best of terms.  The good man may have counted upon the unfavorable
+effect of certain potions which he should find his opportunity in
+counteracting; at any rate, he now and then stopped and exchanged
+greetings with Mrs. Todd over the picket fence.  The conversation
+became at once professional after the briefest preliminaries, and
+he would stand twirling a sweet-scented sprig in his fingers, and
+make suggestive jokes, perhaps about her faith in a too persistent
+course of thoroughwort elixir, in which my landlady professed such
+firm belief as sometimes to endanger the life and usefulness of
+worthy neighbors.
+
+To arrive at this quietest of seaside villages late in June,
+when the busy herb-gathering season was just beginning, was also to
+arrive in the early prime of Mrs. Todd's activity in the brewing of
+old-fashioned spruce beer.  This cooling and refreshing drink had
+been brought to wonderful perfection through a long series of
+experiments; it had won immense local fame, and the supplies for
+its manufacture were always giving out and having to be
+replenished.  For various reasons, the seclusion and uninterrupted
+days which had been looked forward to proved to be very rare in
+this otherwise delightful corner of the world.  My hostess and I
+had made our shrewd business agreement on the basis of a simple
+cold luncheon at noon, and liberal restitution in the matter of hot
+suppers, to provide for which the lodger might sometimes be seen
+hurrying down the road, late in the day, with cunner line in hand. 
+It was soon found that this arrangement made large allowance for
+Mrs. Todd's slow herb-gathering progresses through woods and
+pastures.  The spruce-beer customers were pretty steady in hot
+weather, and there were many demands for different soothing syrups
+and elixirs with which the unwise curiosity of my early residence
+had made me acquainted.  Knowing Mrs. Todd to be a widow, who had
+little beside this slender business and the income from one hungry
+lodger to maintain her, one's energies and even interest were
+quickly bestowed, until it became a matter of course that she
+should go afield every pleasant day, and that the lodger should
+answer all peremptory knocks at the side door.
+
+In taking an occasional wisdom-giving stroll in Mrs. Todd's
+company, and in acting as business partner during her
+frequent absences, I found the July days fly fast, and it was not
+until I felt myself confronted with too great pride and pleasure in
+the display, one night, of two dollars and twenty-seven cents which
+I had taken in during the day, that I remembered a long piece of
+writing, sadly belated now, which I was bound to do.  To have been
+patted kindly on the shoulder and called "darlin'," to have been
+offered a surprise of early mushrooms for supper, to have had all
+the glory of making two dollars and twenty-seven cents in a single
+day, and then to renounce it all and withdraw from these pleasant
+successes, needed much resolution.  Literary employments are so
+vexed with uncertainties at best, and it was not until the voice of
+conscience sounded louder in my ears than the sea on the nearest
+pebble beach that I said unkind words of withdrawal to Mrs. Todd. 
+She only became more wistfully affectionate than ever in her
+expressions, and looked as disappointed as I expected when I
+frankly told her that I could no longer enjoy the pleasure of what
+we called "seein' folks."  I felt that I was cruel to a whole
+neighborhood in curtailing her liberty in this most important
+season for harvesting the different wild herbs that were so much
+counted upon to ease their winter ails.
+
+"Well, dear," she said sorrowfully, "I've took great advantage
+o' your bein' here.  I ain't had such a season for years, but I
+have never had nobody I could so trust.  All you lack is a few
+qualities, but with time you'd gain judgment an' experience, an' be
+very able in the business.  I'd stand right here an' say it to
+anybody."
+
+
+Mrs. Todd and I were not separated or estranged by the change
+in our business relations; on the contrary, a deeper intimacy
+seemed to begin.  I do not know what herb of the night it was that
+used sometimes to send out a penetrating odor late in the evening,
+after the dew had fallen, and the moon was high, and the cool air
+came up from the sea.  Then Mrs. Todd would feel that she must talk
+to somebody, and I was only too glad to listen.  We both fell under
+the spell, and she either stood outside the window, or made an
+errand to my sitting-room, and told, it might be very commonplace
+news of the day, or, as happened one misty summer night, all that
+lay deepest in her heart.  It was in this way that I came to know
+that she had loved one who was far above her.
+
+"No, dear, him I speak of could never think of me," she said. 
+"When we was young together his mother didn't favor the match, an'
+done everything she could to part us; and folks thought we both
+married well, but't wa'n't what either one of us wanted most; an'
+now we're left alone again, an' might have had each other all the
+time.  He was above bein' a seafarin' man, an' prospered more
+than most; he come of a high family, an' my lot was plain an' hard-
+workin'.  I ain't seen him for some years; he's forgot our youthful
+feelin's, I expect, but a woman's heart is different; them feelin's
+comes back when you think you've done with 'em, as sure as spring
+comes with the year.  An' I've always had ways of hearin' about
+him."
+
+She stood in the centre of a braided rug, and its rings of
+black and gray seemed to circle about her feet in the dim light. 
+Her height and massiveness in the low room gave her the look of a
+huge sibyl, while the strange fragrance of the mysterious herb blew
+in from the little garden.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+The Schoolhouse
+
+FOR SOME DAYS after this, Mrs. Todd's customers came and went past
+my windows, and, haying-time being nearly over, strangers began to
+arrive from the inland country, such was her widespread reputation. 
+Sometimes I saw a pale young creature like a white windflower left
+over into midsummer, upon whose face consumption had set its bright
+and wistful mark; but oftener two stout, hard-worked women from the
+farms came together, and detailed their symptoms to Mrs. Todd in
+loud and cheerful voices, combining the satisfactions of a friendly
+gossip with the medical opportunity.  They seemed to give much from
+their own store of therapeutic learning.  I became aware of the
+school in which my landlady had strengthened her natural gift; but
+hers was always the governing mind, and the final command, "Take of
+hy'sop one handful" (or whatever herb it was), was received in
+respectful silence.  One afternoon, when I had listened,--it was
+impossible not to listen, with cottonless ears,--and then laughed
+and listened again, with an idle pen in my hand, during a
+particularly spirited and personal conversation, I reached for my
+hat, and, taking blotting-book and all under my arm, I resolutely
+fled further temptation, and walked out past the fragrant green
+garden and up the dusty road.  The way went straight uphill, and
+presently I stopped and turned to look back.
+
+The tide was in, the wide harbor was surrounded by its dark
+woods, and the small wooden houses stood as near as they could get
+to the landing.  Mrs. Todd's was the last house on the way
+inland.  The gray ledges of the rocky shore were well covered with
+sod in most places, and the pasture bayberry and wild roses grew
+thick among them.  I could see the higher inland country and the
+scattered farms.  On the brink of the hill stood a little white
+schoolhouse, much wind-blown and weather-beaten, which was a
+landmark to seagoing folk; from its door there was a most beautiful
+view of sea and shore.  The summer vacation now prevailed, and
+after finding the door unfastened, and taking a long look through
+one of the seaward windows, and reflecting afterward for some time
+in a shady place near by among the bayberry bushes, I returned to
+the chief place of business in the village, and, to the amusement
+of two of the selectmen, brothers and autocrats of Dunnet Landing,
+I hired the schoolhouse for the rest of the vacation for fifty
+cents a week.
+
+Selfish as it may appear, the retired situation seemed to
+possess great advantages, and I spent many days there quite
+undisturbed, with the sea-breeze blowing through the small, high
+windows and swaying the heavy outside shutters to and fro.  I hung
+my hat and luncheon-basket on an entry nail as if I were a small
+scholar, but I sat at the teacher's desk as if I were that great
+authority, with all the timid empty benches in rows before me.  Now
+and then an idle sheep came and stood for a long time looking in at
+the door.  At sundown I went back, feeling most businesslike, down
+toward the village again, and usually met the flavor, not of the
+herb garden, but of Mrs. Todd's hot supper, halfway up the hill. 
+On the nights when there were evening meetings or other public
+exercises that demanded her presence we had tea very early, and I
+was welcomed back as if from a long absence.
+
+Once or twice I feigned excuses for staying at home, while
+Mrs. Todd made distant excursions, and came home late, with both
+hands full and a heavily laden apron.  This was in pennyroyal time,
+and when the rare lobelia was in its prime and the elecampane was
+coming on.  One day she appeared at the schoolhouse itself, partly
+out of amused curiosity about my industries; but she explained that
+there was no tansy in the neighborhood with such snap to it as some
+that grew about the schoolhouse lot.  Being scuffed down all the
+spring made it grow so much the better, like some folks that had it
+hard in their youth, and were bound to make the most of themselves
+before they died.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+At the Schoolhouse Window
+
+ONE DAY I reached the schoolhouse very late, owing to attendance
+upon the funeral of an acquaintance and neighbor, with whose sad
+decline in health I had been familiar, and whose last days both the
+doctor and Mrs. Todd had tried in vain to ease.  The services had
+taken place at one o'clock, and now, at quarter past two, I stood
+at the schoolhouse window, looking down at the procession as it
+went along the lower road close to the shore.  It was a walking
+funeral, and even at that distance I could recognize most of the
+mourners as they went their solemn way.  Mrs. Begg had been very
+much respected, and there was a large company of friends following
+to her grave.  She had been brought up on one of the neighboring
+farms, and each of the few times that I had seen her she professed
+great dissatisfaction with town life.  The people lived too close
+together for her liking, at the Landing, and she could not get used
+to the constant sound of the sea.  She had lived to lament three
+seafaring husbands, and her house was decorated with West Indian
+curiosities, specimens of conch shells and fine coral which they
+had brought home from their voyages in lumber-laden ships.  Mrs.
+Todd had told me all our neighbor's history.  They had been girls
+together, and, to use her own phrase, had "both seen trouble till
+they knew the best and worst on 't."  I could see the sorrowful,
+large figure of Mrs. Todd as I stood at the window.  She made a
+break in the procession by walking slowly and keeping the after-
+part of it back.  She held a handkerchief to her eyes, and I knew,
+with a pang of sympathy, that hers was not affected grief.
+
+Beside her, after much difficulty, I recognized the one
+strange and unrelated person in all the company, an old man who had
+always been mysterious to me.  I could see his thin, bending
+figure.  He wore a narrow, long-tailed coat and walked with a
+stick, and had the same "cant to leeward" as the wind-bent trees on
+the height above.
+
+This was Captain Littlepage, whom I had seen only once or
+twice before, sitting pale and old behind a closed window; never
+out of doors until now.  Mrs. Todd always shook her head gravely
+when I asked a question, and said that he wasn't what he had been
+once, and seemed to class him with her other secrets.  He might
+have belonged with a simple which grew in a certain slug-haunted
+corner of the garden, whose use she could never be betrayed
+into telling me, though I saw her cutting the tops by moonlight
+once, as if it were a charm, and not a medicine, like the great
+fading bloodroot leaves.
+
+I could see that she was trying to keep pace with the old
+captain's lighter steps.  He looked like an aged grasshopper of
+some strange human variety.  Behind this pair was a short,
+impatient, little person, who kept the captain's house, and gave it
+what Mrs. Todd and others believed to be no proper sort of care. 
+She was usually called "that Mari' Harris" in subdued conversation
+between intimates, but they treated her with anxious civility when
+they met her face to face.
+
+The bay-sheltered islands and the great sea beyond stretched
+away to the far horizon southward and eastward; the little
+procession in the foreground looked futile and helpless on the edge
+of the rocky shore.  It was a glorious day early in July, with a
+clear, high sky; there were no clouds, there was no noise of the
+sea.  The song sparrows sang and sang, as if with joyous knowledge
+of immortality, and contempt for those who could so pettily concern
+themselves with death.  I stood watching until the funeral
+procession had crept round a shoulder of the slope below and
+disappeared from the great landscape as if it had gone into a cave.
+
+An hour later I was busy at my work.  Now and then a bee
+blundered in and took me for an enemy; but there was a useful stick
+upon the teacher's desk, and I rapped to call the bees to order as
+if they were unruly scholars, or waved them away from their riots
+over the ink, which I had bought at the Landing store, and
+discovered to be scented with bergamot, as if to refresh the labors
+of anxious scribes.  One anxious scribe felt very dull that day; a
+sheep-bell tinkled near by, and called her wandering wits after it. 
+The sentences failed to catch these lovely summer cadences.  For
+the first time I began to wish for a companion and for news from
+the outer world, which had been, half unconsciously, forgotten. 
+Watching the funeral gave one a sort of pain.  I began to wonder if
+I ought not to have walked with the rest, instead of hurrying away
+at the end of the services.  Perhaps the Sunday gown I had put on
+for the occasion was making this disastrous change of feeling, but
+I had now made myself and my friends remember that I did not really
+belong to Dunnet Landing.
+
+I sighed, and turned to the half-written page again.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+Captain Littlepage
+
+IT WAS A long time after this; an hour was very long in that coast
+town where nothing stole away the shortest minute.  I had lost
+myself completely in work, when I heard footsteps outside.  There
+was a steep footpath between the upper and the lower road, which I
+climbed to shorten the way, as the children had taught me, but I
+believed that Mrs. Todd would find it inaccessible, unless she had
+occasion to seek me in great haste.  I wrote on, feeling like a
+besieged miser of time, while the footsteps came nearer, and the
+sheep-bell tinkled away in haste as if someone had shaken a stick
+in its wearer's face.  Then I looked, and saw Captain Littlepage
+passing the nearest window; the next moment he tapped politely at
+the door.
+
+"Come in, sir," I said, rising to meet him; and he entered,
+bowing with much courtesy.  I stepped down from the desk and
+offered him a chair by the window, where he seated himself at once,
+being sadly spent by his climb.  I returned to my fixed seat behind
+the teacher's desk, which gave him the lower place of a scholar.
+
+"You ought to have the place of honor, Captain Littlepage," I
+said.
+
+
+"A happy, rural seat of various views,"
+
+he quoted, as he gazed out into the sunshine and up the long wooded
+shore.  Then he glanced at me, and looked all about him as pleased
+as a child.
+
+"My quotation was from Paradise Lost: the greatest of poems,
+I suppose you know?" and I nodded.  "There's nothing that ranks, to
+my mind, with Paradise Lost; it's all lofty, all lofty," he
+continued.  "Shakespeare was a great poet; he copied life, but you
+have to put up with a great deal of low talk."
+
+I now remembered that Mrs. Todd had told me one day that
+Captain Littlepage had overset his mind with too much reading; she
+had also made dark reference to his having "spells" of some
+unexplainable nature.  I could not help wondering what errand had
+brought him out in search of me.  There was something quite
+charming in his appearance: it was a face thin and delicate with
+refinement, but worn into appealing lines, as if he had suffered
+from loneliness and misapprehension.  He looked, with his
+careful precision of dress, as if he were the object of cherishing
+care on the part of elderly unmarried sisters, but I knew Mari'
+Harris to be a very common-place, inelegant person, who would have
+no such standards; it was plain that the captain was his own
+attentive valet.  He sat looking at me expectantly.  I could not
+help thinking that, with his queer head and length of thinness, he
+was made to hop along the road of life rather than to walk.  The
+captain was very grave indeed, and I bade my inward spirit keep
+close to discretion.
+
+"Poor Mrs. Begg has gone," I ventured to say.  I still wore my
+Sunday gown by way of showing respect.
+
+"She has gone," said the captain,--"very easy at the last, I
+was informed; she slipped away as if she were glad of the
+opportunity."
+
+I thought of the Countess of Carberry, and felt that history
+repeated itself.
+
+"She was one of the old stock," continued Captain Littlepage,
+with touching sincerity.  "She was very much looked up to in this
+town, and will be missed."
+
+I wondered, as I looked at him, if he had sprung from a line
+of ministers; he had the refinement of look and air of command
+which are the heritage of the old ecclesiastical families of New
+England.  But as Darwin says in his autobiography, "there is no
+such king as a sea-captain; he is greater even than a king or a
+schoolmaster!"
+
+Captain Littlepage moved his chair out of the wake of the
+sunshine, and still sat looking at me.  I began to be very eager to
+know upon what errand he had come.
+
+"It may be found out some o' these days," he said earnestly. 
+"We may know it all, the next step; where Mrs. Begg is now, for
+instance.  Certainty, not conjecture, is what we all desire."
+
+"I suppose we shall know it all some day," said I.
+
+"We shall know it while yet below," insisted the captain, with
+a flush of impatience on his thin cheeks.  "We have not looked for
+truth in the right direction.  I know what I speak of; those who
+have laughed at me little know how much reason my ideas are based
+upon."  He waved his hand toward the village below.  "In that
+handful of houses they fancy that they comprehend the universe."
+
+I smiled, and waited for him to go on.
+
+"I am an old man, as you can see," he continued, "and I have
+been a shipmaster the greater part of my life,--forty-three years
+in all.  You may not think it, but I am above eighty years of age."
+
+He did not look so old, and I hastened to say so.
+
+"You must have left the sea a good many years ago, then,
+Captain Littlepage?" I said.
+
+"I should have been serviceable at least five or six years
+more," he answered.  "My acquaintance with certain--my experience
+upon a certain occasion, I might say, gave rise to prejudice.  I do
+not mind telling you that I chanced to learn of one of the greatest
+discoveries that man has ever made."
+
+Now we were approaching dangerous ground, but a sudden sense
+of his sufferings at the hands of the ignorant came to my help, and
+I asked to hear more with all the deference I really felt.  A
+swallow flew into the schoolhouse at this moment as if a kingbird
+were after it, and beat itself against the walls for a minute, and
+escaped again to the open air; but Captain Littlepage took no
+notice whatever of the flurry.
+
+"I had a valuable cargo of general merchandise from the London
+docks to Fort Churchill, a station of the old company on Hudson's
+Bay," said the captain earnestly.  "We were delayed in lading, and
+baffled by head winds and a heavy tumbling sea all the way north-
+about and across.  Then the fog kept us off the coast; and when I
+made port at last, it was too late to delay in those northern
+waters with such a vessel and such a crew as I had.  They cared for
+nothing, and idled me into a fit of sickness; but my first mate was
+a good, excellent man, with no more idea of being frozen in there
+until spring than I had, so we made what speed we could to get
+clear of Hudson's Bay and off the coast.  I owned an eighth of the
+vessel, and he owned a sixteenth of her.  She was a full-rigged
+ship, called the Minerva, but she was getting old and leaky.  I
+meant it should be my last v'y'ge in her, and so it proved.  She
+had been an excellent vessel in her day.  Of the cowards aboard her
+I can't say so much."
+
+"Then you were wrecked?" I asked, as he made a long pause.
+
+"I wa'n't caught astern o' the lighter by any fault of mine,"
+said the captain gloomily.  "We left Fort Churchill and run out
+into the Bay with a light pair o' heels; but I had been vexed to
+death with their red-tape rigging at the company's office, and
+chilled with stayin' on deck an' tryin' to hurry up things, and
+when we were well out o' sight o' land, headin' for Hudson's
+Straits, I had a bad turn o' some sort o' fever, and had to stay
+below.  The days were getting short, and we made good runs, all
+well on board but me, and the crew done their work by dint of hard
+driving."
+
+I began to find this unexpected narrative a little dull. 
+Captain Littlepage spoke with a kind of slow correctness that
+lacked the longshore high flavor to which I had grown used; but I
+listened respectfully while he explained the winds having become
+contrary, and talked on in a dreary sort of way about his voyage,
+the bad weather, and the disadvantages he was under in the
+lightness of his ship, which bounced about like a chip in a
+bucket, and would not answer the rudder or properly respond to the
+most careful setting of sails.
+
+"So there we were blowin' along anyways," he complained; but
+looking at me at this moment, and seeing that my thoughts were
+unkindly wandering, he ceased to speak.
+
+"It was a hard life at sea in those days, I am sure," said I,
+with redoubled interest.
+
+"It was a dog's life," said the poor old gentleman, quite
+reassured, "but it made men of those who followed it.  I see a
+change for the worse even in our own town here; full of loafers
+now, small and poor as 'tis, who once would have followed the sea,
+every lazy soul of 'em.  There is no occupation so fit for just
+that class o' men who never get beyond the fo'cas'le.  I view it,
+in addition, that a community narrows down and grows dreadful
+ignorant when it is shut up to its own affairs, and gets no
+knowledge of the outside world except from a cheap, unprincipled
+newspaper.  In the old days, a good part o' the best men here knew
+a hundred ports and something of the way folks lived in them.  They
+saw the world for themselves, and like's not their wives and
+children saw it with them.  They may not have had the best of
+knowledge to carry with 'em sight-seein', but they were some
+acquainted with foreign lands an' their laws, an' could see outside
+the battle for town clerk here in Dunnet; they got some sense o'
+proportion.  Yes, they lived more dignified, and their houses were
+better within an' without.  Shipping's a terrible loss to this part
+o' New England from a social point o' view, ma'am."
+
+"I have thought of that myself," I returned, with my interest
+quite awakened.  "It accounts for the change in a great many
+things,--the sad disappearance of sea-captains,--doesn't it?"
+
+"A shipmaster was apt to get the habit of reading," said my
+companion, brightening still more, and taking on a most touching
+air of unreserve.  "A captain is not expected to be familiar with
+his crew, and for company's sake in dull days and nights he turns
+to his book.  Most of us old shipmasters came to know 'most
+everything about something; one would take to readin' on farming
+topics, and some were great on medicine,--but Lord help their poor
+crews!--or some were all for history, and now and then there'd be
+one like me that gave his time to the poets.  I was well acquainted
+with a shipmaster that was all for bees an' beekeepin'; and if you
+met him in port and went aboard, he'd sit and talk a terrible while
+about their havin' so much information, and the money that could be
+made out of keepin' 'em.  He was one of the smartest captains that
+ever sailed the seas, but they used to call the Newcastle,
+a great bark he commanded for many years, Tuttle's beehive.  There
+was old Cap'n Jameson: he had notions of Solomon's Temple, and made
+a very handsome little model of the same, right from the Scripture
+measurements, same's other sailors make little ships and design new
+tricks of rigging and all that.  No, there's nothing to take the
+place of shipping in a place like ours.  These bicycles offend me
+dreadfully; they don't afford no real opportunities of experience
+such as a man gained on a voyage.  No: when folks left home in the
+old days they left it to some purpose, and when they got home they
+stayed there and had some pride in it.  There's no large-minded way
+of thinking now: the worst have got to be best and rule everything;
+we're all turned upside down and going back year by year."
+
+"Oh no, Captain Littlepage, I hope not," said I, trying to
+soothe his feelings.
+
+There was a silence in the schoolhouse, but we could hear the
+noise of the water on a beach below.  It sounded like the strange
+warning wave that gives notice of the turn of the tide.  A late
+golden robin, with the most joyful and eager of voices, was singing
+close by in a thicket of wild roses.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+The Waiting Place
+
+"HOW DID YOU manage with the rest of that rough voyage on the
+Minerva?" I asked.
+
+"I shall be glad to explain to you," said Captain Littlepage,
+forgetting his grievances for the moment.  "If I had a map at hand
+I could explain better.  We were driven to and fro 'way up toward
+what we used to call Parry's Discoveries, and lost our bearings. 
+It was thick and foggy, and at last I lost my ship; she drove on a
+rock, and we managed to get ashore on what I took to be a barren
+island, the few of us that were left alive.  When she first struck,
+the sea was somewhat calmer than it had been, and most of the crew,
+against orders, manned the long-boat and put off in a hurry, and
+were never heard of more.  Our own boat upset, but the carpenter
+kept himself and me above water, and we drifted in.  I had no
+strength to call upon after my recent fever, and laid down to die;
+but he found the tracks of a man and dog the second day, and
+got along the shore to one of those far missionary stations that
+the Moravians support.  They were very poor themselves, and in
+distress; 'twas a useless place.  There were but few Esquimaux left
+in that region.  There we remained for some time, and I became
+acquainted with strange events.
+
+The captain lifted his head and gave me a questioning glance. 
+I could not help noticing that the dulled look in his eyes had
+gone, and there was instead a clear intentness that made them seem
+dark and piercing.
+
+"There was a supply ship expected, and the pastor, an
+excellent Christian man, made no doubt that we should get passage
+in her.  He was hoping that orders would come to break up the
+station; but everything was uncertain, and we got on the best we
+could for a while.  We fished, and helped the people in other ways;
+there was no other way of paying our debts.  I was taken to the
+pastor's house until I got better; but they were crowded, and I
+felt myself in the way, and made excuse to join with an old seaman,
+a Scotchman, who had built him a warm cabin, and had room in it for
+another.  He was looked upon with regard, and had stood by the
+pastor in some troubles with the people.  He had been on one of
+those English exploring parties that found one end of the road to
+the north pole, but never could find the other.  We lived like dogs
+in a kennel, or so you'd thought if you had seen the hut from the
+outside; but the main thing was to keep warm; there were piles of
+bird-skins to lie on, and he'd made him a good bunk, and there was
+another for me.  'Twas dreadful dreary waitin' there; we begun to
+think the supply steamer was lost, and my poor ship broke up and
+strewed herself all along the shore.  We got to watching on the
+headlands; my men and me knew the people were short of supplies and
+had to pinch themselves.  It ought to read in the Bible, 'Man
+cannot live by fish alone,' if they'd told the truth of things;
+'taint bread that wears the worst on you!  First part of the time,
+old Gaffett, that I lived with, seemed speechless, and I didn't
+know what to make of him, nor he of me, I dare say; but as we got
+acquainted, I found he'd been through more disasters than I had,
+and had troubles that wa'n't going to let him live a great while. 
+It used to ease his mind to talk to an understanding person, so we
+used to sit and talk together all day, if it rained or blew so that
+we couldn't get out.  I'd got a bad blow on the back of my head at
+the time we came ashore, and it pained me at times, and my strength
+was broken, anyway; I've never been so able since."
+
+Captain Littlepage fell into a reverie.
+
+"Then I had the good of my reading," he explained presently. 
+"I had no books; the pastor spoke but little English, and all his
+books were foreign; but I used to say over all I could remember. 
+The old poets little knew what comfort they could be to a
+man.  I was well acquainted with the works of Milton, but up there
+it did seem to me as if Shakespeare was the king; he has his sea
+terms very accurate, and some beautiful passages were calming to
+the mind.  I could say them over until I shed tears; there was
+nothing beautiful to me in that place but the stars above and those
+passages of verse.
+
+"Gaffett was always brooding and brooding, and talking to
+himself; he was afraid he should never get away, and it preyed upon
+his mind.  He thought when I got home I could interest the
+scientific men in his discovery: but they're all taken up with
+their own notions; some didn't even take pains to answer the
+letters I wrote.  You observe that I said this crippled man Gaffett
+had been shipped on a voyage of discovery.  I now tell you that the
+ship was lost on its return, and only Gaffett and two officers were
+saved off the Greenland coast, and he had knowledge later that
+those men never got back to England; the brig they shipped on was
+run down in the night.  So no other living soul had the facts, and
+he gave them to me.  There is a strange sort of a country 'way up
+north beyond the ice, and strange folks living in it.  Gaffett
+believed it was the next world to this."
+
+"What do you mean, Captain Littlepage?" I exclaimed.  The old
+man was bending forward and whispering; he looked over his shoulder
+before he spoke the last sentence.
+
+"To hear old Gaffett tell about it was something awful," he
+said, going on with his story quite steadily after the moment of
+excitement had passed.  "'Twas first a tale of dogs and sledges,
+and cold and wind and snow.  Then they begun to find the ice grow
+rotten; they had been frozen in, and got into a current flowing
+north, far up beyond Fox Channel, and they took to their boats when
+the ship got crushed, and this warm current took them out of sight
+of the ice, and into a great open sea; and they still followed it
+due north, just the very way they had planned to go.  Then they
+struck a coast that wasn't laid down or charted, but the cliffs
+were such that no boat could land until they found a bay and struck
+across under sail to the other side where the shore looked lower;
+they were scant of provisions and out of water, but they got sight
+of something that looked like a great town.  'For God's sake,
+Gaffett!' said I, the first time he told me.  'You don't mean a
+town two degrees farther north than ships had ever been?' for he'd
+got their course marked on an old chart that he'd pieced out at the
+top; but he insisted upon it, and told it over and over again, to
+be sure I had it straight to carry to those who would be
+interested.  There was no snow and ice, he said, after they had
+sailed some days with that warm current, which seemed to come right
+from under the ice that they'd been pinched up in and had
+been crossing on foot for weeks."
+
+"But what about the town?" I asked.  "Did they get to the
+town?"
+
+"They did," said the captain, "and found inhabitants; 'twas an
+awful condition of things.  It appeared, as near as Gaffett could
+express it, like a place where there was neither living nor dead. 
+They could see the place when they were approaching it by sea
+pretty near like any town, and thick with habitations; but all at
+once they lost sight of it altogether, and when they got close
+inshore they could see the shapes of folks, but they never could
+get near them,--all blowing gray figures that would pass along
+alone, or sometimes gathered in companies as if they were watching. 
+The men were frightened at first, but the shapes never came near
+them,--it was as if they blew back; and at last they all got bold
+and went ashore, and found birds' eggs and sea fowl, like any wild
+northern spot where creatures were tame and folks had never been,
+and there was good water.  Gaffett said that he and another man
+came near one o' the fog-shaped men that was going along slow with
+the look of a pack on his back, among the rocks, an' they chased
+him; but, Lord! he flittered away out o' sight like a leaf the wind
+takes with it, or a piece of cobweb.  They would make as if they
+talked together, but there was no sound of voices, and 'they acted
+as if they didn't see us, but only felt us coming towards them,'
+says Gaffett one day, trying to tell the particulars.  They
+couldn't see the town when they were ashore.  One day the captain
+and the doctor were gone till night up across the high land where
+the town had seemed to be, and they came back at night beat out and
+white as ashes, and wrote and wrote all next day in their
+notebooks, and whispered together full of excitement, and they were
+sharp-spoken with the men when they offered to ask any questions.
+
+"Then there came a day," said Captain Littlepage, leaning
+toward me with a strange look in his eyes, and whispering quickly. 
+"The men all swore they wouldn't stay any longer; the man on watch
+early in the morning gave the alarm, and they all put off in the
+boat and got a little way out to sea.  Those folks, or whatever
+they were, come about 'em like bats; all at once they raised
+incessant armies, and come as if to drive 'em back to sea.  They
+stood thick at the edge o' the water like the ridges o' grim war;
+no thought o' flight, none of retreat.  Sometimes a standing fight,
+then soaring on main wing tormented all the air.  And when they'd
+got the boat out o' reach o' danger, Gaffett said they looked back,
+and there was the town again, standing up just as they'd seen it
+first, comin' on the coast.  Say what you might, they all believed
+'twas a kind of waiting-place between this world an' the next."
+
+The captain had sprung to his feet in his excitement, and made
+excited gestures, but he still whispered huskily.
+
+"Sit down, sir," I said as quietly as I could, and he sank
+into his chair quite spent.
+
+"Gaffett thought the officers were hurrying home to report and
+to fit out a new expedition when they were all lost.  At the time,
+the men got orders not to talk over what they had seen," the old
+man explained presently in a more natural tone.
+
+"Weren't they all starving, and wasn't it a mirage or
+something of that sort?" I ventured to ask.  But he looked at me
+blankly.
+
+"Gaffett had got so that his mind ran on nothing else," he
+went on.  "The ship's surgeon let fall an opinion to the captain,
+one day, that 'twas some condition o' the light and the magnetic
+currents that let them see those folks.  'Twa'n't a right-feeling
+part of the world, anyway; they had to battle with the compass to
+make it serve, an' everything seemed to go wrong.  Gaffett had
+worked it out in his own mind that they was all common ghosts, but
+the conditions were unusual favorable for seeing them.  He was
+always talking about the Ge'graphical Society, but he never took
+proper steps, as I viewed it now, and stayed right there at the
+mission.  He was a good deal crippled, and thought they'd confine
+him in some jail of a hospital.  He said he was waiting to find the
+right men to tell, somebody bound north.  Once in a while they
+stopped there to leave a mail or something.  He was set in his
+notions, and let two or three proper explorin' expeditions go by
+him because he didn't like their looks; but when I was there he had
+got restless, fearin' he might be taken away or something.  He had
+all his directions written out straight as a string to give the
+right ones.  I wanted him to trust 'em to me, so I might have
+something to show, but he wouldn't.  I suppose he's dead now.  I
+wrote to him an' I done all I could.  'Twill be a great exploit
+some o' these days."
+
+I assented absent-mindedly, thinking more just then of my
+companion's alert, determined look and the seafaring, ready aspect
+that had come to his face; but at this moment there fell a sudden
+change, and the old, pathetic, scholarly look returned.  Behind me
+hung a map of North America, and I saw, as I turned a little, that
+his eyes were fixed upon the northernmost regions and their careful
+recent outlines with a look of bewilderment.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+The Outer Island
+
+
+GAFFETT WITH HIS good bunk and the bird-skins, the story of
+the wreck of the Minerva, the human-shaped creatures of fog and
+cobweb, the great words of Milton with which he described their
+onslaught upon the crew, all this moving tale had such an air of
+truth that I could not argue with Captain Littlepage.  The old man
+looked away from the map as if it had vaguely troubled him, and
+regarded me appealingly.
+
+"We were just speaking of"--and he stopped.  I saw that he had
+suddenly forgotten his subject.
+
+"There were a great many persons at the funeral," I hastened
+to say.
+
+"Oh yes," the captain answered, with satisfaction.  "All
+showed respect who could.  The sad circumstances had for a moment
+slipped my mind.  Yes, Mrs. Begg will be very much missed.  She was
+a capital manager for her husband when he was at sea.  Oh yes,
+shipping is a very great loss."  And he sighed heavily.  "There was
+hardly a man of any standing who didn't interest himself in some
+way in navigation.  It always gave credit to a town.  I call it
+low-water mark now here in Dunnet."
+
+He rose with dignity to take leave, and asked me to stop at
+his house some day, when he would show me some outlandish things
+that he had brought home from sea.  I was familiar with the subject
+of the decadence of shipping interests in all its affecting
+branches, having been already some time in Dunnet, and I felt sure
+that Captain Littlepage's mind had now returned to a safe level.
+
+As we came down the hill toward the village our ways divided,
+and when I had seen the old captain well started on a smooth piece
+of sidewalk which would lead him to his own door, we parted, the
+best of friends.  "Step in some afternoon," he said, as
+affectionately as if I were a fellow-shipmaster wrecked on the lee
+shore of age like himself.  I turned toward home, and presently met
+Mrs. Todd coming toward me with an anxious expression.
+
+"I see you sleevin' the old gentleman down the hill," she
+suggested.
+
+"Yes.  I've had a very interesting afternoon with him," I
+answered, and her face brightened.
+
+"Oh, then he's all right.  I was afraid 'twas one o' his
+flighty spells, an' Mari' Harris wouldn't"--
+
+"Yes," I returned, smiling, "he has been telling me some old
+stories, but we talked about Mrs. Begg and the funeral beside, and
+Paradise Lost."
+
+"I expect he got tellin' of you some o' his great narratives,"
+she answered, looking at me shrewdly.  "Funerals always sets him
+goin'.  Some o' them tales hangs together toler'ble well," she
+added, with a sharper look than before.  "An' he's been a great
+reader all his seafarin' days.  Some thinks he overdid, and
+affected his head, but for a man o' his years he's amazin' now when
+he's at his best.  Oh, he used to be a beautiful man!"
+
+
+We were standing where there was a fine view of the harbor and
+its long stretches of shore all covered by the great army of the
+pointed firs, darkly cloaked and standing as if they waited to
+embark.  As we looked far seaward among the outer islands, the
+trees seemed to march seaward still, going steadily over the
+heights and down to the water's edge.
+
+It had been growing gray and cloudy, like the first evening of
+autumn, and a shadow had fallen on the darkening shore.  Suddenly,
+as we looked, a gleam of golden sunshine struck the outer islands,
+and one of them shone out clear in the light, and revealed itself
+in a compelling way to our eyes.  Mrs. Todd was looking off across
+the bay with a face full of affection and interest.  The sunburst
+upon that outermost island made it seem like a sudden revelation of
+the world beyond this which some believe to be so near.
+
+"That's where mother lives," said Mrs. Todd.  "Can't we see it
+plain?  I was brought up out there on Green Island.  I know every
+rock an' bush on it."
+
+"Your mother!" I exclaimed, with great interest.
+
+"Yes, dear, cert'in; I've got her yet, old's I be.  She's one
+of them spry, light-footed little women; always was, an' light-
+hearted, too," answered Mrs. Todd, with satisfaction.  "She's seen
+all the trouble folks can see, without it's her last sickness; an'
+she's got a word of courage for everybody.  Life ain't spoilt her
+a mite.  She's eighty-six an' I'm sixty-seven, and I've seen the
+time I've felt a good sight the oldest.  'Land sakes alive!' says
+she, last time I was out to see her.  'How you do lurch about
+steppin' into a bo't?'  I laughed so I liked to have gone right
+over into the water; an' we pushed off, an' left her laughin' there
+on the shore."
+
+The light had faded as we watched.  Mrs. Todd had mounted a
+gray rock, and stood there grand and architectural, like a
+caryatide.  Presently she stepped down, and we continued our
+way homeward.
+
+"You an' me, we'll take a bo't an' go out some day and see
+mother," she promised me.  "'Twould please her very much,
+an' there's one or two sca'ce herbs grows better on the island than
+anywhere else.  I ain't seen their like nowheres here on the main."
+
+"Now I'm goin' right down to get us each a mug o' my beer,"
+she announced as we entered the house, "an' I believe I'll sneak in
+a little mite o' camomile.  Goin' to the funeral an' all, I feel to
+have had a very wearin' afternoon."
+
+I heard her going down into the cool little cellar, and then
+there was considerable delay.  When she returned, mug in hand, I
+noticed the taste of camomile, in spite of my protest; but its
+flavor was disguised by some other herb that I did not know, and
+she stood over me until I drank it all and said that I liked it.
+
+"I don't give that to everybody," said Mrs. Todd kindly; and
+I felt for a moment as if it were part of a spell and incantation,
+and as if my enchantress would now begin to look like the cobweb
+shapes of the arctic town.  Nothing happened but a quiet evening
+and some delightful plans that we made about going to Green Island,
+and on the morrow there was the clear sunshine and blue sky of
+another day.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+Green Island
+
+ONE MORNING, very early, I heard Mrs. Todd in the garden outside my
+window.  By the unusual loudness of her remarks to a passer-by, and
+the notes of a familiar hymn which she sang as she worked among the
+herbs, and which came as if directed purposely to the sleepy ears
+of my consciousness, I knew that she wished I would wake up and
+come and speak to her.
+
+In a few minutes she responded to a morning voice from behind
+the blinds.  "I expect you're goin' up to your schoolhouse to pass
+all this pleasant day; yes, I expect you're goin' to be dreadful
+busy," she said despairingly.
+
+"Perhaps not," said I.  "Why, what's going to be the matter
+with you, Mrs. Todd?"  For I supposed that she was tempted by the
+fine weather to take one of her favorite expeditions along the
+shore pastures to gather herbs and simples, and would like to have
+me keep the house.
+
+"No, I don't want to go nowhere by land," she answered
+gayly,--"no, not by land; but I don't know's we shall have a better
+day all the rest of the summer to go out to Green Island an' see
+mother.  I waked up early thinkin' of her.  The wind's light
+northeast,--'twill take us right straight out, an' this time o'
+year it's liable to change round southwest an' fetch us home
+pretty, 'long late in the afternoon.  Yes, it's goin' to be a good
+day."
+
+"Speak to the captain and the Bowden boy, if you see anybody
+going by toward the landing," said I.  "We'll take the big boat."
+
+"Oh, my sakes! now you let me do things my way," said Mrs.
+Todd scornfully.  "No, dear, we won't take no big bo't.  I'll just
+git a handy dory, an' Johnny Bowden an' me, we'll man her
+ourselves.  I don't want no abler bo't than a good dory, an' a nice
+light breeze ain't goin' to make no sea; an' Johnny's my cousin's
+son,--mother'll like to have him come; an' he'll be down to the
+herrin' weirs all the time we're there, anyway; we don't want to
+carry no men folks havin' to be considered every minute an' takin'
+up all our time.  No, you let me do; we'll just slip out an' see
+mother by ourselves.  I guess what breakfast you'll want's about
+ready now."
+
+I had become well acquainted with Mrs. Todd as landlady, herb-
+gatherer, and rustic philosopher; we had been discreet fellow-
+passengers once or twice when I had sailed up the coast to a larger
+town than Dunnet Landing to do some shopping; but I was yet to
+become acquainted with her as a mariner.  An hour later we pushed
+off from the landing in the desired dory.  The tide was just on the
+turn, beginning to fall, and several friends and acquaintances
+stood along the side of the dilapidated wharf and cheered us by
+their words and evident interest.  Johnny Bowden and I were both
+rowing in haste to get out where we could catch the breeze and put
+up the small sail which lay clumsily furled along the gunwale. 
+Mrs. Todd sat aft, a stern and unbending lawgiver.
+
+"You better let her drift; we'll get there 'bout as quick; the
+tide'll take her right out from under these old buildin's; there's
+plenty wind outside."
+
+"Your bo't ain't trimmed proper, Mis' Todd!" exclaimed a voice
+from shore.  "You're lo'ded so the bo't'll drag; you can't git her
+before the wind, ma'am.  You set 'midships, Mis' Todd, an' let the
+boy hold the sheet 'n' steer after he gits the sail up; you won't
+never git out to Green Island that way.  She's lo'ded bad, your
+bo't is,--she's heavy behind's she is now!"
+
+Mrs. Todd turned with some difficulty and regarded the anxious
+adviser, my right oar flew out of water, and we seemed about to
+capsize. "That you, Asa?  Good-mornin'," she said politely. 
+"I al'ays liked the starn seat best.  When'd you git back from up
+country?"
+
+This allusion to Asa's origin was not lost upon the rest of
+the company.  We were some little distance from shore, but we could
+hear a chuckle of laughter, and Asa, a person who was too ready
+with his criticism and advice on every possible subject, turned and
+walked indignantly away.
+
+When we caught the wind we were soon on our seaward course,
+and only stopped to underrun a trawl, for the floats of which Mrs.
+Todd looked earnestly, explaining that her mother might not be
+prepared for three extra to dinner; it was her brother's trawl, and
+she meant to just run her eye along for the right sort of a little
+haddock.  I leaned over the boat's side with great interest and
+excitement, while she skillfully handled the long line of hooks,
+and made scornful remarks upon worthless, bait-consuming creatures
+of the sea as she reviewed them and left them on the trawl or shook
+them off into the waves.  At last we came to what she pronounced a
+proper haddock, and having taken him on board and ended his life
+resolutely, we went our way.
+
+As we sailed along I listened to an increasingly delightful
+commentary upon the islands, some of them barren rocks, or at best
+giving sparse pasturage for sheep in the early summer.  On one of
+these an eager little flock ran to the water's edge and bleated at
+us so affectingly that I would willingly have stopped; but Mrs.
+Todd steered away from the rocks, and scolded at the sheep's mean
+owner, an acquaintance of hers, who grudged the little salt and
+still less care which the patient creatures needed.  The hot
+midsummer sun makes prisons of these small islands that are a
+paradise in early June, with their cool springs and short thick-
+growing grass.  On a larger island, farther out to sea, my
+entertaining companion showed me with glee the small houses of two
+farmers who shared the island between them, and declared that for
+three generations the people had not spoken to each other even in
+times of sickness or death or birth.  "When the news come that the
+war was over, one of 'em knew it a week, and never stepped across
+his wall to tell the other," she said.  "There, they enjoy it;
+they've got to have somethin' to interest 'em in such a place; 'tis
+a good deal more tryin' to be tied to folks you don't like than
+'tis to be alone.  Each of 'em tell the neighbors their wrongs;
+plenty likes to hear and tell again; them as fetch a bone'll carry
+one, an' so they keep the fight a-goin'.  I must say I like variety
+myself; some folks washes Monday an' irons Tuesday the whole year
+round, even if the circus is goin' by!"
+
+A long time before we landed at Green Island we could see the
+small white house, standing high like a beacon, where Mrs. Todd was
+born and where her mother lived, on a green slope above the
+water, with dark spruce woods still higher.  There were crops in
+the fields, which we presently distinguished from one another. 
+Mrs. Todd examined them while we were still far at sea.  "Mother's
+late potatoes looks backward; ain't had rain enough so far," she
+pronounced her opinion.  "They look weedier than what they call
+Front Street down to Cowper Centre.  I expect brother William is so
+occupied with his herrin' weirs an' servin' out bait to the
+schooners that he don't think once a day of the land."
+
+"What's the flag for, up above the spruces there behind the
+house?" I inquired, with eagerness.
+
+"Oh, that's the sign for herrin'," she explained kindly, while
+Johnny Bowden regarded me with contemptuous surprise.  "When they
+get enough for schooners they raise that flag; an' when 'tis a poor
+catch in the weir pocket they just fly a little signal down by the
+shore, an' then the small bo'ts comes and get enough an' over for
+their trawls.  There, look! there she is: mother sees us; she's
+wavin' somethin' out o' the fore door!  She'll be to the landin'-
+place quick's we are."
+
+I looked, and could see a tiny flutter in the doorway, but a
+quicker signal had made its way from the heart on shore to the
+heart on the sea.
+
+"How do you suppose she knows it is me?" said Mrs. Todd, with
+a tender smile on her broad face.  "There, you never get over bein'
+a child long's you have a mother to go to.  Look at the chimney,
+now; she's gone right in an' brightened up the fire.  Well, there,
+I'm glad mother's well; you'll enjoy seein' her very much."
+
+Mrs. Todd leaned back into her proper position, and the boat
+trimmed again.  She took a firmer grasp of the sheet, and gave an
+impatient look up at the gaff and the leech of the little sail, and
+twitched the sheet as if she urged the wind like a horse.  There
+came at once a fresh gust, and we seemed to have doubled our speed. 
+Soon we were near enough to see a tiny figure with handkerchiefed
+head come down across the field and stand waiting for us at the
+cove above a curve of pebble beach.
+
+Presently the dory grated on the pebbles, and Johnny Bowden,
+who had been kept in abeyance during the voyage, sprang out and
+used manful exertions to haul us up with the next wave, so that
+Mrs. Todd could make a dry landing.
+
+"You don that very well," she said, mounting to her feet, and
+coming ashore somewhat stiffly, but with great dignity, refusing
+our outstretched hands, and returning to possess herself of a bag
+which had lain at her feet.
+
+"Well, mother, here I be!" she announced with indifference;
+but they stood and beamed in each other's faces.
+
+"Lookin' pretty well for an old lady, ain't she?" said Mrs.
+Todd's mother, turning away from her daughter to speak to me.  She
+was a delightful little person herself, with bright eyes and an
+affectionate air of expectation like a child on a holiday.  You
+felt as if Mrs. Blackett were an old and dear friend before you let
+go her cordial hand.  We all started together up the hill.
+
+"Now don't you haste too fast, mother," said Mrs. Todd
+warningly; "'tis a far reach o' risin' ground to the fore door, and
+you won't set an' get your breath when you're once there, but go
+trotting about.  Now don't you go a mite faster than we proceed
+with this bag an' basket.  Johnny, there, 'll fetch up the haddock. 
+I just made one stop to underrun William's trawl till I come to
+jes' such a fish's I thought you'd want to make one o' your nice
+chowders of.  I've brought an onion with me that was layin' about
+on the window-sill at home."
+
+"That's just what I was wantin'," said the hostess.  "I give
+a sigh when you spoke o' chowder, knowin' my onions was out. 
+William forgot to replenish us last time he was to the Landin'. 
+Don't you haste so yourself Almiry, up this risin' ground.  I hear
+you commencin' to wheeze a'ready."
+
+This mild revenge seemed to afford great pleasure to both
+giver and receiver.  They laughed a little, and looked at each
+other affectionately, and then at me.  Mrs. Todd considerately
+paused, and faced about to regard the wide sea view.  I was glad to
+stop, being more out of breath than either of my companions, and I
+prolonged the halt by asking the names of the neighboring islands. 
+There was a fine breeze blowing, which we felt more there on the
+high land than when we were running before it in the dory.
+
+"Why, this ain't that kitten I saw when I was out last, the
+one that I said didn't appear likely?" exclaimed Mrs. Todd as we
+went our way.
+
+"That's the one, Almiry," said her mother.  "She always had a
+likely look to me, an' she's right after business.  I never see
+such a mouser for one of her age.  If't wan't for William, I never
+should have housed that other dronin' old thing so long; but he
+sets by her on account of her havin' a bob tail.  I don't deem it
+advisable to maintain cats just on account of their havin' bob
+tails; they're like all other curiosities, good for them that wants
+to see 'm twice.  This kitten catches mice for both, an' keeps me
+respectable as I ain't been for a year.  She's a real understandin'
+little help, this kitten is.  I picked her from among five Miss
+Augusta Pernell had over to Burnt Island," said the old woman,
+trudging along with the kitten close at her skirts.  "Augusta, she
+says to me, 'Why, Mis' Blackett, you've took and homeliest;'
+and, says I, 'I've got the smartest; I'm satisfied.'"
+
+"I'd trust nobody sooner'n you to pick out a kitten, mother,"
+said the daughter handsomely, and we went on in peace and harmony.
+
+The house was just before us now, on a green level that looked
+as if a huge hand had scooped it out of the long green field we had
+been ascending.  A little way above, the dark, spruce woods began
+to climb the top of the hill and cover the seaward slopes of the
+island.  There was just room for the small farm and the forest; we
+looked down at the fish-house and its rough sheds, and the weirs
+stretching far out into the water.  As we looked upward, the tops
+of the firs came sharp against the blue sky.  There was a great
+stretch of rough pasture-land round the shoulder of the island to
+the eastward, and here were all the thick-scattered gray rocks that
+kept their places, and the gray backs of many sheep that forever
+wandered and fed on the thin sweet pasturage that fringed the
+ledges and made soft hollows and strips of green turf like growing
+velvet.  I could see the rich green of bayberry bushes here and
+there, where the rocks made room.  The air was very sweet; one
+could not help wishing to be a citizen of such a complete and tiny
+continent and home of fisherfolk.
+
+The house was broad and clean, with a roof that looked heavy
+on its low walls.  It was one of the houses that seem firm-rooted
+in the ground, as if they were two-thirds below the surface, like
+icebergs.  The front door stood hospitably open in expectation of
+company, and an orderly vine grew at each side; but our path led to
+the kitchen door at the house-end, and there grew a mass of gay
+flowers and greenery, as if they had been swept together by some
+diligent garden broom into a tangled heap: there were portulacas
+all along under the lower step and straggling off into the grass,
+and clustering mallows that crept as near as they dared, like poor
+relations.  I saw the bright eyes and brainless little heads of two
+half-grown chickens who were snuggled down among the mallows as if
+they had been chased away from the door more than once, and
+expected to be again.
+
+"It seems kind o' formal comin' in this way," said Mrs. Todd
+impulsively, as we passed the flowers and came to the front
+doorstep; but she was mindful of the proprieties, and walked before
+us into the best room on the left.
+
+"Why, mother, if you haven't gone an' turned the carpet!" she
+exclaimed, with something in her voice that spoke of awe and
+admiration.  "When'd you get to it?  I s'pose Mis' Addicks come
+over an' helped you, from White Island Landing?"
+
+"No, she didn't," answered the old woman, standing proudly
+erect, and making the most of a great moment.  "I done it all
+myself with William's help.  He had a spare day, an' took right
+holt with me; an' 'twas all well beat on the grass, an' turned, an'
+put down again afore we went to bed.  I ripped an' sewed over two
+o' them long breadths.  I ain't had such a good night's sleep for
+two years."
+
+"There, what do you think o' havin' such a mother as that for
+eighty-six year old?" said Mrs. Todd, standing before us like a
+large figure of Victory.
+
+As for the mother, she took on a sudden look of youth; you
+felt as if she promised a great future, and was beginning, not
+ending, her summers and their happy toils.
+
+"My, my!" exclaimed Mrs. Todd.  "I couldn't ha' done it
+myself, I've got to own it."
+
+"I was much pleased to have it off my mind," said Mrs.
+Blackett, humbly; "the more so because along at the first of the
+next week I wasn't very well.  I suppose it may have been the
+change of weather."
+
+Mrs. Todd could not resist a significant glance at me, but,
+with charming sympathy, she forbore to point the lesson or to
+connect this illness with its apparent cause.  She loomed larger
+than ever in the little old-fashioned best room, with its few
+pieces of good furniture and pictures of national interest.  The
+green paper curtains were stamped with conventional landscapes of
+a foreign order,--castles on inaccessible crags, and lovely lakes
+with steep wooded shores; under-foot the treasured carpet was
+covered thick with home-made rugs.  There were empty glass lamps
+and crystallized bouquets of grass and some fine shells on the
+narrow mantelpiece.
+
+"I was married in this room," said Mrs. Todd unexpectedly; and
+I heard her give a sigh after she had spoken, as if she could not
+help the touch of regret that would forever come with all her
+thoughts of happiness.
+
+"We stood right there between the windows," she added, "and
+the minister stood here.  William wouldn't come in.  He was always
+odd about seein' folks, just's he is now.  I run to meet 'em from
+a child, an' William, he'd take an' run away."
+
+"I've been the gainer," said the old mother cheerfully. 
+"William has been son an' daughter both since you was married off
+the island.  He's been 'most too satisfied to stop at home 'long o'
+his old mother, but I always tell 'em I'm the gainer."
+
+We were all moving toward the kitchen as if by common
+instinct.  The best room was too suggestive of serious occasions,
+and the shades were all pulled down to shut out the summer
+light and air.  It was indeed a tribute to Society to find a room
+set apart for her behests out there on so apparently neighborless
+and remote an island.  Afternoon visits and evening festivals must
+be few in such a bleak situation at certain seasons of the year,
+but Mrs. Blackett was of those who do not live to themselves, and
+who have long since passed the line that divides mere self-concern
+from a valued share in whatever Society can give and take.  There
+were those of her neighbors who never had taken the trouble to
+furnish a best room, but Mrs. Blackett was one who knew the uses of
+a parlor.
+
+"Yes, do come right out into the old kitchen; I shan't make
+any stranger of you," she invited us pleasantly, after we had been
+properly received in the room appointed to formality.  "I expect
+Almiry, here, 'll be driftin' out 'mongst the pasture-weeds quick's
+she can find a good excuse.  'Tis hot now.  You'd better content
+yourselves till you get nice an' rested, an' 'long after dinner the
+sea-breeze 'll spring up, an' then you can take your walks, an' go
+up an' see the prospect from the big ledge.  Almiry'll want to show
+off everything there is.  Then I'll get you a good cup o' tea
+before you start to go home.  The days are plenty long now."
+
+While we were talking in the best room the selected fish had
+been mysteriously brought up from the shore, and lay all cleaned
+and ready in an earthen crock on the table.
+
+"I think William might have just stopped an' said a word,"
+remarked Mrs. Todd, pouting with high affront as she caught sight
+of it.  "He's friendly enough when he comes ashore, an' was
+remarkable social the last time, for him."
+
+"He ain't disposed to be very social with the ladies,"
+explained William's mother, with a delightful glance at me, as if
+she counted upon my friendship and tolerance.  "He's very
+particular, and he's all in his old fishin'-clothes to-day.  He'll
+want me to tell him everything you said and done, after you've
+gone.  William has very deep affections.  He'll want to see you,
+Almiry.  Yes, I guess he'll be in by an' by."
+
+"I'll search for him by 'n' by, if he don't," proclaimed Mrs.
+Todd, with an air of unalterable resolution.  "I know all of his
+burrows down 'long the shore.  I'll catch him by hand 'fore he
+knows it.  I've got some business with William, anyway.  I brought
+forty-two cents with me that was due him for them last lobsters he
+brought in."
+
+"You can leave it with me," suggested the little old mother,
+who was already stepping about among her pots and pans in the
+pantry, and preparing to make the chowder.
+
+I became possessed of a sudden unwonted curiosity in regard to
+William, and felt that half the pleasure of my visit would be lost
+if I could not make his interesting acquaintance.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+William
+
+MRS. TODD HAD taken the onion out of her basket and laid it down
+upon the kitchen table.  "There's Johnny Bowden come with us, you
+know," she reminded her mother.  "He'll be hungry enough to eat his
+size."
+
+"I've got new doughnuts, dear," said the little old lady. 
+"You don't often catch William 'n' me out o' provisions.  I expect
+you might have chose a somewhat larger fish, but I'll try an' make
+it do.  I shall have to have a few extra potatoes, but there's a
+field full out there, an' the hoe's leanin' against the well-house,
+in 'mongst the climbin'-beans."  She smiled and gave her daughter
+a commanding nod.
+
+"Land sakes alive!  Le's blow the horn for William," insisted
+Mrs. Todd, with some excitement.  "He needn't break his spirit so
+far's to come in.  He'll know you need him for something
+particular, an' then we can call to him as he comes up the path. 
+I won't put him to no pain."
+
+Mrs. Blackett's old face, for the first time, wore a look of
+trouble, and I found it necessary to counteract the teasing spirit
+of Almira.  It was too pleasant to stay indoors altogether, even in
+such rewarding companionship; besides, I might meet William; and,
+straying out presently, I found the hoe by the well-house and an
+old splint basket at the woodshed door, and also found my way down
+to the field where there was a great square patch of rough, weedy
+potato-tops and tall ragweed.  One corner was already dug, and I
+chose a fat-looking hill where the tops were well withered.  There
+is all the pleasure that one can have in gold-digging in finding
+one's hopes satisfied in the riches of a good hill of potatoes.  I
+longed to go on; but it did not seem frugal to dig any longer after
+my basket was full, and at last I took my hoe by the middle and
+lifted the basket to go back up the hill.  I was sure that Mrs.
+Blackett must be waiting impatiently to slice the potatoes into the
+chowder, layer after layer, with the fish.
+
+"You let me take holt o' that basket, ma'am," said the
+pleasant, anxious voice behind me.
+
+I turned, startled in the silence of the wide field, and saw
+an elderly man, bent in the shoulders as fishermen often are, gray-
+headed and clean-shaven, and with a timid air.  It was William.  He
+looked just like his mother, and I had been imagining that he was
+large and stout like his sister, Almira Todd; and, strange to say,
+my fancy had led me to picture him not far from thirty and a little
+loutish.  It was necessary instead to pay William the respect due
+to age.
+
+I accustomed myself to plain facts on the instant, and we said
+good-morning like old friends.  The basket was really heavy, and I
+put the hoe through its handle and offered him one end; then we
+moved easily toward the house together, speaking of the fine
+weather and of mackerel which were reported to be striking in all
+about the bay.  William had been out since three o'clock, and had
+taken an extra fare of fish.  I could feel that Mrs. Todd's eyes
+were upon us as we approached the house, and although I fell behind
+in the narrow path, and let William take the basket alone and
+precede me at some little distance the rest of the way, I could
+plainly hear her greet him.
+
+"Got round to comin' in, didn't you?" she inquired, with
+amusement.  "Well, now, that's clever.  Didn't know's I should see
+you to-day, William, an' I wanted to settle an account."
+
+I felt somewhat disturbed and responsible, but when I joined
+them they were on most simple and friendly terms.  It became
+evident that, with William, it was the first step that cost, and
+that, having once joined in social interests, he was able to pursue
+them with more or less pleasure.  He was about sixty, and not
+young-looking for his years, yet so undying is the spirit of youth,
+and bashfulness has such a power of survival, that I felt all the
+time as if one must try to make the occasion easy for some one who
+was young and new to the affairs of social life.  He asked politely
+if I would like to go up to the great ledge while dinner was
+getting ready; so, not without a deep sense of pleasure, and a
+delighted look of surprise from the two hostesses, we started,
+William and I, as if both of us felt much younger than we looked. 
+Such was the innocence and simplicity of the moment that when I
+heard Mrs. Todd laughing behind us in the kitchen I laughed too,
+but William did not even blush.  I think he was a little deaf, and
+he stepped along before me most businesslike and intent upon his
+errand.
+
+We went from the upper edge of the field above the house into
+a smooth, brown path among the dark spruces.  The hot sun brought
+out the fragrance of the pitchy bark, and the shade was pleasant as
+we climbed the hill.  William stopped once or twice to show
+me a great wasps'-nest close by, or some fishhawks'-nests below in
+a bit of swamp.  He picked a few sprigs of late-blooming linnaea as
+we came out upon an open bit of pasture at the top of the island,
+and gave them to me without speaking, but he knew as well as I that
+one could not say half he wished about linnaea.  Through this piece
+of rough pasture ran a huge shape of stone like the great backbone
+of an enormous creature.  At the end, near the woods, we could
+climb up on it and walk along to the highest point; there above the
+circle of pointed firs we could look down over all the island, and
+could see the ocean that circled this and a hundred other bits of
+island ground, the mainland shore and all the far horizons.  It
+gave a sudden sense of space, for nothing stopped the eye or hedged
+one in,--that sense of liberty in space and time which great
+prospects always give.
+
+"There ain't no such view in the world, I expect," said
+William proudly, and I hastened to speak my heartfelt tribute of
+praise; it was impossible not to feel as if an untraveled boy had
+spoken, and yet one loved to have him value his native heath.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+
+Where Pennyroyal Grew
+
+WE WERE a little late to dinner, but Mrs. Blackett and Mrs. Todd
+were lenient, and we all took our places after William had paused
+to wash his hands, like a pious Brahmin, at the well, and put on a
+neat blue coat which he took from a peg behind the kitchen door. 
+Then he resolutely asked a blessing in words that I could not hear,
+and we ate the chowder and were thankful.  The kitten went round
+and round the table, quite erect, and, holding on by her fierce
+young claws, she stopped to mew with pathos at each elbow, or
+darted off to the open door when a song sparrow forgot himself and
+lit in the grass too near.  William did not talk much, but his
+sister Todd occupied the time and told all the news there was to
+tell of Dunnet Landing and its coasts, while the old mother
+listened with delight.  Her hospitality was something exquisite;
+she had the gift which so many women lack, of being able to make
+themselves and their houses belong entirely to a guest's
+pleasure,--that charming surrender for the moment of themselves and
+whatever belongs to them, so that they make a part of one's
+own life that can never be forgotten.  Tact is after all a kind of
+mindreading, and my hostess held the golden gift.  Sympathy is of
+the mind as well as the heart, and Mrs. Blackett's world and mine
+were one from the moment we met.  Besides, she had that final, that
+highest gift of heaven, a perfect self-forgetfulness.  Sometimes,
+as I watched her eager, sweet old face, I wondered why she had been
+set to shine on this lonely island of the northern coast.  It must
+have been to keep the balance true, and make up to all her
+scattered and depending neighbors for other things which they may
+have lacked.
+
+When we had finished clearing away the old blue plates, and
+the kitten had taken care of her share of the fresh haddock, just
+as we were putting back the kitchen chairs in their places, Mrs.
+Todd said briskly that she must go up into the pasture now to
+gather the desired herbs.
+
+"You can stop here an' rest, or you can accompany me," she
+announced.  "Mother ought to have her nap, and when we come back
+she an' William'll sing for you.  She admires music," said Mrs.
+Todd, turning to speak to her mother.
+
+But Mrs. Blackett tried to say that she couldn't sing as she
+used, and perhaps William wouldn't feel like it.  She looked tired,
+the good old soul, or I should have liked to sit in the peaceful
+little house while she slept; I had had much pleasant experience of
+pastures already in her daughter's company.  But it seemed best to
+go with Mrs. Todd, and off we went.
+
+Mrs. Todd carried the gingham bag which she had brought from
+home, and a small heavy burden in the bottom made it hang straight
+and slender from her hand.  The way was steep, and she soon grew
+breathless, so that we sat down to rest awhile on a convenient
+large stone among the bayberry.
+
+"There, I wanted you to see this,--'tis mother's picture,"
+said Mrs. Todd; "'twas taken once when she was up to Portland soon
+after she was married.  That's me," she added, opening another worn
+case, and displaying the full face of the cheerful child she looked
+like still in spite of being past sixty.  "And here's William an'
+father together.  I take after father, large and heavy, an' William
+is like mother's folks, short an' thin.  He ought to have made
+something o' himself, bein' a man an' so like mother; but though
+he's been very steady to work, an' kept up the farm, an' done his
+fishin' too right along, he never had mother's snap an' power o'
+seein' things just as they be.  He's got excellent judgment, too,"
+meditated William's sister, but she could not arrive at any
+satisfactory decision upon what she evidently thought his failure
+in life.  "I think it is well to see any one so happy an' makin'
+the most of life just as it falls to hand," she said as she began
+to put the daguerreotypes away again; but I reached out my
+hand to see her mother's once more, a most flowerlike face of a
+lovely young woman in quaint dress.  There was in the eyes a look
+of anticipation and joy, a far-off look that sought the horizon;
+one often sees it in seafaring families, inherited by girls and
+boys alike from men who spend their lives at sea, and are always
+watching for distant sails or the first loom of the land.  At sea
+there is nothing to be seen close by, and this has its counterpart
+in a sailor's character, in the large and brave and patient traits
+that are developed, the hopeful pleasantness that one loves so in
+a seafarer.
+
+When the family pictures were wrapped again in a big
+handkerchief, we set forward in a narrow footpath and made our way
+to a lonely place that faced northward, where there was more
+pasturage and fewer bushes, and we went down to the edge of short
+grass above some rocky cliffs where the deep sea broke with a great
+noise, though the wind was down and the water looked quiet a little
+way from shore.  Among the grass grew such pennyroyal as the rest
+of the world could not provide.  There was a fine fragrance in the
+air as we gathered it sprig by sprig and stepped along carefully,
+and Mrs. Todd pressed her aromatic nosegay between her hands and
+offered it to me again and again.
+
+"There's nothin' like it," she said; "oh no, there's no such
+pennyr'yal as this in the state of Maine.  It's the right pattern
+of the plant, and all the rest I ever see is but an imitation. 
+Don't it do you good?"  And I answered with enthusiasm.
+
+"There, dear, I never showed nobody else but mother where to
+find this place; 'tis kind of sainted to me.  Nathan, my husband,
+an' I used to love this place when we was courtin', and"--she
+hesitated, and then spoke softly--"when he was lost, 'twas just off
+shore tryin' to get in by the short channel out there between Squaw
+Islands, right in sight o' this headland where we'd set an' made
+our plans all summer long."
+
+I had never heard her speak of her husband before, but I felt
+that we were friends now since she had brought me to this place.
+
+"'Twas but a dream with us," Mrs. Todd said.  "I knew it when
+he was gone.  I knew it"--and she whispered as if she were at
+confession--"I knew it afore he started to go to sea.  My heart was
+gone out o' my keepin' before I ever saw Nathan; but he loved me
+well, and he made me real happy, and he died before he ever knew
+what he'd had to know if we'd lived long together.  'Tis very
+strange about love.  No, Nathan never found out, but my heart was
+troubled when I knew him first.  There's more women likes to be
+loved than there is of those that loves.  I spent some happy hours
+right here.  I always liked Nathan, and he never knew.  But this
+pennyr'yal always reminded me, as I'd sit and gather it and hear
+him talkin'--it always would remind me of--the other one."
+
+She looked away from me, and presently rose and went on by
+herself.  There was something lonely and solitary about her great
+determined shape.  She might have been Antigone alone on the Theban
+plain.  It is not often given in a noisy world to come to the
+places of great grief and silence.  An absolute, archaic grief
+possessed this countrywoman; she seemed like a renewal of some
+historic soul, with her sorrows and the remoteness of a daily life
+busied with rustic simplicities and the scents of primeval herbs.
+
+
+I was not incompetent at herb-gathering, and after a while,
+when I had sat long enough waking myself to new thoughts, and
+reading a page of remembrance with new pleasure, I gathered some
+bunches, as I was bound to do, and at last we met again higher up
+the shore, in the plain every-day world we had left behind when we
+went down to the penny-royal plot.  As we walked together along the
+high edge of the field we saw a hundred sails about the bay and
+farther seaward; it was mid-afternoon or after, and the day was
+coming to an end.
+
+"Yes, they're all makin' towards the shore,--the small craft
+an' the lobster smacks an' all," said my companion.  "We must spend
+a little time with mother now, just to have our tea, an' then put
+for home."
+
+"No matter if we lose the wind at sundown; I can row in with
+Johnny," said I; and Mrs. Todd nodded reassuringly and kept to her
+steady plod, not quickening her gait even when we saw William come
+round the corner of the house as if to look for us, and wave his
+hand and disappear.
+
+"Why, William's right on deck; I didn't know's we should see
+any more of him!" exclaimed Mrs. Todd.  "Now mother'll put the
+kettle right on; she's got a good fire goin'."  I too could see the
+blue smoke thicken, and then we both walked a little faster, while
+Mrs. Todd groped in her full bag of herbs to find the
+daguerreotypes and be ready to put them in their places.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+
+The Old Singers
+
+WILLIAM WAS sitting on the side door step, and the old mother was
+busy making her tea; she gave into my hand an old flowered-glass
+tea-caddy.
+
+"William thought you'd like to see this, when he was settin'
+the table.  My father brought it to my mother from the island
+of Tobago; an' here's a pair of beautiful mugs that came with it." 
+She opened the glass door of a little cupboard beside the chimney. 
+"These I call my best things, dear," she said.  "You'd laugh to see
+how we enjoy 'em Sunday nights in winter: we have a real company
+tea 'stead o' livin' right along just the same, an' I make
+somethin' good for a s'prise an' put on some o' my preserves, an'
+we get a'talkin' together an' have real pleasant times."
+
+Mrs. Todd laughed indulgently, and looked to see what I
+thought of such childishness.
+
+"I wish I could be here some Sunday evening," said I.
+
+"William an' me'll be talkin' about you an' thinkin' o' this
+nice day," said Mrs. Blackett affectionately, and she glanced at
+William, and he looked up bravely and nodded.  I began to discover
+that he and his sister could not speak their deeper feelings before
+each other.
+
+"Now I want you an' mother to sing," said Mrs. Todd abruptly,
+with an air of command, and I gave William much sympathy in his
+evident distress.
+
+"After I've had my cup o' tea, dear," answered the old hostess
+cheerfully; and so we sat down and took our cups and made merry
+while they lasted.  It was impossible not to wish to stay on
+forever at Green Island, and I could not help saying so.
+
+"I'm very happy here, both winter an' summer," said old Mrs.
+Blackett.  "William an' I never wish for any other home, do we,
+William?  I'm glad you find it pleasant; I wish you'd come an'
+stay, dear, whenever you feel inclined.  But here's Almiry; I
+always think Providence was kind to plot an' have her husband leave
+her a good house where she really belonged.  She'd been very
+restless if she'd had to continue here on Green Island.  You wanted
+more scope, didn't you, Almiry, an' to live in a large place where
+more things grew?  Sometimes folks wonders that we don't live
+together; perhaps we shall some time," and a shadow of sadness and
+apprehension flitted across her face.  "The time o' sickness an'
+failin' has got to come to all.  But Almiry's got an herb that's
+good for everything."  She smiled as she spoke, and looked bright
+again.
+
+"There's some herb that's good for everybody, except for them
+that thinks they're sick when they ain't," announced Mrs. Todd,
+with a truly professional air of finality.  "Come, William, let's
+have Sweet Home, an' then mother'll sing Cupid an' the Bee for us."
+
+Then followed a most charming surprise.  William mastered his
+timidity and began to sing.  His voice was a little faint and
+frail, like the family daguerreotypes, but it was a tenor voice,
+and perfectly true and sweet.  I have never heard Home, Sweet Home
+sung as touchingly and seriously as he sang it; he seemed to
+make it quite new; and when he paused for a moment at the end of
+the first line and began the next, the old mother joined him and
+they sang together, she missing only the higher notes, where he
+seemed to lend his voice to hers for the moment and carry on her
+very note and air.  It was the silent man's real and only means of
+expression, and one could have listened forever, and have asked for
+more and more songs of old Scotch and English inheritance and the
+best that have lived from the ballad music of the war.  Mrs. Todd
+kept time visibly, and sometimes audibly, with her ample foot.  I
+saw the tears in her eyes sometimes, when I could see beyond the
+tears in mine.  But at last the songs ended and the time came to
+say good-by; it was the end of a great pleasure.
+
+Mrs. Blackett, the dear old lady, opened the door of her
+bedroom while Mrs. Todd was tying up the herb bag, and William had
+gone down to get the boat ready and to blow the horn for Johnny
+Bowden, who had joined a roving boat party who were off the shore
+lobstering.
+
+I went to the door of the bedroom, and thought how pleasant it
+looked, with its pink-and-white patchwork quilt and the brown
+unpainted paneling of its woodwork.
+
+"Come right in, dear," she said.  "I want you to set down in
+my old quilted rockin'-chair there by the window; you'll say it's
+the prettiest view in the house.  I set there a good deal to rest
+me and when I want to read."
+
+There was a worn red Bible on the lightstand, and Mrs.
+Blackett's heavy silver-bowed glasses; her thimble was on the
+narrow window-ledge, and folded carefully on the table was a thick
+striped-cotton shirt that she was making for her son.  Those dear
+old fingers and their loving stitches, that heart which had made
+the most of everything that needed love!  Here was the real home,
+the heart of the old house on Green Island!  I sat in the rocking-
+chair, and felt that it was a place of peace, the little brown
+bedroom, and the quiet outlook upon field and sea and sky.
+
+I looked up, and we understood each other without speaking. 
+"I shall like to think o' your settin' here to-day," said Mrs.
+Blackett.  "I want you to come again.  It has been so pleasant for
+William."
+
+The wind served us all the way home, and did not fall or let
+the sail slacken until we were close to the shore.  We had a
+generous freight of lobsters in the boat, and new potatoes which
+William had put aboard, and what Mrs. Todd proudly called a full
+"kag" of prime number one salted mackerel; and when we landed we
+had to make business arrangements to have these conveyed to her
+house in a wheelbarrow.
+
+I never shall forget the day at Green Island.  The town of
+Dunnet Landing seemed large and noisy and oppressive as we came
+ashore.  Such is the power of contrast; for the village was
+so still that I could hear the shy whippoorwills singing that night
+as I lay awake in my downstairs bedroom, and the scent of Mrs.
+Todd's herb garden under the window blew in again and again with
+every gentle rising of the seabreeze.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+
+A Strange Sail
+
+EXCEPT FOR a few stray guests, islanders or from the inland
+country, to whom Mrs. Todd offered the hospitalities of a single
+meal, we were quite by ourselves all summer; and when there were
+signs of invasion, late in July, and a certain Mrs. Fosdick
+appeared like a strange sail on the far horizon, I suffered much
+from apprehension.  I had been living in the quaint little house
+with as much comfort and unconsciousness as if it were a larger
+body, or a double shell, in whose simple convolutions Mrs. Todd and
+I had secreted ourselves, until some wandering hermit crab of a
+visitor marked the little spare room for her own.  Perhaps now and
+then a castaway on a lonely desert island dreads the thought of
+being rescued.  I heard of Mrs. Fosdick for the first time with a
+selfish sense of objection; but after all, I was still vacation-
+tenant of the schoolhouse, where I could always be alone, and it
+was impossible not to sympathize with Mrs. Todd, who, in spite of
+some preliminary grumbling, was really delighted with the prospect
+of entertaining an old friend.
+
+For nearly a month we received occasional news of Mrs.
+Fosdick, who seemed to be making a royal progress from house to
+house in the inland neighborhood, after the fashion of Queen
+Elizabeth.  One Sunday after another came and went, disappointing
+Mrs. Todd in the hope of seeing her guest at church and fixing the
+day for the great visit to begin; but Mrs. Fosdick was not ready to
+commit herself to a date.  An assurance of "some time this week"
+was not sufficiently definite from a free-footed housekeeper's
+point of view, and Mrs. Todd put aside all herb-gathering plans,
+and went through the various stages of expectation, provocation,
+and despair.  At last she was ready to believe that Mrs. Fosdick
+must have forgotten her promise and returned to her home, which was
+vaguely said to be over Thomaston way.  But one evening, just as
+the supper-table was cleared and "readied up," and Mrs. Todd had
+put her large apron over her head and stepped forth for an
+evening stroll in the garden, the unexpected happened.  She heard
+the sound of wheels, and gave an excited cry to me, as I sat by the
+window, that Mrs. Fosdick was coming right up the street.
+
+"She may not be considerate, but she's dreadful good company,"
+said Mrs. Todd hastily, coming back a few steps from the
+neighborhood of the gate.  "No, she ain't a mite considerate, but
+there's a small lobster left over from your tea; yes, it's a real
+mercy there's a lobster.  Susan Fosdick might just as well have
+passed the compliment o' comin' an hour ago."
+
+"Perhaps she has had her supper," I ventured to suggest,
+sharing the housekeeper's anxiety, and meekly conscious of an
+inconsiderate appetite for my own supper after a long expedition up
+the bay.  There were so few emergencies of any sort at Dunnet
+Landing that this one appeared overwhelming.
+
+"No, she's rode 'way over from Nahum Brayton's place.  I
+expect they were busy on the farm, and couldn't spare the horse in
+proper season.  You just sly out an' set the teakittle on again,
+dear, an' drop in a good han'ful o' chips; the fire's all alive. 
+I'll take her right up to lay off her things, as she'll be occupied
+with explanations an' gettin' her bunnit off, so you'll have plenty
+o' time.  She's one I shouldn't like to have find me unprepared."
+
+Mrs. Fosdick was already at the gate, and Mrs. Todd now turned
+with an air of complete surprise and delight to welcome her.
+
+"Why, Susan Fosdick," I heard her exclaim in a fine unhindered
+voice, as if she were calling across a field, "I come near giving
+of you up!  I was afraid you'd gone an' 'portioned out my visit to
+somebody else.  I s'pose you've been to supper?"
+
+"Lor', no, I ain't, Almiry Todd," said Mrs. Fosdick
+cheerfully, as she turned, laden with bags and bundles, from making
+her adieux to the boy driver.  "I ain't had a mite o' supper, dear. 
+I've been lottin' all the way on a cup o' that best tea o' yourn,--
+some o' that Oolong you keep in the little chist.  I don't want
+none o' your useful herbs."
+
+"I keep that tea for ministers' folks," gayly responded Mrs.
+Todd.  "Come right along in, Susan Fosdick.  I declare if you ain't
+the same old sixpence!"
+
+As they came up the walk together, laughing like girls, I
+fled, full of cares, to the kitchen, to brighten the fire and be
+sure that the lobster, sole dependence of a late supper, was well
+out of reach of the cat.  There proved to be fine reserves of wild
+raspberries and bread and butter, so that I regained my composure,
+and waited impatiently for my own share of this illustrious visit
+to begin.  There was an instant sense of high festivity in
+the evening air from the moment when our guest had so frankly
+demanded the Oolong tea.
+
+The great moment arrived.  I was formally presented at the
+stair-foot, and the two friends passed on to the kitchen, where I
+soon heard a hospitable clink of crockery and the brisk stirring of
+a tea-cup.  I sat in my high-backed rocking-chair by the window in
+the front room with an unreasonable feeling of being left out, like
+the child who stood at the gate in Hans Andersen's story.  Mrs.
+Fosdick did not look, at first sight, like a person of great social
+gifts.  She was a serious-looking little bit of an old woman, with
+a birdlike nod of the head.  I had often been told that she was the
+"best hand in the world to make a visit,"--as if to visit were the
+highest of vocations; that everybody wished for her, while few
+could get her; and I saw that Mrs. Todd felt a comfortable sense of
+distinction in being favored with the company of this eminent
+person who "knew just how."  It was certainly true that Mrs.
+Fosdick gave both her hostess and me a warm feeling of enjoyment
+and expectation, as if she had the power of social suggestion to
+all neighboring minds.
+
+The two friends did not reappear for at least an hour.  I
+could hear their busy voices, loud and low by turns, as they ranged
+from public to confidential topics.  At last Mrs. Todd kindly
+remembered me and returned, giving my door a ceremonious knock
+before she stepped in, with the small visitor in her wake.  She
+reached behind her and took Mrs. Fosdick's hand as if she were
+young and bashful, and gave her a gentle pull forward.
+
+"There, I don't know whether you're goin' to take to each
+other or not; no, nobody can't tell whether you'll suit each other,
+but I expect you'll get along some way, both having seen the
+world," said our affectionate hostess.  "You can inform Mis'
+Fosdick how we found the folks out to Green Island the other day. 
+She's always been well acquainted with mother.  I'll slip out now
+an' put away the supper things an' set my bread to rise, if you'll
+both excuse me.  You can come an' keep me company when you get
+ready, either or both."  And Mrs. Todd, large and amiable,
+disappeared and left us.
+
+Being furnished not only with a subject of conversation, but
+with a safe refuge in the kitchen in case of incompatibility, Mrs.
+Fosdick and I sat down, prepared to make the best of each other. 
+I soon discovered that she, like many of the elder women of the
+coast, had spent a part of her life at sea, and was full of a good
+traveler's curiosity and enlightenment.  By the time we thought it
+discreet to join our hostess we were already sincere friends.
+
+You may speak of a visit's setting in as well as a tide's, and
+it was impossible, as Mrs. Todd whispered to me, not to be
+pleased at the way this visit was setting in; a new impulse and
+refreshing of the social currents and seldom visited bays of memory
+appeared to have begun.  Mrs. Fosdick had been the mother of a
+large family of sons and daughters,--sailors and sailors' wives,--
+and most of them had died before her.  I soon grew more or less
+acquainted with the histories of all their fortunes and
+misfortunes, and subjects of an intimate nature were no more
+withheld from my ears than if I had been a shell on the
+mantelpiece.  Mrs. Fosdick was not without a touch of dignity and
+elegance; she was fashionable in her dress, but it was a curiously
+well-preserved provincial fashion of some years back.  In a wider
+sphere one might have called her a woman of the world, with her
+unexpected bits of modern knowledge, but Mrs. Todd's wisdom was an
+intimation of truth itself.  She might belong to any age, like an
+idyl of Theocritus; but while she always understood Mrs. Fosdick,
+that entertaining pilgrim could not always understand Mrs. Todd.
+
+That very first evening my friends plunged into a borderless
+sea of reminiscences and personal news.  Mrs. Fosdick had been
+staying with a family who owned the farm where she was born, and
+she had visited every sunny knoll and shady field corner; but when
+she said that it might be for the last time, I detected in her tone
+something expectant of the contradiction which Mrs. Todd promptly
+offered.
+
+"Almiry," said Mrs. Fosdick, with sadness, "you may say what
+you like, but I am one of nine brothers and sisters brought up on
+the old place, and we're all dead but me."
+
+"Your sister Dailey ain't gone, is she?  Why, no, Louisa ain't
+gone!" exclaimed Mrs. Todd, with surprise.  "Why, I never heard of
+that occurrence!"
+
+"Yes'm; she passed away last October, in Lynn.  She had made
+her distant home in Vermont State, but she was making a visit to
+her youngest daughter.  Louisa was the only one of my family whose
+funeral I wasn't able to attend, but 'twas a mere accident.  All
+the rest of us were settled right about home.  I thought it was
+very slack of 'em in Lynn not to fetch her to the old place; but
+when I came to hear about it, I learned that they'd recently put up
+a very elegant monument, and my sister Dailey was always great for
+show.  She'd just been out to see the monument the week before she
+was taken down, and admired it so much that they felt sure of her
+wishes."
+
+"So she's really gone, and the funeral was up to Lynn!"
+repeated Mrs. Todd, as if to impress the sad fact upon her mind. 
+"She was some years younger than we be, too.  I recollect the first
+day she ever came to school; 'twas that first year mother
+sent me inshore to stay with aunt Topham's folks and get my
+schooling.  You fetched little Louisa to school one Monday mornin'
+in a pink dress an' her long curls, and she set between you an' me,
+and got cryin' after a while, so the teacher sent us home with her
+at recess."
+
+"She was scared of seeing so many children about her; there
+was only her and me and brother John at home then; the older boys
+were to sea with father, an' the rest of us wa'n't born," explained
+Mrs. Fosdick.  "That next fall we all went to sea together.  Mother
+was uncertain till the last minute, as one may say.  The ship was
+waiting orders, but the baby that then was, was born just in time,
+and there was a long spell of extra bad weather, so mother got
+about again before they had to sail, an' we all went.  I remember
+my clothes were all left ashore in the east chamber in a basket
+where mother'd took them out o' my chist o' drawers an' left 'em
+ready to carry aboard.  She didn't have nothing aboard, of her own,
+that she wanted to cut up for me, so when my dress wore out she
+just put me into a spare suit o' John's, jacket and trousers.  I
+wasn't but eight years old an' he was most seven and large of his
+age.  Quick as we made a port she went right ashore an' fitted me
+out pretty, but we was bound for the East Indies and didn't put in
+anywhere for a good while.  So I had quite a spell o' freedom. 
+Mother made my new skirt long because I was growing, and I poked
+about the deck after that, real discouraged, feeling the hem at my
+heels every minute, and as if youth was past and gone.  I liked the
+trousers best; I used to climb the riggin' with 'em and frighten
+mother till she said an' vowed she'd never take me to sea again."
+
+I thought by the polite absent-minded smile on Mrs. Todd's
+face this was no new story.
+
+"Little Louisa was a beautiful child; yes, I always thought
+Louisa was very pretty," Mrs. Todd said.  "She was a dear little
+girl in those days.  She favored your mother; the rest of you took
+after your father's folks."
+
+"We did certain," agreed Mrs. Fosdick, rocking steadily. 
+"There, it does seem so pleasant to talk with an old acquaintance
+that knows what you know.  I see so many of these new folks
+nowadays, that seem to have neither past nor future. 
+Conversation's got to have some root in the past, or else you've
+got to explain every remark you make, an' it wears a person out."
+
+Mrs. Todd gave a funny little laugh.  "Yes'm, old friends is
+always best, 'less you can catch a new one that's fit to make an
+old one out of," she said, and we gave an affectionate glance at
+each other which Mrs. Fosdick could not have understood, being the
+latest comer to the house.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+
+Poor Joanna
+
+ONE EVENING my ears caught a mysterious allusion which Mrs. Todd
+made to Shell-heap Island.  It was a chilly night of cold
+northeasterly rain, and I made a fire for the first time in the
+Franklin stove in my room, and begged my two housemates to come in
+and keep me company.  The weather had convinced Mrs. Todd that it
+was time to make a supply of cough-drops, and she had been bringing
+forth herbs from dark and dry hiding-places, until now the pungent
+dust and odor of them had resolved themselves into one mighty
+flavor of spearmint that came from a simmering caldron of syrup in
+the kitchen.  She called it done, and well done, and had
+ostentatiously left it to cool, and taken her knitting-work because
+Mrs. Fosdick was busy with hers.  They sat in the two rocking-
+chairs, the small woman and the large one, but now and then I could
+see that Mrs. Todd's thoughts remained with the cough-drops.  The
+time of gathering herbs was nearly over, but the time of syrups and
+cordials had begun.
+
+The heat of the open fire made us a little drowsy, but
+something in the way Mrs. Todd spoke of Shell-heap Island waked my
+interest.  I waited to see if she would say any more, and then took
+a roundabout way back to the subject by saying what was first in my
+mind: that I wished the Green Island family were there to spend the
+evening with us,--Mrs. Todd's mother and her brother William.
+
+Mrs. Todd smiled, and drummed on the arm of the rocking-chair. 
+"Might scare William to death," she warned me; and Mrs. Fosdick
+mentioned her intention of going out to Green Island to stay two or
+three days, if the wind didn't make too much sea.
+
+"Where is Shell-heap Island?" I ventured to ask, seizing the
+opportunity.
+
+"Bears nor-east somewheres about three miles from Green
+Island; right off-shore, I should call it about eight miles out,"
+said Mrs. Todd.  "You never was there, dear; 'tis off the
+thoroughfares, and a very bad place to land at best."
+
+"I should think 'twas," agreed Mrs. Fosdick, smoothing down
+her black silk apron.  "'Tis a place worth visitin' when you once
+get there.  Some o' the old folks was kind o' fearful about it. 
+'Twas 'counted a great place in old Indian times; you can
+pick up their stone tools 'most any time if you hunt about. 
+There's a beautiful spring o' water, too.  Yes, I remember when
+they used to tell queer stories about Shell-heap Island.  Some said
+'twas a great bangeing-place for the Indians, and an old chief
+resided there once that ruled the winds; and others said they'd
+always heard that once the Indians come down from up country an'
+left a captive there without any bo't, an' 'twas too far to swim
+across to Black Island, so called, an' he lived there till he
+perished."
+
+"I've heard say he walked the island after that, and sharp-
+sighted folks could see him an' lose him like one o' them citizens
+Cap'n Littlepage was acquainted with up to the north pole,"
+announced Mrs. Todd grimly.  "Anyway, there was Indians--you can
+see their shell-heap that named the island; and I've heard myself
+that 'twas one o' their cannibal places, but I never could believe
+it.  There never was no cannibals on the coast o' Maine.  All the
+Indians o' these regions are tame-looking folks."
+
+"Sakes alive, yes!" exclaimed Mrs. Fosdick.  "Ought to see
+them painted savages I've seen when I was young out in the South
+Sea Islands!  That was the time for folks to travel, 'way back in
+the old whalin' days!"
+
+"Whalin' must have been dull for a lady, hardly ever makin' a
+lively port, and not takin' in any mixed cargoes," said Mrs. Todd. 
+"I never desired to go a whalin' v'y'ge myself."
+
+"I used to return feelin' very slack an' behind the times,
+'tis true," explained Mrs. Fosdick, "but 'twas excitin', an' we
+always done extra well, and felt rich when we did get ashore.  I
+liked the variety.  There, how times have changed; how few
+seafarin' families there are left!  What a lot o' queer folks there
+used to be about here, anyway, when we was young, Almiry. 
+Everybody's just like everybody else, now; nobody to laugh about,
+and nobody to cry about."
+
+It seemed to me that there were peculiarities of character in
+the region of Dunnet Landing yet, but I did not like to interrupt.
+
+"Yes," said Mrs. Todd after a moment of meditation, "there was
+certain a good many curiosities of human natur' in this
+neighborhood years ago.  There was more energy then, and in some
+the energy took a singular turn.  In these days the young folks is
+all copy-cats, 'fraid to death they won't be all just alike; as for
+the old folks, they pray for the advantage o' bein' a little
+different."
+
+"I ain't heard of a copy-cat this great many years," said Mrs.
+Fosdick, laughing; "'twas a favorite term o' my grandfather's.  No,
+I wa'n't thinking o' those things, but of them strange straying
+creatur's that used to rove the country.  You don't see them now,
+or the ones that used to hive away in their own houses with some
+strange notion or other."
+
+I thought again of Captain Littlepage, but my companions were
+not reminded of his name; and there was brother William at Green
+Island, whom we all three knew.
+
+"I was talking o' poor Joanna the other day.  I hadn't thought
+of her for a great while," said Mrs. Fosdick abruptly.  "Mis'
+Brayton an' I recalled her as we sat together sewing.  She was one
+o' your peculiar persons, wa'n't she?  Speaking of such persons,"
+she turned to explain to me, "there was a sort of a nun or hermit
+person lived out there for years all alone on Shell-heap Island. 
+Miss Joanna Todd, her name was,--a cousin o' Almiry's late
+husband."
+
+I expressed my interest, but as I glanced at Mrs. Todd I saw
+that she was confused by sudden affectionate feeling and
+unmistakable desire for reticence.
+
+"I never want to hear Joanna laughed about," she said
+anxiously.
+
+"Nor I," answered Mrs. Fosdick reassuringly.  "She was crossed
+in love,--that was all the matter to begin with; but as I look
+back, I can see that Joanna was one doomed from the first to fall
+into a melancholy.  She retired from the world for good an' all,
+though she was a well-off woman.  All she wanted was to get away
+from folks; she thought she wasn't fit to live with anybody, and
+wanted to be free.  Shell-heap Island come to her from her father,
+and first thing folks knew she'd gone off out there to live, and
+left word she didn't want no company.  'Twas a bad place to get to,
+unless the wind an' tide were just right; 'twas hard work to make
+a landing."
+
+"What time of year was this?" I asked.
+
+"Very late in the summer," said Mrs. Fosdick.  "No, I never
+could laugh at Joanna, as some did.  She set everything by the
+young man, an' they were going to marry in about a month, when he
+got bewitched with a girl 'way up the bay, and married her, and
+went off to Massachusetts.  He wasn't well thought of,--there were
+those who thought Joanna's money was what had tempted him; but
+she'd given him her whole heart, an' she wa'n't so young as she had
+been.  All her hopes were built on marryin', an' havin' a real home
+and somebody to look to; she acted just like a bird when its nest
+is spoilt.  The day after she heard the news she was in dreadful
+woe, but the next she came to herself very quiet, and took the
+horse and wagon, and drove fourteen miles to the lawyer's, and
+signed a paper givin' her half of the farm to her brother.  They
+never had got along very well together, but he didn't want to sign
+it, till she acted so distressed that he gave in.  Edward Todd's
+wife was a good woman, who felt very bad indeed, and used every
+argument with Joanna; but Joanna took a poor old boat that had been
+her father's and lo'ded in a few things, and off she put all
+alone, with a good land breeze, right out to sea.  Edward Todd ran
+down to the beach, an' stood there cryin' like a boy to see her go,
+but she was out o' hearin'.  She never stepped foot on the mainland
+again long as she lived."
+
+"How large an island is it?  How did she manage in winter?" I
+asked.
+
+"Perhaps thirty acres, rocks and all," answered Mrs. Todd,
+taking up the story gravely.  "There can't be much of it that the
+salt spray don't fly over in storms.  No, 'tis a dreadful small
+place to make a world of; it has a different look from any of the
+other islands, but there's a sheltered cove on the south side, with
+mud-flats across one end of it at low water where there's excellent
+clams, and the big shell-heap keeps some o' the wind off a little
+house her father took the trouble to build when he was a young man. 
+They said there was an old house built o' logs there before that,
+with a kind of natural cellar in the rock under it.  He used to
+stay out there days to a time, and anchor a little sloop he had,
+and dig clams to fill it, and sail up to Portland.  They said the
+dealers always gave him an extra price, the clams were so noted. 
+Joanna used to go out and stay with him.  They were always great
+companions, so she knew just what 'twas out there.  There was a few
+sheep that belonged to her brother an' her, but she bargained for
+him to come and get them on the edge o' cold weather.  Yes, she
+desired him to come for the sheep; an' his wife thought perhaps
+Joanna'd return, but he said no, an' lo'ded the bo't with warm
+things an' what he thought she'd need through the winter.  He come
+home with the sheep an' left the other things by the house, but she
+never so much as looked out o' the window.  She done it for a
+penance.  She must have wanted to see Edward by that time."
+
+Mrs. Fosdick was fidgeting with eagerness to speak.
+
+"Some thought the first cold snap would set her ashore, but
+she always remained," concluded Mrs. Todd soberly.
+
+"Talk about the men not having any curiosity!" exclaimed Mrs.
+Fosdick scornfully.  "Why, the waters round Shell-heap Island were
+white with sails all that fall.  'Twas never called no great of a
+fishin'-ground before.  Many of 'em made excuse to go ashore to get
+water at the spring; but at last she spoke to a bo't-load, very
+dignified and calm, and said that she'd like it better if they'd
+make a practice of getting water to Black Island or somewheres else
+and leave her alone, except in case of accident or trouble.  But
+there was one man who had always set everything by her from a boy. 
+He'd have married her if the other hadn't come about an' spoilt his
+chance, and he used to get close to the island, before light, on
+his way out fishin', and throw a little bundle way up the green
+slope front o' the house.  His sister told me she happened to see,
+the first time, what a pretty choice he made o' useful
+things that a woman would feel lost without.  He stood off fishin',
+and could see them in the grass all day, though sometimes she'd
+come out and walk right by them.  There was other bo'ts near, out
+after mackerel.  But early next morning his present was gone.  He
+didn't presume too much, but once he took her a nice firkin o'
+things he got up to Portland, and when spring come he landed her a
+hen and chickens in a nice little coop.  There was a good many old
+friends had Joanna on their minds."
+
+"Yes," said Mrs. Todd, losing her sad reserve in the growing
+sympathy of these reminiscences.  "How everybody used to notice
+whether there was smoke out of the chimney!  The Black Island folks
+could see her with their spy-glass, and if they'd ever missed
+getting some sign o' life they'd have sent notice to her folks. 
+But after the first year or two Joanna was more and more forgotten
+as an every-day charge.  Folks lived very simple in those days, you
+know," she continued, as Mrs. Fosdick's knitting was taking much
+thought at the moment.  "I expect there was always plenty of
+driftwood thrown up, and a poor failin' patch of spruces covered
+all the north side of the island, so she always had something to
+burn.  She was very fond of workin' in the garden ashore, and that
+first summer she began to till the little field out there, and
+raised a nice parcel o' potatoes.  She could fish, o' course, and
+there was all her clams an' lobsters.  You can always live well in
+any wild place by the sea when you'd starve to death up country,
+except 'twas berry time.  Joanna had berries out there,
+blackberries at least, and there was a few herbs in case she needed
+them.  Mullein in great quantities and a plant o' wormwood I
+remember seeing once when I stayed there, long before she fled out
+to Shell-heap.  Yes, I recall the wormwood, which is always a
+planted herb, so there must have been folks there before the Todds'
+day.  A growin' bush makes the best gravestone; I expect that
+wormwood always stood for somebody's solemn monument.  Catnip, too,
+is a very endurin' herb about an old place."
+
+"But what I want to know is what she did for other things,"
+interrupted Mrs. Fosdick.  "Almiry, what did she do for clothin'
+when she needed to replenish, or risin' for her bread, or the
+piece-bag that no woman can live long without?"
+
+"Or company," suggested Mrs. Todd.  "Joanna was one that loved
+her friends.  There must have been a terrible sight o' long winter
+evenin's that first year."
+
+"There was her hens," suggested Mrs. Fosdick, after reviewing
+the melancholy situation.  "She never wanted the sheep after that
+first season.  There wa'n't no proper pasture for sheep after the
+June grass was past, and she ascertained the fact and couldn't bear
+to see them suffer; but the chickens done well.  I remember
+sailin' by one spring afternoon, an' seein' the coops out front o'
+the house in the sun.  How long was it before you went out with the
+minister?  You were the first ones that ever really got ashore to
+see Joanna."
+
+I had been reflecting upon a state of society which admitted
+such personal freedom and a voluntary hermitage.  There was
+something mediaeval in the behavior of poor Joanna Todd under a
+disappointment of the heart.  The two women had drawn closer
+together, and were talking on, quite unconscious of a listener.
+
+"Poor Joanna!" said Mrs. Todd again, and sadly shook her head
+as if there were things one could not speak about.
+
+"I called her a great fool," declared Mrs. Fosdick, with
+spirit, "but I pitied her then, and I pity her far more now.  Some
+other minister would have been a great help to her,--one that
+preached self-forgetfulness and doin' for others to cure our own
+ills; but Parson Dimmick was a vague person, well meanin', but very
+numb in his feelin's.  I don't suppose at that troubled time Joanna
+could think of any way to mend her troubles except to run off and
+hide."
+
+"Mother used to say she didn't see how Joanna lived without
+having nobody to do for, getting her own meals and tending her own
+poor self day in an' day out," said Mrs. Todd sorrowfully.
+
+"There was the hens," repeated Mrs. Fosdick kindly.  "I expect
+she soon came to makin' folks o' them.  No, I never went to work to
+blame Joanna, as some did.  She was full o' feeling, and her
+troubles hurt her more than she could bear.  I see it all now as I
+couldn't when I was young."
+
+"I suppose in old times they had their shut-up convents for
+just such folks," said Mrs. Todd, as if she and her friend had
+disagreed about Joanna once, and were now in happy harmony.  She
+seemed to speak with new openness and freedom.  "Oh yes, I was only
+too pleased when the Reverend Mr. Dimmick invited me to go out with
+him.  He hadn't been very long in the place when Joanna left home
+and friends.  'Twas one day that next summer after she went, and I
+had been married early in the spring.  He felt that he ought to go
+out and visit her.  She was a member of the church, and might wish
+to have him consider her spiritual state.  I wa'n't so sure o'
+that, but I always liked Joanna, and I'd come to be her cousin by
+marriage.  Nathan an' I had conversed about goin' out to pay her a
+visit, but he got his chance to sail sooner'n he expected.  He
+always thought everything of her, and last time he come home,
+knowing nothing of her change, he brought her a beautiful coral pin
+from a port he'd touched at somewheres up the Mediterranean.  So I
+wrapped the little box in a nice piece of paper and put it
+in my pocket, and picked her a bunch of fresh lemon balm, and off
+we started."
+
+Mrs. Fosdick laughed.  "I remember hearin' about your trials
+on the v'y'ge," she said."
+
+"Why, yes," continued Mrs. Todd in her company manner.  "I
+picked her the balm, an' we started.  Why, yes, Susan, the minister
+liked to have cost me my life that day.  He would fasten the sheet,
+though I advised against it.  He said the rope was rough an' cut
+his hand.  There was a fresh breeze, an' he went on talking rather
+high flown, an' I felt some interested.  All of a sudden there come
+up a gust, and he gave a screech and stood right up and called for
+help, 'way out there to sea.  I knocked him right over into the
+bottom o' the bo't, getting by to catch hold of the sheet an' untie
+it.  He wasn't but a little man; I helped him right up after the
+squall passed, and made a handsome apology to him, but he did act
+kind o' offended."
+
+"I do think they ought not to settle them landlocked folks in
+parishes where they're liable to be on the water," insisted Mrs.
+Fosdick.  "Think of the families in our parish that was scattered
+all about the bay, and what a sight o' sails you used to see, in
+Mr. Dimmick's day, standing across to the mainland on a pleasant
+Sunday morning, filled with church-going folks, all sure to want
+him some time or other!  You couldn't find no doctor that would
+stand up in the boat and screech if a flaw struck her."
+
+"Old Dr. Bennett had a beautiful sailboat, didn't he?"
+responded Mrs. Todd.  "And how well he used to brave the weather! 
+Mother always said that in time o' trouble that tall white sail
+used to look like an angel's wing comin' over the sea to them that
+was in pain.  Well, there's a difference in gifts.  Mr. Dimmick was
+not without light."
+
+"'Twas light o' the moon, then," snapped Mrs. Fosdick; "he was
+pompous enough, but I never could remember a single word he said. 
+There, go on, Mis' Todd; I forget a great deal about that day you
+went to see poor Joanna."
+
+"I felt she saw us coming, and knew us a great way off; yes,
+I seemed to feel it within me," said our friend, laying down her
+knitting.  "I kept my seat, and took the bo't inshore without
+saying a word; there was a short channel that I was sure Mr.
+Dimmick wasn't acquainted with, and the tide was very low.  She
+never came out to warn us off nor anything, and I thought, as I
+hauled the bo't up on a wave and let the Reverend Mr. Dimmick step
+out, that it was somethin' gained to be safe ashore.  There was a
+little smoke out o' the chimney o' Joanna's house, and it did look
+sort of homelike and pleasant with wild mornin'-glory vines trained
+up; an' there was a plot o' flowers under the front window,
+portulacas and things.  I believe she'd made a garden once,
+when she was stopping there with her father, and some things must
+have seeded in.  It looked as if she might have gone over to the
+other side of the island.  'Twas neat and pretty all about the
+house, and a lovely day in July.  We walked up from the beach
+together very sedate, and I felt for poor Nathan's little pin to
+see if 'twas safe in my dress pocket.  All of a sudden Joanna come
+right to the fore door and stood there, not sayin' a word."
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+
+The Hermitage
+
+MY COMPANION and I had been so intent upon the subject of the
+conversation that we had not heard any one open the gate, but at
+this moment, above the noise of the rain, we heard a loud knocking. 
+We were all startled as we sat by the fire, and Mrs. Todd rose
+hastily and went to answer the call, leaving her rocking-chair in
+violent motion.  Mrs. Fosdick and I heard an anxious voice at the
+door speaking of a sick child, and Mrs. Todd's kind, motherly voice
+inviting the messenger in: then we waited in silence.  There was a
+sound of heavy dropping of rain from the eaves, and the distant
+roar and undertone of the sea.  My thoughts flew back to the lonely
+woman on her outer island; what separation from humankind she must
+have felt, what terror and sadness, even in a summer storm like
+this!
+
+"You send right after the doctor if she ain't better in half
+an hour," said Mrs. Todd to her worried customer as they parted;
+and I felt a warm sense of comfort in the evident resources of even
+so small a neighborhood, but for the poor hermit Joanna there was
+no neighbor on a winter night.
+
+
+"How did she look?" demanded Mrs. Fosdick, without preface, as
+our large hostess returned to the little room with a mist about her
+from standing long in the wet doorway, and the sudden draught of
+her coming beat out the smoke and flame from the Franklin stove. 
+"How did poor Joanna look?"
+
+"She was the same as ever, except I thought she looked
+smaller," answered Mrs. Todd after thinking a moment; perhaps it
+was only a last considering thought about her patient. 
+"Yes, she was just the same, and looked very nice, Joanna did.  I
+had been married since she left home, an' she treated me like her
+own folks.  I expected she'd look strange, with her hair turned
+gray in a night or somethin', but she wore a pretty gingham dress
+I'd often seen her wear before she went away; she must have kept it
+nice for best in the afternoons.  She always had beautiful, quiet
+manners.  I remember she waited till we were close to her, and then
+kissed me real affectionate, and inquired for Nathan before she
+shook hands with the minister, and then she invited us both in. 
+'Twas the same little house her father had built him when he was a
+bachelor, with one livin'-room, and a little mite of a bedroom out
+of it where she slept, but 'twas neat as a ship's cabin.  There was
+some old chairs, an' a seat made of a long box that might have held
+boat tackle an' things to lock up in his fishin' days, and a good
+enough stove so anybody could cook and keep warm in cold weather. 
+I went over once from home and stayed 'most a week with Joanna when
+we was girls, and those young happy days rose up before me.  Her
+father was busy all day fishin' or clammin'; he was one o' the
+pleasantest men in the world, but Joanna's mother had the grim
+streak, and never knew what 'twas to be happy.  The first minute my
+eyes fell upon Joanna's face that day I saw how she had grown to
+look like Mis' Todd.  'Twas the mother right over again."
+
+"Oh dear me!" said Mrs. Fosdick.
+
+"Joanna had done one thing very pretty.  There was a little
+piece o' swamp on the island where good rushes grew plenty, and
+she'd gathered 'em, and braided some beautiful mats for the floor
+and a thick cushion for the long bunk.  She'd showed a good deal of
+invention; you see there was a nice chance to pick up pieces o'
+wood and boards that drove ashore, and she'd made good use o' what
+she found.  There wasn't no clock, but she had a few dishes on a
+shelf, and flowers set about in shells fixed to the walls, so it
+did look sort of homelike, though so lonely and poor.  I couldn't
+keep the tears out o' my eyes, I felt so sad.  I said to myself, I
+must get mother to come over an' see Joanna; the love in mother's
+heart would warm her, an' she might be able to advise."
+
+"Oh no, Joanna was dreadful stern," said Mrs. Fosdick.
+
+"We were all settin' down very proper, but Joanna would keep
+stealin' glances at me as if she was glad I come.  She had but
+little to say; she was real polite an' gentle, and yet forbiddin'. 
+The minister found it hard," confessed Mrs. Todd; "he got
+embarrassed, an' when he put on his authority and asked her if she
+felt to enjoy religion in her present situation, an' she replied
+that she must be excused from answerin', I thought I should fly. 
+She might have made it easier for him; after all, he was the
+minister and had taken some trouble to come out, though 'twas kind
+of cold an' unfeelin' the way he inquired.  I thought he might have
+seen the little old Bible a-layin' on the shelf close by him, an'
+I wished he knew enough to just lay his hand on it an' read
+somethin' kind an' fatherly 'stead of accusin' her, an' then given
+poor Joanna his blessin' with the hope she might be led to comfort. 
+He did offer prayer, but 'twas all about hearin' the voice o' God
+out o' the whirlwind; and I thought while he was goin' on that
+anybody that had spent the long cold winter all alone out on Shell-
+heap Island knew a good deal more about those things than he did. 
+I got so provoked I opened my eyes and stared right at him.
+
+"She didn't take no notice, she kep' a nice respectful manner
+towards him, and when there come a pause she asked if he had any
+interest about the old Indian remains, and took down some queer
+stone gouges and hammers off of one of her shelves and showed them
+to him same's if he was a boy.  He remarked that he'd like to walk
+over an' see the shell-heap; so she went right to the door and
+pointed him the way.  I see then that she'd made her some kind o'
+sandal-shoes out o' the fine rushes to wear on her feet; she
+stepped light an' nice in 'em as shoes."
+
+Mrs. Fosdick leaned back in her rocking-chair and gave a heavy
+sigh.
+
+"I didn't move at first, but I'd held out just as long as I
+could," said Mrs. Todd, whose voice trembled a little.  "When
+Joanna returned from the door, an' I could see that man's stupid
+back departin' among the wild rose bushes, I just ran to her an'
+caught her in my arms.  I wasn't so big as I be now, and she was
+older than me, but I hugged her tight, just as if she was a child. 
+'Oh, Joanna dear,' I says, 'won't you come ashore an' live 'long o'
+me at the Landin', or go over to Green Island to mother's when
+winter comes?  Nobody shall trouble you an' mother finds it hard
+bein' alone.  I can't bear to leave you here'--and I burst right
+out crying.  I'd had my own trials, young as I was, an' she knew
+it.  Oh, I did entreat her; yes, I entreated Joanna."
+
+"What did she say then?" asked Mrs. Fosdick, much moved.
+
+"She looked the same way, sad an' remote through it all," said
+Mrs. Todd mournfully.  "She took hold of my hand, and we sat down
+close together; 'twas as if she turned round an' made a child of
+me.  'I haven't got no right to live with folks no more,' she said. 
+'You must never ask me again, Almiry: I've done the only thing I
+could do, and I've made my choice.  I feel a great comfort in your
+kindness, but I don't deserve it.  I have committed the
+unpardonable sin; you don't understand,' says she humbly.  'I was
+in great wrath and trouble, and my thoughts was so wicked towards
+God that I can't expect ever to be forgiven.  I have come to
+know what it is to have patience, but I have lost my hope.  You
+must tell those that ask how 'tis with me,' she said, 'an' tell
+them I want to be alone.'  I couldn't speak; no, there wa'n't
+anything I could say, she seemed so above everything common.  I was
+a good deal younger then than I be now, and I got Nathan's little
+coral pin out o' my pocket and put it into her hand; and when she
+saw it and I told her where it come from, her face did really light
+up for a minute, sort of bright an' pleasant.  'Nathan an' I was
+always good friends; I'm glad he don't think hard of me,' says she. 
+'I want you to have it, Almiry, an' wear it for love o' both o'
+us,' and she handed it back to me.  'You give my love to Nathan,--
+he's a dear good man,' she said; 'an' tell your mother, if I should
+be sick she mustn't wish I could get well, but I want her to be the
+one to come.'  Then she seemed to have said all she wanted to, as
+if she was done with the world, and we sat there a few minutes
+longer together.  It was real sweet and quiet except for a good
+many birds and the sea rollin' up on the beach; but at last she
+rose, an' I did too, and she kissed me and held my hand in hers a
+minute, as if to say good-by; then she turned and went right away
+out o' the door and disappeared.
+
+"The minister come back pretty soon, and I told him I was all
+ready, and we started down to the bo't.  He had picked up some
+round stones and things and was carrying them in his pocket-
+handkerchief; an' he sat down amidships without making any
+question, and let me take the rudder an' work the bo't, an' made no
+remarks for some time, until we sort of eased it off speaking of
+the weather, an' subjects that arose as we skirted Black Island,
+where two or three families lived belongin' to the parish.  He
+preached next Sabbath as usual, somethin' high soundin' about the
+creation, and I couldn't help thinkin' he might never get no
+further; he seemed to know no remedies, but he had a great use of
+words."
+
+Mrs. Fosdick sighed again.  "Hearin' you tell about Joanna
+brings the time right back as if 'twas yesterday," she said.  "Yes,
+she was one o' them poor things that talked about the great sin; we
+don't seem to hear nothing about the unpardonable sin now, but you
+may say 'twas not uncommon then."
+
+"I expect that if it had been in these days, such a person
+would be plagued to death with idle folks," continued Mrs. Todd,
+after a long pause.  "As it was, nobody trespassed on her; all the
+folks about the bay respected her an' her feelings; but as time
+wore on, after you left here, one after another ventured to make
+occasion to put somethin' ashore for her if they went that way.  I
+know mother used to go to see her sometimes, and send William over
+now and then with something fresh an' nice from the farm. 
+There is a point on the sheltered side where you can lay a boat
+close to shore an' land anything safe on the turf out o' reach o'
+the water.  There were one or two others, old folks, that she would
+see, and now an' then she'd hail a passin' boat an' ask for
+somethin'; and mother got her to promise that she would make some
+sign to the Black Island folks if she wanted help.  I never saw her
+myself to speak to after that day."
+
+"I expect nowadays, if such a thing happened, she'd have gone
+out West to her uncle's folks or up to Massachusetts and had a
+change, an' come home good as new.  The world's bigger an' freer
+than it used to be," urged Mrs. Fosdick.
+
+"No," said her friend.  "'Tis like bad eyesight, the mind of
+such a person: if your eyes don't see right there may be a remedy,
+but there's no kind of glasses to remedy the mind.  No, Joanna was
+Joanna, and there she lays on her island where she lived and did
+her poor penance.  She told mother the day she was dyin' that she
+always used to want to be fetched inshore when it come to the last;
+but she'd thought it over, and desired to be laid on the island, if
+'twas thought right.  So the funeral was out there, a Saturday
+afternoon in September.  'Twas a pretty day, and there wa'n't
+hardly a boat on the coast within twenty miles that didn't head for
+Shell-heap cram-full o' folks an' all real respectful, same's if
+she'd always stayed ashore and held her friends.  Some went out o'
+mere curiosity, I don't doubt,--there's always such to every
+funeral; but most had real feelin', and went purpose to show it. 
+She'd got most o' the wild sparrows as tame as could be, livin' out
+there so long among 'em, and one flew right in and lit on the
+coffin an' begun to sing while Mr. Dimmick was speakin'.  He was
+put out by it, an' acted as if he didn't know whether to stop or go
+on.  I may have been prejudiced, but I wa'n't the only one thought
+the poor little bird done the best of the two."
+
+"What became o' the man that treated her so, did you ever
+hear?" asked Mrs. Fosdick.  "I know he lived up to Massachusetts
+for a while.  Somebody who came from the same place told me that he
+was in trade there an' doin' very well, but that was years ago."
+
+"I never heard anything more than that; he went to the war in
+one o' the early regiments.  No, I never heard any more of him,"
+answered Mrs. Todd.  "Joanna was another sort of person, and
+perhaps he showed good judgment in marryin' somebody else, if only
+he'd behaved straight-forward and manly.  He was a shifty-eyed,
+coaxin' sort of man, that got what he wanted out o' folks, an' only
+gave when he wanted to buy, made friends easy and lost 'em without
+knowin' the difference.  She'd had a piece o' work tryin' to make
+him walk accordin' to her right ideas, but she'd have had
+too much variety ever to fall into a melancholy.  Some is meant to
+be the Joannas in this world, an' 'twas her poor lot."
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+
+On Shell-heap Island
+
+SOME TIME AFTER Mrs. Fosdick's visit was over and we had returned
+to our former quietness, I was out sailing alone with Captain
+Bowden in his large boat.  We were taking the crooked northeasterly
+channel seaward, and were well out from shore while it was still
+early in the afternoon.  I found myself presently among some
+unfamiliar islands, and suddenly remembered the story of poor
+Joanna.  There is something in the fact of a hermitage that cannot
+fail to touch the imagination; the recluses are a sad kindred, but
+they are never commonplace.  Mrs. Todd had truly said that Joanna
+was like one of the saints in the desert; the loneliness of sorrow
+will forever keep alive their sad succession.
+
+"Where is Shell-heap Island?" I asked eagerly.
+
+"You see Shell-heap now, layin' 'way out beyond Black Island
+there," answered the captain, pointing with outstretched arm as he
+stood, and holding the rudder with his knee.
+
+"I should like very much to go there," said I, and the
+captain, without comment, changed his course a little more to the
+eastward and let the reef out of his mainsail.
+
+"I don't know's we can make an easy landin' for ye," he
+remarked doubtfully.  "May get your feet wet; bad place to land. 
+Trouble is I ought to have brought a tag-boat; but they clutch on
+to the water so, an' I do love to sail free.  This gre't boat gets
+easy bothered with anything trailin'.  'Tain't breakin' much on the
+meetin'-house ledges; guess I can fetch in to Shell-heap."
+
+"How long is it since Miss Joanna Todd died?" I asked, partly
+by way of explanation.
+
+"Twenty-two years come September," answered the captain, after
+reflection.  "She died the same year as my oldest boy was born, an'
+the town house was burnt over to the Port.  I didn't know but you
+merely wanted to hunt for some o' them Indian relics.  Long's you
+want to see where Joanna lived--No, 'tain't breakin' over
+the ledges; we'll manage to fetch across the shoals somehow, 'tis
+such a distance to go 'way round, and tide's a-risin'," he ended
+hopefully, and we sailed steadily on, the captain speechless with
+intent watching of a difficult course, until the small island with
+its low whitish promontory lay in full view before us under the
+bright afternoon sun.
+
+The month was August, and I had seen the color of the islands
+change from the fresh green of June to a sunburnt brown that made
+them look like stone, except where the dark green of the spruces
+and fir balsam kept the tint that even winter storms might deepen,
+but not fade.  The few wind-bent trees on Shell-heap Island were
+mostly dead and gray, but there were some low-growing bushes, and
+a stripe of light green ran along just above the shore, which I
+knew to be wild morning-glories.  As we came close I could see the
+high stone walls of a small square field, though there were no
+sheep left to assail it; and below, there was a little harbor-like
+cove where Captain Bowden was boldly running the great boat in to
+seek a landing-place.  There was a crooked channel of deep water
+which led close up against the shore.
+
+"There, you hold fast for'ard there, an' wait for her to lift
+on the wave.  You'll make a good landin' if you're smart; right on
+the port-hand side!" the captain called excitedly; and I, standing
+ready with high ambition, seized my chance and leaped over to the
+grassy bank.
+
+"I'm beat if I ain't aground after all!" mourned the captain
+despondently.
+
+But I could reach the bowsprit, and he pushed with the boat-
+hook, while the wind veered round a little as if on purpose and
+helped with the sail; so presently the boat was free and began to
+drift out from shore.
+
+"Used to call this p'int Joanna's wharf privilege, but 't has
+worn away in the weather since her time.  I thought one or two
+bumps wouldn't hurt us none,--paint's got to be renewed, anyway,--
+but I never thought she'd tetch.  I figured on shyin' by," the
+captain apologized.  "She's too gre't a boat to handle well in
+here; but I used to sort of shy by in Joanna's day, an' cast a
+little somethin' ashore--some apples or a couple o' pears if I had
+'em--on the grass, where she'd be sure to see."
+
+I stood watching while Captain Bowden cleverly found his way
+back to deeper water.  "You needn't make no haste," he called to
+me; "I'll keep within call.  Joanna lays right up there in the far
+corner o' the field.  There used to be a path led to the place.  I
+always knew her well.  I was out here to the funeral."
+
+I found the path; it was touching to discover that this lonely
+spot was not without its pilgrims.  Later generations will know
+less and less of Joanna herself, but there are paths trodden to the
+shrines of solitude the world over,--the world cannot forget
+them, try as it may; the feet of the young find them out because of
+curiosity and dim foreboding; while the old bring hearts full of
+remembrance.  This plain anchorite had been one of those whom
+sorrow made too lonely to brave the sight of men, too timid to
+front the simple world she knew, yet valiant enough to live alone
+with her poor insistent human nature and the calms and passions of
+the sea and sky.
+
+The birds were flying all about the field; they fluttered up
+out of the grass at my feet as I walked along, so tame that I liked
+to think they kept some happy tradition from summer to summer of
+the safety of nests and good fellowship of mankind.  Poor Joanna's
+house was gone except the stones of its foundations, and there was
+little trace of her flower garden except a single faded sprig of
+much-enduring French pinks, which a great bee and a yellow
+butterfly were befriending together.  I drank at the spring, and
+thought that now and then some one would follow me from the busy,
+hard-worked, and simple-thoughted countryside of the mainland,
+which lay dim and dreamlike in the August haze, as Joanna must have
+watched it many a day.  There was the world, and here was she with
+eternity well begun.  In the life of each of us, I said to myself,
+there is a place remote and islanded, and given to endless regret
+or secret happiness; we are each the uncompanioned hermit and
+recluse of an hour or a day; we understand our fellows of the cell
+to whatever age of history they may belong.
+
+But as I stood alone on the island, in the sea-breeze,
+suddenly there came a sound of distant voices; gay voices and
+laughter from a pleasure-boat that was going seaward full of boys
+and girls.  I knew, as if she had told me, that poor Joanna must
+have heard the like on many and many a summer afternoon, and must
+have welcomed the good cheer in spite of hopelessness and winter
+weather, and all the sorrow and disappointment in the world.
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+
+The Great Expedition
+
+MRS. TODD never by any chance gave warning over night of her great
+projects and adventures by sea and land.  She first came to an
+understanding with the primal forces of nature, and never trusted
+to any preliminary promise of good weather, but examined the
+day for herself in its infancy.  Then, if the stars were
+propitious, and the wind blew from a quarter of good inheritance
+whence no surprises of sea-turns or southwest sultriness might be
+feared, long before I was fairly awake I used to hear a rustle and
+knocking like a great mouse in the walls, and an impatient tread on
+the steep garret stairs that led to Mrs. Todd's chief place of
+storage.  She went and came as if she had already started on her
+expedition with utmost haste and kept returning for something that
+was forgotten.  When I appeared in quest of my breakfast, she would
+be absent-minded and sparing of speech, as if I had displeased her,
+and she was now, by main force of principle, holding herself back
+from altercation and strife of tongues.
+
+These signs of a change became familiar to me in the course of
+time, and Mrs. Todd hardly noticed some plain proofs of divination
+one August morning when I said, without preface, that I had just
+seen the Beggs' best chaise go by, and that we should have to take
+the grocery.  Mrs. Todd was alert in a moment.
+
+"There!  I might have known!" she exclaimed.  "It's the 15th
+of August, when he goes and gets his money.  He heired an annuity
+from an uncle o' his on his mother's side.  I understood the uncle
+said none o' Sam Begg's wife's folks should make free with it, so
+after Sam's gone it'll all be past an' spent, like last summer. 
+That's what Sam prospers on now, if you can call it prosperin'. 
+Yes, I might have known.  'Tis the 15th o' August with him, an' he
+gener'ly stops to dinner with a cousin's widow on the way home. 
+Feb'uary n' August is the times.  Takes him 'bout all day to go an'
+come."
+
+I heard this explanation with interest.  The tone of Mrs.
+Todd's voice was complaining at the last.
+
+"I like the grocery just as well as the chaise," I hastened to
+say, referring to a long-bodied high wagon with a canopy-top, like
+an attenuated four-posted bedstead on wheels, in which we sometimes
+journeyed.  "We can put things in behind--roots and flowers and
+raspberries, or anything you are going after--much better than if
+we had the chaise."
+
+Mrs. Todd looked stony and unwilling.  "I counted upon the
+chaise," she said, turning her back to me, and roughly pushing back
+all the quiet tumblers on the cupboard shelf as if they had been
+impertinent.  "Yes, I desired the chaise for once.  I ain't goin'
+berryin' nor to fetch home no more wilted vegetation this year. 
+Season's about past, except for a poor few o' late things," she
+added in a milder tone.  "I'm goin' up country.  No, I ain't
+intendin' to go berryin'.  I've been plottin' for it the past
+fortnight and hopin' for a good day."
+
+"Would you like to have me go too?" I asked frankly, but not
+without a humble fear that I might have mistaken the purpose of
+this latest plan.
+
+"Oh certain, dear!" answered my friend affectionately.  "Oh
+no, I never thought o' any one else for comp'ny, if it's convenient
+for you, long's poor mother ain't come.  I ain't nothin' like so
+handy with a conveyance as I be with a good bo't.  Comes o' my
+early bringing-up.  I expect we've got to make that great high
+wagon do.  The tires want settin' and 'tis all loose-jointed, so I
+can hear it shackle the other side o' the ridge.  We'll put the
+basket in front.  I ain't goin' to have it bouncin' an' twirlin'
+all the way.  Why, I've been makin' some nice hearts and rounds to
+carry."
+
+These were signs of high festivity, and my interest deepened
+moment by moment.
+
+"I'll go down to the Beggs' and get the horse just as soon as
+I finish my breakfast," said I.  "Then we can start whenever you
+are ready."
+
+Mrs. Todd looked cloudy again.  "I don't know but you look
+nice enough to go just as you be," she suggested doubtfully.  "No,
+you wouldn't want to wear that pretty blue dress o' yourn 'way up
+country.  'Taint dusty now, but it may be comin' home.  No, I
+expect you'd rather not wear that and the other hat."
+
+"Oh yes.  I shouldn't think of wearing these clothes," said I,
+with sudden illumination.  "Why, if we're going up country and are
+likely to see some of your friends, I'll put on my blue dress, and
+you must wear your watch; I am not going at all if you mean to wear
+the big hat."
+
+"Now you're behavin' pretty," responded Mrs. Todd, with a gay
+toss of her head and a cheerful smile, as she came across the room,
+bringing a saucerful of wild raspberries, a pretty piece of salvage
+from supper-time.  "I was cast down when I see you come to
+breakfast.  I didn't think 'twas just what you'd select to wear to
+the reunion, where you're goin' to meet everybody."
+
+"What reunion do you mean?" I asked, not without amazement. 
+"Not the Bowden Family's?  I thought that was going to take place
+in September."
+
+"To-day's the day.  They sent word the middle o' the week.  I
+thought you might have heard of it.  Yes, they changed the day.  I
+been thinkin' we'd talk it over, but you never can tell beforehand
+how it's goin' to be, and 'taint worth while to wear a day all out
+before it comes."  Mrs. Todd gave no place to the pleasures of
+anticipation, but she spoke like the oracle that she was.  "I wish
+mother was here to go," she continued sadly.  "I did look for her
+last night, and I couldn't keep back the tears when the dark really
+fell and she wa'n't here, she does so enjoy a great occasion.  If
+William had a mite o' snap an' ambition, he'd take the lead
+at such a time.  Mother likes variety, and there ain't but a few
+nice opportunities 'round here, an' them she has to miss 'less she
+contrives to get ashore to me.  I do re'lly hate to go to the
+reunion without mother, an' 'tis a beautiful day; everybody'll be
+asking where she is.  Once she'd have got here anyway.  Poor
+mother's beginnin' to feel her age."
+
+"Why, there's your mother now!" I exclaimed with joy, I was so
+glad to see the dear old soul again.  "I hear her voice at the
+gate."  But Mrs. Todd was out of the door before me.
+
+There, sure enough, stood Mrs. Blackett, who must have left
+Green Island before daylight.  She had climbed the steep road from
+the waterside so eagerly that she was out of breath, and was
+standing by the garden fence to rest.  She held an old-fashioned
+brown wicker cap-basket in her hand, as if visiting were a thing of
+every day, and looked up at us as pleased and triumphant as a
+child.
+
+"Oh, what a poor, plain garden!  Hardly a flower in it except
+your bush o' balm!" she said.  "But you do keep your garden neat,
+Almiry.  Are you both well, an' goin' up country with me?"  She
+came a step or two closer to meet us, with quaint politeness and
+quite as delightful as if she were at home.  She dropped a quick
+little curtsey before Mrs. Todd.
+
+"There, mother, what a girl you be!  I am so pleased!  I was
+just bewailin' you," said the daughter, with unwonted feeling.  "I
+was just bewailin' you, I was so disappointed, an' I kep' myself
+awake a good piece o' the night scoldin' poor William.  I watched
+for the boat till I was ready to shed tears yisterday, and when
+'twas comin' dark I kep' making errands out to the gate an' down
+the road to see if you wa'n't in the doldrums somewhere down the
+bay."
+
+"There was a head-wind, as you know," said Mrs. Blackett,
+giving me the cap-basket, and holding my hand affectionately as we
+walked up the clean-swept path to the door.  "I was partly ready to
+come, but dear William said I should be all tired out and might get
+cold, havin' to beat all the way in.  So we give it up, and set
+down and spent the evenin' together.  It was a little rough and
+windy outside, and I guess 'twas better judgment; we went to bed
+very early and made a good start just at daylight.  It's been a
+lovely mornin' on the water.  William thought he'd better fetch
+across beyond Bird Rocks, rowin' the greater part o' the way; then
+we sailed from there right over to the landin', makin' only one
+tack.  William'll be in again for me to-morrow, so I can come back
+here an' rest me over night, an' go to meetin' to-morrow, and have
+a nice, good visit."
+
+"She was just havin' her breakfast," said Mrs. Todd, who had
+listened eagerly to the long explanation without a word of
+disapproval, while her face shone more and more with joy.  "You
+just sit right down an' have a cup of tea and rest you while we
+make our preparations.  Oh, I am so gratified to think you've come! 
+Yes, she was just havin' her breakfast, and we were speakin' of
+you.  Where's William?"
+
+"He went right back; said he expected some schooners in about
+noon after bait, but he'll come an' have his dinner with us
+tomorrow, unless it rains; then next day.  I laid his best things
+out all ready," explained Mrs. Blackett, a little anxiously.  "This
+wind will serve him nice all the way home.  Yes, I will take a cup
+of tea, dear,--a cup of tea is always good; and then I'll rest a
+minute and be all ready to start."
+
+"I do feel condemned for havin' such hard thoughts o'
+William," openly confessed Mrs. Todd.  She stood before us so large
+and serious that we both laughed and could not find it in our
+hearts to convict so rueful a culprit.  "He shall have a good
+dinner to-morrow, if it can be got, and I shall be real glad to see
+William," the confession ended handsomely, while Mrs. Blackett
+smiled approval and made haste to praise the tea.  Then I hurried
+away to make sure of the grocery wagon.  Whatever might be the good
+of the reunion, I was going to have the pleasure and delight of a
+day in Mrs. Blackett's company, not to speak of Mrs. Todd's.
+
+The early morning breeze was still blowing, and the warm,
+sunshiny air was of some ethereal northern sort, with a cool
+freshness as it came over new-fallen snow.  The world was filled
+with a fragrance of fir-balsam and the faintest flavor of seaweed
+from the ledges, bare and brown at low tide in the little harbor. 
+It was so still and so early that the village was but half awake. 
+I could hear no voices but those of the birds, small and great,--
+the constant song sparrows, the clink of a yellow-hammer over in
+the woods, and the far conversation of some deliberate crows.  I
+saw William Blackett's escaping sail already far from land, and
+Captain Littlepage was sitting behind his closed window as I passed
+by, watching for some one who never came.  I tried to speak to him,
+but he did not see me.  There was a patient look on the old man's
+face, as if the world were a great mistake and he had nobody with
+whom to speak his own language or find companionship.
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+
+A Country Road
+
+WHATEVER DOUBTS and anxieties I may have had about the
+inconvenience of the Begg's high wagon for a person of Mrs.
+Blackett's age and shortness, they were happily overcome by the aid
+of a chair and her own valiant spirit.  Mrs. Todd bestowed great
+care upon seating us as if we were taking passage by boat, but she
+finally pronounced that we were properly trimmed.  When we had gone
+only a little way up the hill she remembered that she had left the
+house door wide open, though the large key was safe in her pocket. 
+I offered to run back, but my offer was met with lofty scorn, and
+we lightly dismissed the matter from our minds, until two or three
+miles further on we met the doctor, and Mrs. Todd asked him to stop
+and ask her nearest neighbor to step over and close the door if the
+dust seemed to blow in the afternoon.
+
+"She'll be there in her kitchen; she'll hear you the minute
+you call; 'twont give you no delay," said Mrs. Todd to the doctor. 
+"Yes, Mis' Dennett's right there, with the windows all open.  It
+isn't as if my fore door opened right on the road, anyway."  At
+which proof of composure Mrs. Blackett smiled wisely at me.
+
+The doctor seemed delighted to see our guest; they were
+evidently the warmest friends, and I saw a look of affectionate
+confidence in their eyes.  The good man left his carriage to speak
+to us, but as he took Mrs. Blackett's hand he held it a moment,
+and, as if merely from force of habit, felt her pulse as they
+talked; then to my delight he gave the firm old wrist a commending
+pat.
+
+"You're wearing well; good for another ten years at this
+rate," he assured her cheerfully, and she smiled back.  "I like to
+keep a strict account of my old stand-bys," and he turned to me. 
+"Don't you let Mrs. Todd overdo to-day,--old folks like her are apt
+to be thoughtless;" and then we all laughed, and, parting, went our
+ways gayly.
+
+"I suppose he puts up with your rivalry the same as ever?"
+asked Mrs. Blackett.  "You and he are as friendly as ever, I see,
+Almiry," and Almira sagely nodded.
+
+"He's got too many long routes now to stop to 'tend to all his
+door patients," she said, "especially them that takes pleasure in
+talkin' themselves over.  The doctor and me have got to be kind of
+partners; he's gone a good deal, far an' wide.  Looked
+tired, didn't he?  I shall have to advise with him an' get him off
+for a good rest.  He'll take the big boat from Rockland an' go off
+up to Boston an' mouse round among the other doctors, one in two or
+three years, and come home fresh as a boy.  I guess they think
+consider'ble of him up there."  Mrs. Todd shook the reins and
+reached determinedly for the whip, as if she were compelling public
+opinion.
+
+Whatever energy and spirit the white horse had to begin with
+were soon exhausted by the steep hills and his discernment of a
+long expedition ahead.  We toiled slowly along.  Mrs. Blackett and
+I sat together, and Mrs. Todd sat alone in front with much majesty
+and the large basket of provisions.  Part of the way the road was
+shaded by thick woods, but we also passed one farmhouse after
+another on the high uplands, which we all three regarded with deep
+interest, the house itself and the barns and garden-spots and
+poultry all having to suffer an inspection of the shrewdest sort. 
+This was a highway quite new to me; in fact, most of my journeys
+with Mrs. Todd had been made afoot and between the roads, in open
+pasturelands.  My friends stopped several times for brief dooryard
+visits, and made so many promises of stopping again on the way home
+that I began to wonder how long the expedition would last.  I had
+often noticed how warmly Mrs. Todd was greeted by her friends, but
+it was hardly to be compared with the feeling now shown toward Mrs.
+Blackett.  A look of delight came to the faces of those who
+recognized the plain, dear old figure beside me; one revelation
+after another was made of the constant interest and intercourse
+that had linked the far island and these scattered farms into a
+golden chain of love and dependence.
+
+"Now, we mustn't stop again if we can help it," insisted Mrs.
+Todd at last.  "You'll get tired, mother, and you'll think the less
+o' reunions.  We can visit along here any day.  There, if they
+ain't frying doughnuts in this next house, too!  These are new
+folks, you know, from over St. George way; they took this old
+Talcot farm last year.  'Tis the best water on the road, and the
+check-rein's come undone--yes, we'd best delay a little and water
+the horse."
+
+We stopped, and seeing a party of pleasure-seekers in holiday
+attire, the thin, anxious mistress of the farmhouse came out with
+wistful sympathy to hear what news we might have to give.  Mrs.
+Blackett first spied her at the half-closed door, and asked with
+such cheerful directness if we were trespassing that, after a few
+words, she went back to her kitchen and reappeared with a plateful
+of doughnuts.
+
+"Entertainment for man and beast," announced Mrs. Todd with
+satisfaction.  "Why, we've perceived there was new doughnuts
+all along the road, but you're the first that has treated us."
+
+Our new acquaintance flushed with pleasure, but said nothing.
+
+"They're very nice; you've had good luck with 'em," pronounced
+Mrs. Todd.  "Yes, we've observed there was doughnuts all the way
+along; if one house is frying all the rest is; 'tis so with a great
+many things."
+
+"I don't suppose likely you're goin' up to the Bowden
+reunion?" asked the hostess as the white horse lifted his head and
+we were saying good-by.
+
+"Why, yes," said Mrs. Blackett and Mrs. Todd and I, all
+together.
+
+"I am connected with the family.  Yes, I expect to be there
+this afternoon.  I've been lookin' forward to it," she told us
+eagerly.
+
+"We shall see you there.  Come and sit with us if it's
+convenient," said dear Mrs. Blackett, and we drove away.
+
+"I wonder who she was before she was married?" said Mrs. Todd,
+who was usually unerring in matters of genealogy.  "She must have
+been one of that remote branch that lived down beyond Thomaston. 
+We can find out this afternoon.  I expect that the families'll
+march together, or be sorted out some way.  I'm willing to own a
+relation that has such proper ideas of doughnuts."
+
+"I seem to see the family looks," said Mrs. Blackett.  "I wish
+we'd asked her name.  She's a stranger, and I want to help make it
+pleasant for all such."
+
+"She resembles Cousin Pa'lina Bowden about the forehead," said
+Mrs. Todd with decision.
+
+We had just passed a piece of woodland that shaded the road,
+and come out to some open fields beyond, when Mrs. Todd suddenly
+reined in the horse as if somebody had stood on the roadside and
+stopped her.  She even gave that quick reassuring nod of her head
+which was usually made to answer for a bow, but I discovered that
+she was looking eagerly at a tall ash-tree that grew just inside
+the field fence.
+
+"I thought 'twas goin' to do well," she said complacently as
+we went on again.  "Last time I was up this way that tree was kind
+of drooping and discouraged.  Grown trees act that way sometimes,
+same's folks; then they'll put right to it and strike their roots
+off into new ground and start all over again with real good
+courage.  Ash-trees is very likely to have poor spells; they ain't
+got the resolution of other trees."
+
+I listened hopefully for more; it was this peculiar wisdom
+that made one value Mrs. Todd's pleasant company.
+
+"There's sometimes a good hearty tree growin' right out of the
+bare rock, out o' some crack that just holds the roots;" she went
+on to say, "right on the pitch o' one o' them bare stony hills
+where you can't seem to see a wheel-barrowful o' good earth
+in a place, but that tree'll keep a green top in the driest summer. 
+You lay your ear down to the ground an' you'll hear a little stream
+runnin'.  Every such tree has got its own livin' spring; there's
+folk made to match 'em."
+
+I could not help turning to look at Mrs. Blackett, close
+beside me.  Her hands were clasped placidly in their thin black
+woolen gloves, and she was looking at the flowery wayside as we
+went slowly along, with a pleased, expectant smile.  I do not think
+she had heard a word about the trees.
+
+"I just saw a nice plant o' elecampane growin' back there,"
+she said presently to her daughter.
+
+"I haven't got my mind on herbs to-day," responded Mrs. Todd,
+in the most matter-of-fact way.  "I'm bent on seeing folks," and
+she shook the reins again.
+
+I for one had no wish to hurry, it was so pleasant in the
+shady roads.  The woods stood close to the road on the right; on
+the left were narrow fields and pastures where there were as many
+acres of spruces and pines as there were acres of bay and juniper
+and huckleberry, with a little turf between.  When I thought we
+were in the heart of the inland country, we reached the top of a
+hill, and suddenly there lay spread out before us a wonderful great
+view of well-cleared fields that swept down to the wide water of a
+bay.  Beyond this were distant shores like another country in the
+midday haze which half hid the hills beyond, and the faraway pale
+blue mountains on the northern horizon.  There was a schooner with
+all sails set coming down the bay from a white village that was
+sprinkled on the shore, and there were many sailboats flitting
+about it.  It was a noble landscape, and my eyes, which had grown
+used to the narrow inspection of a shaded roadside, could hardly
+take it in.
+
+"Why, it's the upper bay," said Mrs. Todd.  "You can see 'way
+over into the town of Fessenden.  Those farms 'way over there are
+all in Fessenden.  Mother used to have a sister that lived up that
+shore.  If we started as early's we could on a summer mornin', we
+couldn't get to her place from Green Island till late afternoon,
+even with a fair, steady breeze, and you had to strike the time
+just right so as to fetch up 'long o' the tide and land near the
+flood.  'Twas ticklish business, an' we didn't visit back an' forth
+as much as mother desired.  You have to go 'way down the co'st to
+Cold Spring Light an' round that long point,--up here's what they
+call the Back Shore."
+
+"No, we were 'most always separated, my dear sister and me,
+after the first year she was married," said Mrs. Blackett.  "We had
+our little families an' plenty o' cares.  We were always lookin'
+forward to the time we could see each other more.  Now and then
+she'd get out to the island for a few days while her husband'd go
+fishin'; and once he stopped with her an' two children, and
+made him some flakes right there and cured all his fish for winter. 
+We did have a beautiful time together, sister an' me; she used to
+look back to it long's she lived.
+
+"I do love to look over there where she used to live," Mrs.
+Blackett went on as we began to go down the hill.  "It seems as if
+she must still be there, though she's long been gone.  She loved
+their farm,--she didn't see how I got so used to our island; but
+somehow I was always happy from the first."
+
+"Yes, it's very dull to me up among those slow farms,"
+declared Mrs. Todd.  "The snow troubles 'em in winter.  They're all
+besieged by winter, as you may say; 'tis far better by the shore
+than up among such places.  I never thought I should like to live
+up country."
+
+"Why, just see the carriages ahead of us on the next rise!"
+exclaimed Mrs. Blackett.  "There's going to be a great gathering,
+don't you believe there is, Almiry?  It hasn't seemed up to now as
+if anybody was going but us.  An' 'tis such a beautiful day, with
+yesterday cool and pleasant to work an' get ready, I shouldn't
+wonder if everybody was there, even the slow ones like Phebe Ann
+Brock."
+
+Mrs. Blackett's eyes were bright with excitement, and even
+Mrs. Todd showed remarkable enthusiasm.  She hurried the horse and
+caught up with the holiday-makers ahead.  "There's all the
+Dep'fords goin', six in the wagon," she told us joyfully; "an' Mis'
+Alva Tilley's folks are now risin' the hill in their new carry-
+all."
+
+Mrs. Blackett pulled at the neat bow of her black bonnet-
+strings, and tied them again with careful precision.  I believe
+your bonnet's on a little bit sideways, dear," she advised Mrs.
+Todd as if she were a child; but Mrs. Todd was too much occupied to
+pay proper heed.  We began to feel a new sense of gayety and of
+taking part in the great occasion as we joined the little train.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+
+The Bowden Reunion
+
+IT IS VERY RARE in country life, where high days and holidays are
+few, that any occasion of general interest proves to be less than
+great.  Such is the hidden fire of enthusiasm in the New England
+nature that, once given an outlet, it shines forth with
+almost volcanic light and heat.  In quiet neighborhoods such inward
+force does not waste itself upon those petty excitements of every
+day that belong to cities, but when, at long intervals, the altars
+to patriotism, to friendship, to the ties of kindred, are reared in
+our familiar fields, then the fires glow, the flames come up as if
+from the inexhaustible burning heart of the earth; the primal fires
+break through the granite dust in which our souls are set.  Each
+heart is warm and every face shines with the ancient light.  Such
+a day as this has transfiguring powers, and easily makes friends of
+those who have been cold-hearted, and gives to those who are dumb
+their chance to speak, and lends some beauty to the plainest face.
+
+"Oh, I expect I shall meet friends today that I haven't seen
+in a long while," said Mrs. Blackett with deep satisfaction. 
+"'Twill bring out a good many of the old folks, 'tis such a lovely
+day.  I'm always glad not to have them disappointed."
+
+"I guess likely the best of 'em'll be there," answered Mrs.
+Todd with gentle humor, stealing a glance at me.  "There's one
+thing certain: there's nothing takes in this whole neighborhood
+like anything related to the Bowdens.  Yes, I do feel that when you
+call upon the Bowdens you may expect most families to rise up
+between the Landing and the far end of the Back Cove.  Those that
+aren't kin by blood are kin by marriage."
+
+"There used to be an old story goin' about when I was a girl,"
+said Mrs. Blackett, with much amusement.  "There was a great many
+more Bowdens then than there are now, and the folks was all setting
+in meeting a dreadful hot Sunday afternoon, and a scatter-witted
+little bound girl came running to the meetin'-house door all out o'
+breath from somewheres in the neighborhood.  'Mis' Bowden, Mis'
+Bowden!' says she.  'Your baby's in a fit!'  They used to tell that
+the whole congregation was up on its feet in a minute and right out
+into the aisles.  All the Mis' Bowdens was setting right out for
+home; the minister stood there in the pulpit tryin' to keep sober,
+an' all at once he burst right out laughin'.  He was a very nice
+man, they said, and he said he'd better give 'em the benediction,
+and they could hear the sermon next Sunday, so he kept it over.  My
+mother was there, and she thought certain 'twas me."
+
+"None of our family was ever subject to fits," interrupted
+Mrs. Todd severely.  "No, we never had fits, none of us; and 'twas
+lucky we didn't 'way out there to Green Island.  Now these folks
+right in front; dear sakes knows the bunches o' soothing catnip an'
+yarrow I've had to favor old Mis' Evins with dryin'!  You can see
+it right in their expressions, all them Evins folks.  There, just
+you look up to the crossroads, mother," she suddenly exclaimed. 
+"See all the teams ahead of us.  And, oh, look down on the
+bay; yes, look down on the bay!  See what a sight o' boats, all
+headin' for the Bowden place cove!"
+
+"Oh, ain't it beautiful!" said Mrs. Blackett, with all the
+delight of a girl.  She stood up in the high wagon to see
+everything, and when she sat down again she took fast hold of my
+hand.
+
+"Hadn't you better urge the horse a little, Almiry?" she
+asked.  "He's had it easy as we came along, and he can rest when we
+get there.  The others are some little ways ahead, and I don't want
+to lose a minute."
+
+We watched the boats drop their sails one by one in the cove
+as we drove along the high land.  The old Bowden house stood, low-
+storied and broad-roofed, in its green fields as if it were a
+motherly brown hen waiting for the flock that came straying toward
+it from every direction.  The first Bowden settler had made his
+home there, and it was still the Bowden farm; five generations of
+sailors and farmers and soldiers had been its children.  And
+presently Mrs. Blackett showed me the stone-walled burying-ground
+that stood like a little fort on a knoll overlooking the bay, but,
+as she said, there were plenty of scattered Bowdens who were not
+laid there,--some lost at sea, and some out West, and some who died
+in the war; most of the home graves were those of women.
+
+We could see now that there were different footpaths from
+along shore and across country.  In all these there were straggling
+processions walking in single file, like old illustrations of the
+Pilgrim's Progress.  There was a crowd about the house as if huge
+bees were swarming in the lilac bushes.  Beyond the fields and cove
+a higher point of land ran out into the bay, covered with woods
+which must have kept away much of the northwest wind in winter. 
+Now there was a pleasant look of shade and shelter there for the
+great family meeting.
+
+We hurried on our way, beginning to feel as if we were very
+late, and it was a great satisfaction at last to turn out of the
+stony highroad into a green lane shaded with old apple-trees.  Mrs.
+Todd encouraged the horse until he fairly pranced with gayety as we
+drove round to the front of the house on the soft turf.  There was
+an instant cry of rejoicing, and two or three persons ran toward us
+from the busy group.
+
+"Why, dear Mis' Blackett!--here's Mis' Blackett!" I heard them
+say, as if it were pleasure enough for one day to have a sight of
+her.  Mrs. Todd turned to me with a lovely look of triumph and
+self-forgetfulness.  An elderly man who wore the look of a
+prosperous sea-captain put up both arms and lifted Mrs. Blackett
+down from the high wagon like a child, and kissed her with hearty
+affection.  "I was master afraid she wouldn't be here," he said,
+looking at Mrs. Todd with a face like a happy sunburnt schoolboy,
+while everybody crowded round to give their welcome.
+
+"Mother's always the queen," said Mrs. Todd.  "Yes, they'll
+all make everything of mother; she'll have a lovely time to-day. 
+I wouldn't have had her miss it, and there won't be a thing she'll
+ever regret, except to mourn because William wa'n't here."
+
+Mrs. Blackett having been properly escorted to the house, Mrs.
+Todd received her own full share of honor, and some of the men,
+with a simple kindness that was the soul of chivalry, waited upon
+us and our baskets and led away the white horse.  I already knew
+some of Mrs. Todd's friends and kindred, and felt like an adopted
+Bowden in this happy moment.  It seemed to be enough for anyone to
+have arrived by the same conveyance as Mrs. Blackett, who presently
+had her court inside the house, while Mrs. Todd, large, hospitable,
+and preeminent, was the centre of a rapidly increasing crowd about
+the lilac bushes.  Small companies were continually coming up the
+long green slope from the water, and nearly all the boats had come
+to shore.  I counted three or four that were baffled by the light
+breeze, but before long all the Bowdens, small and great, seemed to
+have assembled, and we started to go up to the grove across the
+field.
+
+Out of the chattering crowd of noisy children, and large-
+waisted women whose best black dresses fell straight to the ground
+in generous folds, and sunburnt men who looked as serious as if it
+were town-meeting day, there suddenly came silence and order.  I
+saw the straight, soldierly little figure of a man who bore a fine
+resemblance to Mrs. Blackett, and who appeared to marshal us with
+perfect ease.  He was imperative enough, but with a grand military
+sort of courtesy, and bore himself with solemn dignity of
+importance.  We were sorted out according to some clear design of
+his own, and stood as speechless as a troop to await his orders. 
+Even the children were ready to march together, a pretty flock, and
+at the last moment Mrs. Blackett and a few distinguished
+companions, the ministers and those who were very old, came out of
+the house together and took their places.  We ranked by fours, and
+even then we made a long procession.
+
+There was a wide path mowed for us across the field, and, as
+we moved along, the birds flew up out of the thick second crop of
+clover, and the bees hummed as if it still were June.  There was a
+flashing of white gulls over the water where the fleet of boats
+rode the low waves together in the cove, swaying their small masts
+as if they kept time to our steps.  The plash of the water could be
+heard faintly, yet still be heard; we might have been a company of
+ancient Greeks going to celebrate a victory, or to worship the god
+of harvests, in the grove above.  It was strangely moving to see
+this and to make part of it.  The sky, the sea, have watched
+poor humanity at its rites so long; we were no more a New England
+family celebrating its own existence and simple progress; we
+carried the tokens and inheritance of all such households from
+which this had descended, and were only the latest of our line.  We
+possessed the instincts of a far, forgotten childhood; I found
+myself thinking that we ought to be carrying green branches and
+singing as we went.  So we came to the thick shaded grove still
+silent, and were set in our places by the straight trees that
+swayed together and let sunshine through here and there like a
+single golden leaf that flickered down, vanishing in the cool
+shade.
+
+The grove was so large that the great family looked far
+smaller than it had in the open field; there was a thick growth of
+dark pines and firs with an occasional maple or oak that gave a
+gleam of color like a bright window in the great roof.  On three
+sides we could see the water, shining behind the tree-trunks, and
+feel the cool salt breeze that began to come up with the tide just
+as the day reached its highest point of heat.  We could see the
+green sunlit field we had just crossed as if we looked out at it
+from a dark room, and the old house and its lilacs standing
+placidly in the sun, and the great barn with a stockade of
+carriages from which two or three care-taking men who had lingered
+were coming across the field together.  Mrs. Todd had taken off her
+warm gloves and looked the picture of content.
+
+"There!" she exclaimed.  "I've always meant to have you see
+this place, but I never looked for such a beautiful opportunity--
+weather an' occasion both made to match.  Yes, it suits me: I don't
+ask no more.  I want to know if you saw mother walkin' at the head! 
+It choked me right up to see mother at the head, walkin' with the
+ministers," and Mrs. Todd turned away to hide the feelings she
+could not instantly control.
+
+"Who was the marshal?" I hastened to ask.  "Was he an old
+soldier?"
+
+"Don't he do well?" answered Mrs. Todd with satisfaction.
+
+"He don't often have such a chance to show off his gifts,"
+said Mrs. Caplin, a friend from the Landing who had joined us. 
+"That's Sant Bowden; he always takes the lead, such days.  Good for
+nothing else most o' his time; trouble is, he"--
+
+I turned with interest to hear the worst.  Mrs. Caplin's tone
+was both zealous and impressive.
+
+"Stim'lates," she explained scornfully.
+
+"No, Santin never was in the war," said Mrs. Todd with lofty
+indifference.  "It was a cause of real distress to him.  He kep'
+enlistin', and traveled far an' wide about here, an' even took the
+bo't and went to Boston to volunteer; but he ain't a sound man, an'
+they wouldn't have him.  They say he knows all their
+tactics, an' can tell all about the battle o' Waterloo well's he
+can Bunker Hill.  I told him once the country'd lost a great
+general, an' I meant it, too."
+
+"I expect you're near right," said Mrs. Caplin, a little
+crestfallen and apologetic.
+
+"I be right," insisted Mrs. Todd with much amiability.  "'Twas
+most too bad to cramp him down to his peaceful trade, but he's a
+most excellent shoemaker at his best, an' he always says it's a
+trade that gives him time to think an' plan his maneuvers.  Over to
+the Port they always invite him to march Decoration Day, same as
+the rest, an' he does look noble; he comes of soldier stock."
+
+I had been noticing with great interest the curiously French
+type of face which prevailed in this rustic company.  I had said to
+myself before that Mrs. Blackett was plainly of French descent, in
+both her appearance and her charming gifts, but this is not
+surprising when one has learned how large a proportion of the early
+settlers on this northern coast of New England were of Huguenot
+blood, and that it is the Norman Englishman, not the Saxon, who
+goes adventuring to a new world.
+
+"They used to say in old times," said Mrs. Todd modestly,
+"that our family came of very high folks in France, and one of 'em
+was a great general in some o' the old wars.  I sometimes think
+that Santin's ability has come 'way down from then.  'Tain't
+nothin' he's ever acquired; 'twas born in him.  I don't know's he
+ever saw a fine parade, or met with those that studied up such
+things.  He's figured it all out an' got his papers so he knows how
+to aim a cannon right for William's fish-house five miles out on
+Green Island, or up there on Burnt Island where the signal is.  He
+had it all over to me one day, an' I tried hard to appear
+interested.  His life's all in it, but he will have those poor
+gloomy spells come over him now an' then, an' then he has to
+drink."
+
+Mrs. Caplin gave a heavy sigh.
+
+"There's a great many such strayaway folks, just as there is
+plants," continued Mrs. Todd, who was nothing if not botanical.  "I
+know of just one sprig of laurel that grows over back here in a
+wild spot, an' I never could hear of no other on this coast.  I had
+a large bunch brought me once from Massachusetts way, so I know it. 
+This piece grows in an open spot where you'd think 'twould do well,
+but it's sort o' poor-lookin'.  I've visited it time an' again,
+just to notice its poor blooms.  'Tis a real Sant Bowden, out of
+its own place."
+
+Mrs. Caplin looked bewildered and blank.  "Well, all I know
+is, last year he worked out some kind of plan so's to parade the
+county conference in platoons, and got 'em all flustered up tryin'
+to sense his ideas of a holler square," she burst forth. 
+"They was holler enough anyway after ridin' 'way down from up
+country into the salt air, and they'd been treated to a sermon on
+faith an' works from old Fayther Harlow that never knows when to
+cease.  'Twa'n't no time for tactics then,--they wa'n't a'thinkin'
+of the church military.  Sant, he couldn't do nothin' with 'em. 
+All he thinks of, when he sees a crowd, is how to march 'em.  'Tis
+all very well when he don't 'tempt too much.  He never did act like
+other folks."
+
+"Ain't I just been maintainin' that he ain't like 'em?" urged
+Mrs. Todd decidedly.  "Strange folks has got to have strange ways,
+for what I see."
+
+"Somebody observed once that you could pick out the likeness
+of 'most every sort of a foreigner when you looked about you in our
+parish," said Sister Caplin, her face brightening with sudden
+illumination.  "I didn't see the bearin' of it then quite so plain. 
+I always did think Mari' Harris resembled a Chinee."
+
+"Mari' Harris was pretty as a child, I remember," said the
+pleasant voice of Mrs. Blackett, who, after receiving the
+affectionate greetings of nearly the whole company, came to join
+us,--to see, as she insisted, that we were out of mischief.
+
+"Yes, Mari' was one o' them pretty little lambs that make
+dreadful homely old sheep," replied Mrs. Todd with energy.  "Cap'n
+Littlepage never'd look so disconsolate if she was any sort of a
+proper person to direct things.  She might divert him; yes, she
+might divert the old gentleman, an' let him think he had his own
+way, 'stead o' arguing everything down to the bare bone. 
+'Twouldn't hurt her to sit down an' hear his great stories once in
+a while."
+
+"The stories are very interesting," I ventured to say.
+
+"Yes, you always catch yourself a-thinkin' what if they all
+was true, and he had the right of it," answered Mrs. Todd.  "He's
+a good sight better company, though dreamy, than such sordid
+creatur's as Mari' Harris."
+
+"Live and let live," said dear old Mrs. Blackett gently.  "I
+haven't seen the captain for a good while, now that I ain't so
+constant to meetin'," she added wistfully.  "We always have known
+each other."
+
+"Why, if it is a good pleasant day tomorrow, I'll get William
+to call an' invite the capt'in to dinner.  William'll be in early
+so's to pass up the street without meetin' anybody."
+
+"There, they're callin' out it's time to set the tables," said
+Mrs. Caplin, with great excitement.
+
+"Here's Cousin Sarah Jane Blackett!  Well, I am pleased,
+certain!" exclaimed Mrs. Todd, with unaffected delight; and these
+kindred spirits met and parted with the promise of a good talk
+later on.  After this there was no more time for
+conversation until we were seated in order at the long tables.
+
+"I'm one that always dreads seeing some o' the folks that I
+don't like, at such a time as this," announced Mrs. Todd privately
+to me after a season of reflection.  We were just waiting for the
+feast to begin.  "You wouldn't think such a great creatur' 's I be
+could feel all over pins an' needles.  I remember, the day I
+promised to Nathan, how it come over me, just's I was feelin'
+happy's I could, that I'd got to have an own cousin o' his for my
+near relation all the rest o' my life, an' it seemed as if die I
+should.  Poor Nathan saw somethin' had crossed me,--he had very
+nice feelings,--and when he asked what 'twas, I told him.  'I never
+could like her myself,' said he.  'You sha'n't be bothered, dear,'
+he says; an' 'twas one o' the things that made me set a good deal
+by Nathan, he did not make a habit of always opposin', like some
+men.  'Yes,' says I, 'but think o' Thanksgivin' times an' funerals;
+she's our relation, an' we've got to own her.'  Young folks don't
+think o' those things.  There she goes now, do let's pray her by!"
+said Mrs. Todd, with an alarming transition from general opinions
+to particular animosities.  "I hate her just the same as I always
+did; but she's got on a real pretty dress.  I do try to remember
+that she's Nathan's cousin.  Oh dear, well; she's gone by after
+all, an' ain't seen me.  I expected she'd come pleasantin' round
+just to show off an' say afterwards she was acquainted."
+
+This was so different from Mrs. Todd's usual largeness of mind
+that I had a moment's uneasiness; but the cloud passed quickly over
+her spirit, and was gone with the offender.
+
+There never was a more generous out-of-door feast along the
+coast then the Bowden family set forth that day.  To call it a
+picnic would make it seem trivial.  The great tables were edged
+with pretty oak-leaf trimming, which the boys and girls made.  We
+brought flowers from the fence-thickets of the great field; and out
+of the disorder of flowers and provisions suddenly appeared as
+orderly a scheme for the feast as the marshal had shaped for the
+procession.  I began to respect the Bowdens for their inheritance
+of good taste and skill and a certain pleasing gift of formality. 
+Something made them do all these things in a finer way than most
+country people would have done them.  As I looked up and down the
+tables there was a good cheer, a grave soberness that shone with
+pleasure, a humble dignity of bearing.  There were some who should
+have sat below the salt for lack of this good breeding; but they
+were not many.  So, I said to myself, their ancestors may have sat
+in the great hall of some old French house in the Middle Ages, when
+battles and sieges and processions and feasts were familiar things. 
+The ministers and Mrs. Blackett, with a few of their rank
+and age, were put in places of honor, and for once that I looked
+any other way I looked twice at Mrs. Blackett's face, serene and
+mindful of privilege and responsibility, the mistress by simple
+fitness of this great day.
+
+Mrs. Todd looked up at the roof of green trees, and then
+carefully surveyed the company.  "I see 'em better now they're all
+settin' down," she said with satisfaction.  "There's old Mr.
+Gilbraith and his sister.  I wish they were sittin' with us;
+they're not among folks they can parley with, an' they look
+disappointed."
+
+As the feast went on, the spirits of my companion steadily
+rose.  The excitement of an unexpectedly great occasion was a
+subtle stimulant to her disposition, and I could see that sometimes
+when Mrs. Todd had seemed limited and heavily domestic, she had
+simply grown sluggish for lack of proper surroundings.  She was not
+so much reminiscent now as expectant, and as alert and gay as a
+girl.  We who were her neighbors were full of gayety, which was but
+the reflected light from her beaming countenance.  It was not the
+first time that I was full of wonder at the waste of human ability
+in this world, as a botanist wonders at the wastefulness of nature,
+the thousand seeds that die, the unused provision of every sort. 
+The reserve force of society grows more and more amazing to one's
+thought.  More than one face among the Bowdens showed that only
+opportunity and stimulus were lacking,--a narrow set of
+circumstances had caged a fine able character and held it captive. 
+One sees exactly the same types in a country gathering as in the
+most brilliant city company.  You are safe to be understood if the
+spirit of your speech is the same for one neighbor as for the
+other.
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+
+The Feast's End
+
+THE FEAST was a noble feast, as has already been said.  There was
+an elegant ingenuity displayed in the form of pies which delighted
+my heart.  Once acknowledge that an American pie is far to be
+preferred to its humble ancestor, the English tart, and it is
+joyful to be reassured at a Bowden reunion that invention has not
+yet failed.  Beside a delightful variety of material, the
+decorations went beyond all my former experience; dates and
+names were wrought in lines of pastry and frosting on the tops. 
+There was even more elaborate reading matter on an excellent early-
+apple pie which we began to share and eat, precept upon precept. 
+Mrs. Todd helped me generously to the whole word BOWDEN, and
+consumed REUNION herself, save an undecipherable fragment;
+but the most renowned essay in cookery on the tables was a model of
+the old Bowden house made of durable gingerbread, with all the
+windows and doors in the right places, and sprigs of genuine lilac
+set at the front.  It must have been baked in sections, in one of
+the last of the great brick ovens, and fastened together on the
+morning of the day.  There was a general sigh when this fell into
+ruin at the feast's end, and it was shared by a great part of the
+assembly, not without seriousness, and as if it were a pledge and
+token of loyalty.  I met the maker of the gingerbread house, which
+had called up lively remembrances of a childish story.  She had the
+gleaming eye of an enthusiast and a look of high ideals.
+
+"I could just as well have made it all of frosted cake," she
+said, "but 'twouldn't have been the right shade; the old house, as
+you observe, was never painted, and I concluded that plain
+gingerbread would represent it best.  It wasn't all I expected it
+would be," she said sadly, as many an artist had said before her of
+his work.
+
+There were speeches by the ministers; and there proved to be
+a historian among the Bowdens, who gave some fine anecdotes of the
+family history; and then appeared a poetess, whom Mrs. Todd
+regarded with wistful compassion and indulgence, and when the long
+faded garland of verses came to an appealing end, she turned to me
+with words of praise.
+
+"Sounded pretty," said the generous listener.  "Yes, I thought
+she did very well.  We went to school together, an' Mary Anna had
+a very hard time; trouble was, her mother thought she'd given birth
+to a genius, an' Mary Anna's come to believe it herself.  There, I
+don't know what we should have done without her; there ain't nobody
+else that can write poetry between here and 'way up towards
+Rockland; it adds a great deal at such a time.  When she speaks o'
+those that are gone, she feels it all, and so does everybody else,
+but she harps too much.  I'd laid half of that away for next time,
+if I was Mary Anna.  There comes mother to speak to her, an' old
+Mr. Gilbreath's sister; now she'll be heartened right up. 
+Mother'll say just the right thing."
+
+The leave-takings were as affecting as the meetings of these
+old friends had been.  There were enough young persons at the
+reunion, but it is the old who really value such opportunities; as
+for the young, it is the habit of every day to meet their
+comrades,--the time of separation has not come.  To see the
+joy with which these elder kinsfolk and acquaintances had looked in
+one another's faces, and the lingering touch of their friendly
+hands; to see these affectionate meetings and then the reluctant
+partings, gave one a new idea of the isolation in which it was
+possible to live in that after all thinly settled region.  They did
+not expect to see one another again very soon; the steady, hard
+work on the farms, the difficulty of getting from place to place,
+especially in winter when boats were laid up, gave double value to
+any occasion which could bring a large number of families together. 
+Even funerals in this country of the pointed firs were not without
+their social advantages and satisfactions.  I heard the words "next
+summer" repeated many times, though summer was still ours and all
+the leaves were green.
+
+The boats began to put out from shore, and the wagons to drive
+away.  Mrs. Blackett took me into the old house when we came back
+from the grove: it was her father's birthplace and early home, and
+she had spent much of her own childhood there with her grandmother. 
+She spoke of those days as if they had but lately passed; in fact,
+I could imagine that the house looked almost exactly the same to
+her.  I could see the brown rafters of the unfinished roof as I
+looked up the steep staircase, though the best room was as handsome
+with its good wainscoting and touch of ornament on the cornice as
+any old room of its day in a town.
+
+Some of the guests who came from a distance were still sitting
+in the best room when we went in to take leave of the master and
+mistress of the house.  We all said eagerly what a pleasant day it
+had been, and how swiftly the time had passed.  Perhaps it is the
+great national anniversaries which our country has lately kept, and
+the soldiers' meetings that take place everywhere, which have made
+reunions of every sort the fashion.  This one, at least, had been
+very interesting.  I fancied that old feuds had been overlooked,
+and the old saying that blood is thicker than water had again
+proved itself true, though from the variety of names one argued a
+certain adulteration of the Bowden traits and belongings. 
+Clannishness is an instinct of the heart,--it is more than a
+birthright, or a custom; and lesser rights were forgotten in the
+claim to a common inheritance.
+
+We were among the very last to return to our proper lives and
+lodgings.  I came near to feeling like a true Bowden, and parted
+from certain new friends as if they were old friends; we were rich
+with the treasure of a new remembrance.
+
+At last we were in the high wagon again; the old white horse
+had been well fed in the Bowden barn, and we drove away and soon
+began to climb the long hill toward the wooded ridge.  The road was
+new to me, as roads always are, going back.  Most of our companions
+had been full of anxious thoughts of home,--of the cows, or
+of young children likely to fall into disaster,--but we had no
+reasons for haste, and drove slowly along, talking and resting by
+the way.  Mrs. Todd said once that she really hoped her front door
+had been shut on account of the dust blowing in, but added that
+nothing made any weight on her mind except not to forget to turn a
+few late mullein leaves that were drying on a newspaper in the
+little loft.  Mrs. Blackett and I gave our word of honor that we
+would remind her of this heavy responsibility.  The way seemed
+short, we had so much to talk about.  We climbed hills where we
+could see the great bay and the islands, and then went down into
+shady valleys where the air began to feel like evening, cool and
+camp with a fragrance of wet ferns.  Mrs. Todd alighted once or
+twice, refusing all assistance in securing some boughs of a rare
+shrub which she valued for its bark, though she proved
+incommunicative as to her reasons.  We passed the house where we
+had been so kindly entertained with doughnuts earlier in the day,
+and found it closed and deserted, which was a disappointment.
+
+"They must have stopped to tea somewheres and thought they'd
+finish up the day," said Mrs. Todd.  "Those that enjoyed it best'll
+want to get right home so's to think it over."
+
+"I didn't see the woman there after all, did you?" asked Mrs.
+Blackett as the horse stopped to drink at the trough.
+
+"Oh yes, I spoke with her," answered Mrs. Todd, with but scant
+interest or approval.  "She ain't a member o' our family."
+
+"I thought you said she resembled Cousin Pa'lina Bowden about
+the forehead," suggested Mrs. Blackett.
+
+"Well, she don't," answered Mrs. Todd impatiently.  "I ain't
+one that's ord'narily mistaken about family likenesses, and she
+didn't seem to meet with friends, so I went square up to her.  'I
+expect you're a Bowden by your looks,' says I.  'Yes, I can take it
+you're one o' the Bowdens.'  'Lor', no,' says she.  'Dennett was my
+maiden name, but I married a Bowden for my first husband.  I
+thought I'd come an' just see what was a-goin' on!"
+
+Mrs. Blackett laughed heartily.  "I'm goin' to remember to
+tell William o' that," she said.  "There, Almiry, the only thing
+that's troubled me all this day is to think how William would have
+enjoyed it.  I do so wish William had been there."
+
+"I sort of wish he had, myself," said Mrs. Todd frankly.
+
+"There wa'n't many old folks there, somehow," said Mrs.
+Blackett, with a touch of sadness in her voice.  "There ain't so
+many to come as there used to be, I'm aware, but I expected to see
+more."
+
+"I thought they turned out pretty well, when you come to think
+of it; why, everybody was sayin' so an' feelin' gratified,"
+answered Mrs. Todd hastily with pleasing unconsciousness; then I
+saw the quick color flash into her cheek, and presently she made
+some excuse to turn and steal an anxious look at her mother.  Mrs.
+Blackett was smiling and thinking about her happy day, though she
+began to look a little tired.  Neither of my companions was
+troubled by her burden of years.  I hoped in my heart that I might
+be like them as I lived on into age, and then smiled to think that
+I too was no longer very young.  So we always keep the same hearts,
+though our outer framework fails and shows the touch of time.
+
+"'Twas pretty when they sang the hymn, wasn't it?" asked Mrs.
+Blackett at suppertime, with real enthusiasm.  "There was such a
+plenty o' men's voices; where I sat it did sound beautiful.  I had
+to stop and listen when they came to the last verse."
+
+I saw that Mrs. Todd's broad shoulders began to shake.  "There
+was good singers there; yes, there was excellent singers," she
+agreed heartily, putting down her teacup, "but I chanced to drift
+alongside Mis' Peter Bowden o' Great Bay, an' I couldn't help
+thinkin' if she was as far out o' town as she was out o' tune, she
+wouldn't get back in a day."
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+
+Along Shore
+
+ONE DAY as I went along the shore beyond the old wharves and the
+newer, high-stepped fabric of the steamer landing, I saw that all
+the boats were beached, and the slack water period of the early
+afternoon prevailed.  Nothing was going on, not even the most
+leisurely of occupations, like baiting trawls or mending nets, or
+repairing lobster pots; the very boats seemed to be taking an
+afternoon nap in the sun.  I could hardly discover a distant sail
+as I looked seaward, except a weather-beaten lobster smack, which
+seemed to have been taken for a plaything by the light airs that
+blew about the bay.  It drifted and turned about so aimlessly in
+the wide reach off Burnt Island, that I suspected there was nobody
+at the wheel, or that she might have parted her rusty anchor chain
+while all the crew were asleep.
+
+I watched her for a minute or two; she was the old Miranda,
+owned by some of the Caplins, and I knew her by an odd
+shaped patch of newish duck that was set into the peak of her dingy
+mainsail.  Her vagaries offered such an exciting subject for
+conversation that my heart rejoiced at the sound of a hoarse voice
+behind me.  At that moment, before I had time to answer, I saw
+something large and shapeless flung from the Miranda's deck that
+splashed the water high against her black side, and my companion
+gave a satisfied chuckle.  The old lobster smack's sail caught the
+breeze again at this moment, and she moved off down the bay. 
+Turning, I found old Elijah Tilley, who had come softly out of his
+dark fish-house, as if it were a burrow.
+
+"Boy got kind o' drowsy steerin' of her; Monroe he hove him
+right overboard; 'wake now fast enough," explained Mr. Tilley, and
+we laughed together.
+
+I was delighted, for my part, that the vicissitudes and
+dangers of the Miranda, in a rocky channel, should have given me
+this opportunity to make acquaintance with an old fisherman to whom
+I had never spoken.  At first he had seemed to be one of those
+evasive and uncomfortable persons who are so suspicious of you that
+they make you almost suspicious of yourself.  Mr. Elijah Tilley
+appeared to regard a stranger with scornful indifference.  You
+might see him standing on the pebble beach or in a fish-house
+doorway, but when you came nearer he was gone.  He was one of the
+small company of elderly, gaunt-shaped great fisherman whom I used
+to like to see leading up a deep-laden boat by the head, as if it
+were a horse, from the water's edge to the steep slope of the
+pebble beach.  There were four of these large old men at the
+Landing, who were the survivors of an earlier and more vigorous
+generation.  There was an alliance and understanding between them,
+so close that it was apparently speechless.  They gave much time to
+watching one another's boats go out or come in; they lent a ready
+hand at tending one another's lobster traps in rough weather; they
+helped to clean the fish or to sliver porgies for the trawls, as if
+they were in close partnership; and when a boat came in from deep-
+sea fishing they were never too far out of the way, and hastened to
+help carry it ashore, two by two, splashing alongside, or holding
+its steady head, as if it were a willful sea colt.  As a matter of
+fact no boat could help being steady and way-wise under their
+instant direction and companionship.  Abel's boat and Jonathan
+Bowden's boat were as distinct and experienced personalities as the
+men themselves, and as inexpressive.  Arguments and opinions were
+unknown to the conversation of these ancient friends; you would as
+soon have expected to hear small talk in a company of elephants as
+to hear old Mr. Bowden or Elijah Tilley and their two mates waste
+breath upon any form of trivial gossip.  They made brief
+statements to one another from time to time.  As you came to know
+them you wondered more and more that they should talk at all. 
+Speech seemed to be a light and elegant accomplishment, and their
+unexpected acquaintance with its arts made them of new value to the
+listener.  You felt almost as if a landmark pine should suddenly
+address you in regard to the weather, or a lofty-minded old camel
+make a remark as you stood respectfully near him under the circus
+tent.
+
+I often wondered a great deal about the inner life and thought
+of these self-contained old fishermen; their minds seemed to be
+fixed upon nature and the elements rather than upon any
+contrivances of man, like politics or theology.  My friend, Captain
+Bowden, who was the nephew of the eldest of this group, regarded
+them with deference; but he did not belong to their secret
+companionship, though he was neither young nor talkative.
+
+"They've gone together ever since they were boys, they know
+most everything about the sea amon'st them," he told me once. 
+"They was always just as you see 'em now since the memory of man."
+
+These ancient seafarers had houses and lands not outwardly
+different from other Dunnet Landing dwellings, and two of them were
+fathers of families, but their true dwelling places were the sea,
+and the stony beach that edged its familiar shore, and the fish-
+houses, where much salt brine from the mackerel kits had soaked the
+very timbers into a state of brown permanence and petrifaction.  It
+had also affected the old fishermen's hard complexions, until one
+fancied that when Death claimed them it could only be with the aid,
+not of any slender modern dart, but the good serviceable harpoon of
+a seventeenth century woodcut.
+
+Elijah Tilley was such an evasive, discouraged-looking person,
+heavy-headed, and stooping so that one could never look him in the
+face, that even after his friendly exclamation about Monroe
+Pennell, the lobster smack's skipper, and the sleepy boy, I did not
+venture at once to speak again.  Mr. Tilley was carrying a small
+haddock in one hand, and presently shifted it to the other hand
+lest it might touch my skirt.  I knew that my company was accepted,
+and we walked together a little way.
+
+"You mean to have a good supper," I ventured to say, by way of
+friendliness.
+
+"Goin' to have this 'ere haddock an' some o' my good baked
+potatoes; must eat to live," responded my companion with great
+pleasantness and open approval.  I found that I had suddenly left
+the forbidding coast and come into the smooth little harbor of
+friendship.
+
+"You ain't never been up to my place," said the old man. 
+"Folks don't come now as they used to; no, 'tain't no use to
+ask folks now.  My poor dear she was a great hand to draw young
+company."
+
+I remembered that Mrs. Todd had once said that this old
+fisherman had been sore stricken and unconsoled at the death of his
+wife.
+
+"I should like very much to come," said I.  "Perhaps you are
+going to be at home later on?"
+
+Mr. Tilley agreed, by a sober nod, and went his way bent-
+shouldered and with a rolling gait.  There was a new patch high on
+the shoulder of his old waistcoat, which corresponded to the
+renewing of the Miranda's mainsail down the bay, and I wondered if
+his own fingers, clumsy with much deep-sea fishing, had set it in.
+
+"Was there a good catch to-day?" I asked, stopping a moment. 
+"I didn't happen to be on the shore when the boats came in."
+
+"No; all come in pretty light," answered Mr. Tilley.  "Addicks
+an' Bowden they done the best; Abel an' me we had but a slim fare. 
+We went out 'arly, but not so 'arly as sometimes; looked like a
+poor mornin'.  I got nine haddick, all small, and seven fish; the
+rest on 'em got more fish than haddick.  Well, I don't expect they
+feel like bitin' every day; we l'arn to humor 'em a little, an' let
+'em have their way 'bout it.  These plaguey dog-fish kind of worry
+'em."  Mr. Tilley pronounced the last sentence with much sympathy,
+as if he looked upon himself as a true friend of all the haddock
+and codfish that lived on the fishing grounds, and so we parted.
+
+
+Later in the afternoon I went along the beach again until I
+came to the foot of Mr. Tilley's land, and found his rough track
+across the cobblestones and rocks to the field edge, where there
+was a heavy piece of old wreck timber, like a ship's bone, full of
+tree-nails.  From this a little footpath, narrow with one man's
+treading, led up across the small green field that made Mr.
+Tilley's whole estate, except a straggling pasture that tilted on
+edge up the steep hillside beyond the house and road.  I could hear
+the tinkle-tankle of a cow-bell somewhere among the spruces by
+which the pasture was being walked over and forested from every
+side; it was likely to be called the wood lot before long, but the
+field was unmolested.  I could not see a bush or a brier anywhere
+within its walls, and hardly a stray pebble showed itself.  This
+was most surprising in that country of firm ledges, and scattered
+stones which all the walls that industry could devise had hardly
+begun to clear away off the land.  In the narrow field I noticed
+some stout stakes, apparently planted at random in the grass and
+among the hills of potatoes, but carefully painted yellow and white
+to match the house, a neat sharp-edged little dwelling, which
+looked strangely modern for its owner.  I should have much
+sooner believed that the smart young wholesale egg merchant of the
+Landing was its occupant than Mr. Tilley, since a man's house is
+really but his larger body, and expresses in a way his nature and
+character.
+
+I went up the field, following the smooth little path to the
+side door.  As for using the front door, that was a matter of great
+ceremony; the long grass grew close against the high stone step,
+and a snowberry bush leaned over it, top-heavy with the weight of
+a morning-glory vine that had managed to take what the fishermen
+might call a half hitch about the door-knob.  Elijah Tilley came to
+the side door to receive me; he was knitting a blue yarn stocking
+without looking on, and was warmly dressed for the season in a
+thick blue flannel shirt with white crockery buttons, a faded
+waistcoat and trousers heavily patched at the knees.  These were
+not his fishing clothes.  There was something delightful in the
+grasp of his hand, warm and clean, as if it never touched anything
+but the comfortable woolen yarn, instead of cold sea water and
+slippery fish.
+
+"What are the painted stakes for, down in the field?" I
+hastened to ask, and he came out a step or two along the path to
+see; and looked at the stakes as if his attention were called to
+them for the first time.
+
+"Folks laughed at me when I first bought this place an' come
+here to live," he explained.  "They said 'twa'n't no kind of a
+field privilege at all; no place to raise anything, all full o'
+stones.  I was aware 'twas good land, an' I worked some on it--odd
+times when I didn't have nothin' else on hand--till I cleared them
+loose stones all out.  You never see a prettier piece than 'tis
+now; now did ye?  Well, as for them painted marks, them's my buoys. 
+I struck on to some heavy rocks that didn't show none, but a plow'd
+be liable to ground on 'em, an' so I ketched holt an' buoyed 'em
+same's you see.  They don't trouble me no more'n if they wa'n't
+there."
+
+"You haven't been to sea for nothing," I said laughing.
+
+"One trade helps another," said Elijah with an amiable smile. 
+"Come right in an' set down.  Come in an' rest ye," he exclaimed,
+and led the way into his comfortable kitchen.  The sunshine poured
+in at the two further windows, and a cat was curled up sound asleep
+on the table that stood between them.  There was a new-looking
+light oilcloth of a tiled pattern on the floor, and a crockery
+teapot, large for a household of only one person, stood on the
+bright stove.  I ventured to say that somebody must be a very good
+housekeeper.
+
+"That's me," acknowledged the old fisherman with frankness. 
+"There ain't nobody here but me.  I try to keep things looking
+right, same's poor dear left 'em.  You set down here in this chair,
+then you can look off an' see the water.  None on 'em
+thought I was goin' to get along alone, no way, but I wa'n't goin'
+to have my house turned upsi' down an' all changed about; no, not
+to please nobody.  I was the only one knew just how she liked to
+have things set, poor dear, an' I said I was goin' to make shift,
+and I have made shift.  I'd rather tough it out alone."  And he
+sighed heavily, as if to sigh were his familiar consolation.
+
+We were both silent for a minute; the old man looked out the
+window, as if he had forgotten I was there.
+
+"You must miss her very much?" I said at last.
+
+"I do miss her," he answered, and sighed again.  "Folks all
+kep' repeatin' that time would ease me, but I can't find it does. 
+No, I miss her just the same every day."
+
+"How long is it since she died?" I asked.
+
+"Eight year now, come the first of October.  It don't seem
+near so long.  I've got a sister that comes and stops 'long o' me
+a little spell, spring an' fall, an' odd times if I send after her. 
+I ain't near so good a hand to sew as I be to knit, and she's very
+quick to set everything to rights.  She's a married woman with a
+family; her son's folks lives at home, an' I can't make no great
+claim on her time.  But it makes me a kind o' good excuse, when I
+do send, to help her a little; she ain't none too well off.  Poor
+dear always liked her, and we used to contrive our ways together. 
+'Tis full as easy to be alone.  I set here an' think it all over,
+an' think considerable when the weather's bad to go outside.  I get
+so some days it feels as if poor dear might step right back into
+this kitchen.  I keep a-watchin' them doors as if she might step in
+to ary one.  Yes, ma'am, I keep a-lookin' off an' droppin' o' my
+stitches; that's just how it seems.  I can't git over losin' of her
+no way nor no how.  Yes, ma'am, that's just how it seems to me."
+
+I did not say anything, and he did not look up.
+
+"I git feelin' so sometimes I have to lay everything by an' go
+out door.  She was a sweet pretty creatur' long's she lived," the
+old man added mournfully.  "There's that little rockin' chair o'
+her'n, I set an' notice it an' think how strange 'tis a creatur'
+like her should be gone an' that chair be here right in its old
+place."
+
+
+"I wish I had known her; Mrs. Todd told me about your wife one
+day," I said.
+
+"You'd have liked to come and see her; all the folks did,"
+said poor Elijah.  "She'd been so pleased to hear everything and
+see somebody new that took such an int'rest.  She had a kind o'
+gift to make it pleasant for folks.  I guess likely Almiry Todd
+told you she was a pretty woman, especially in her young days; late
+years, too, she kep' her looks and come to be so pleasant
+lookin'.  There, 'tain't so much matter, I shall be done afore a
+great while.  No; I sha'n't trouble the fish a great sight more."
+
+The old widower sat with his head bowed over his knitting, as
+if he were hastily shortening the very thread of time.  The minutes
+went slowly by.  He stopped his work and clasped his hands firmly
+together.  I saw he had forgotten his guest, and I kept the
+afternoon watch with him.  At last he looked up as if but a moment
+had passed of his continual loneliness.
+
+"Yes, ma'am, I'm one that has seen trouble," he said, and
+began to knit again.
+
+The visible tribute of his careful housekeeping, and the clean
+bright room which had once enshrined his wife, and now enshrined
+her memory, was very moving to me; he had no thought for any one
+else or for any other place.  I began to see her myself in her
+home,--a delicate-looking, faded little woman, who leaned upon his
+rough strength and affectionate heart, who was always watching for
+his boat out of this very window, and who always opened the door
+and welcomed him when he came home.
+
+"I used to laugh at her, poor dear," said Elijah, as if he
+read my thought.  "I used to make light of her timid notions.  She
+used to be fearful when I was out in bad weather or baffled about
+gittin' ashore.  She used to say the time seemed long to her, but
+I've found out all about it now.  I used to be dreadful thoughtless
+when I was a young man and the fish was bitin' well.  I'd stay out
+late some o' them days, an' I expect she'd watch an' watch an' lose
+heart a-waitin'.  My heart alive! what a supper she'd git, an' be
+right there watchin' from the door, with somethin' over her head if
+'twas cold, waitin' to hear all about it as I come up the field. 
+Lord, how I think o' all them little things!"
+
+"This was what she called the best room; in this way," he said
+presently, laying his knitting on the table, and leading the way
+across the front entry and unlocking a door, which he threw open
+with an air of pride.  The best room seemed to me a much sadder and
+more empty place than the kitchen; its conventionalities lacked the
+simple perfection of the humbler room and failed on the side of
+poor ambition; it was only when one remembered what patient saving,
+and what high respect for society in the abstract go to such
+furnishing that the little parlor was interesting at all.  I could
+imagine the great day of certain purchases, the bewildering shops
+of the next large town, the aspiring anxious woman, the clumsy sea-
+tanned man in his best clothes, so eager to be pleased, but at ease
+only when they were safe back in the sailboat again, going down the
+bay with their precious freight, the hoarded money all spent and
+nothing to think of but tiller and sail.  I looked at the unworn
+carpet, the glass vases on the mantelpiece with their prim
+bunches of bleached swamp grass and dusty marsh rosemary, and I
+could read the history of Mrs. Tilley's best room from its very
+beginning.
+
+"You see for yourself what beautiful rugs she could make; now
+I'm going to show you her best tea things she thought so much of,"
+said the master of the house, opening the door of a shallow
+cupboard.  "That's real chiny, all of it on those two shelves," he
+told me proudly.  "I bought it all myself, when we was first
+married, in the port of Bordeaux.  There never was one single piece
+of it broke until--  Well, I used to say, long as she lived, there
+never was a piece broke, but long at the last I noticed she'd look
+kind o' distressed, an' I thought 'twas 'count o' me boastin'. 
+When they asked if they should use it when the folks was here to
+supper, time o' her funeral, I knew she'd want to have everything
+nice, and I said 'certain.'  Some o' the women they come runnin' to
+me an' called me, while they was takin' of the chiny down, an'
+showed me there was one o' the cups broke an' the pieces wropped in
+paper and pushed way back here, corner o' the shelf.  They didn't
+want me to go an' think they done it.  Poor dear!  I had to put
+right out o' the house when I see that.  I knowed in one minute how
+'twas.  We'd got so used to sayin' 'twas all there just's I fetched
+it home, an' so when she broke that cup somehow or 'nother she
+couldn't frame no words to come an' tell me.  She couldn't think
+'twould vex me, 'twas her own hurt pride.  I guess there wa'n't no
+other secret ever lay between us."
+
+The French cups with their gay sprigs of pink and blue, the
+best tumblers, an old flowered bowl and tea caddy, and a japanned
+waiter or two adorned the shelves.  These, with a few
+daguerreotypes in a little square pile, had the closet to
+themselves, and I was conscious of much pleasure in seeing them. 
+One is shown over many a house in these days where the interest may
+be more complex, but not more definite.
+
+"Those were her best things, poor dear," said Elijah as he
+locked the door again.  "She told me that last summer before she
+was taken away that she couldn't think o' anything more she wanted,
+there was everything in the house, an' all her rooms was furnished
+pretty.  I was goin' over to the Port, an' inquired for errands. 
+I used to ask her to say what she wanted, cost or no cost--she was
+a very reasonable woman, an' 'twas the place where she done all but
+her extra shopping.  It kind o' chilled me up when she spoke so
+satisfied."
+
+"You don't go out fishing after Christmas?" I asked, as we
+came back to the bright kitchen.
+
+"No; I take stiddy to my knitting after January sets in," said
+the old seafarer.  "'Tain't worth while, fish make off into deeper
+water an' you can't stand no such perishin' for the sake o'
+what you get.  I leave out a few traps in sheltered coves an' do a
+little lobsterin' on fair days.  The young fellows braves it out,
+some on 'em; but, for me, I lay in my winter's yarn an' set here
+where 'tis warm, an' knit an' take my comfort.  Mother learnt me
+once when I was a lad; she was a beautiful knitter herself.  I was
+laid up with a bad knee, an' she said 'twould take up my time an'
+help her; we was a large family.  They'll buy all the folks can do
+down here to Addicks' store.  They say our Dunnet stockin's is
+gettin' to be celebrated up to Boston,--good quality o' wool an'
+even knittin' or somethin'.  I've always been called a pretty hand
+to do nettin', but seines is master cheap to what they used to be
+when they was all hand worked.  I change off to nettin' long
+towards spring, and I piece up my trawls and lines and get my
+fishin' stuff to rights.  Lobster pots they require attention, but
+I make 'em up in spring weather when it's warm there in the barn. 
+No; I ain't one o' them that likes to set an' do nothin'."
+
+"You see the rugs, poor dear did them; she wa'n't very partial
+to knittin'," old Elijah went on, after he had counted his
+stitches.  "Our rugs is beginnin' to show wear, but I can't master
+none o' them womanish tricks.  My sister, she tinkers 'em up.  She
+said last time she was here that she guessed they'd last my time."
+
+"The old ones are always the prettiest," I said.
+
+"You ain't referrin' to the braided ones now?" answered Mr.
+Tilley.  "You see ours is braided for the most part, an' their good
+looks is all in the beginnin'.  Poor dear used to say they made an
+easier floor.  I go shufflin' round the house same's if 'twas a
+bo't, and I always used to be stubbin' up the corners o' the hooked
+kind.  Her an' me was always havin' our jokes together same's a boy
+an' girl.  Outsiders never'd know nothin' about it to see us.  She
+had nice manners with all, but to me there was nobody so
+entertainin'.  She'd take off anybody's natural talk winter
+evenin's when we set here alone, so you'd think 'twas them a-
+speakin'.  There, there!"
+
+I saw that he had dropped a stitch again, and was snarling the
+blue yarn round his clumsy fingers.  He handled it and threw it off
+at arm's length as if it were a cod line; and frowned impatiently,
+but I saw a tear shining on his cheek.
+
+I said that I must be going, it was growing late, and asked if
+I might come again, and if he would take me out to the fishing
+grounds someday.
+
+"Yes, come any time you want to," said my host, "'tain't so
+pleasant as when poor dear was here.  Oh, I didn't want to lose her
+an' she didn't want to go, but it had to be.  Such things ain't for
+us to say; there's no yes an' no to it."
+
+"You find Almiry Todd one o' the best o' women?" said Mr.
+Tilley as we parted.  He was standing in the doorway and I had
+started off down the narrow green field.  "No, there ain't a better
+hearted woman in the State o' Maine.  I've known her from a girl. 
+She's had the best o' mothers.  You tell her I'm liable to fetch
+her up a couple or three nice good mackerel early tomorrow," he
+said.  "Now don't let it slip your mind.  Poor dear, she always
+thought a sight o' Almiry, and she used to remind me there was
+nobody to fish for her; but I don't rec'lect it as I ought to.  I
+see you drop a line yourself very handy now an' then."
+
+We laughed together like the best of friends, and I spoke
+again about the fishing grounds, and confessed that I had no fancy
+for a southerly breeze and a ground swell.
+
+"Nor me neither," said the old fisherman.  "Nobody likes 'em,
+say what they may.  Poor dear was disobliged by the mere sight of
+a bo't.  Almiry's got the best o' mothers, I expect you know; Mis'
+Blackett out to Green Island; and we was always plannin' to go out
+when summer come; but there, I couldn't pick no day's weather that
+seemed to suit her just right.  I never set out to worry her
+neither, 'twa'n't no kind o' use; she was so pleasant we couldn't
+have no fret nor trouble.  'Twas never 'you dear an' you darlin''
+afore folks, an' 'you divil' behind the door!"
+
+As I looked back from the lower end of the field I saw him
+still standing, a lonely figure in the doorway.  "Poor dear," I
+repeated to myself half aloud; "I wonder where she is and what she
+knows of the little world she left.  I wonder what she has been
+doing these eight years!"
+
+I gave the message about the mackerel to Mrs. Todd.
+
+"Been visitin' with 'Lijah?" she asked with interest.  "I
+expect you had kind of a dull session; he ain't the talkin' kind;
+dwellin' so much long o' fish seems to make 'em lose the gift o'
+speech."  But when I told her that Mr. Tilley had been talking to
+me that day, she interrupted me quickly.
+
+"Then 'twas all about his wife, an' he can't say nothin' too
+pleasant neither.  She was modest with strangers, but there ain't
+one o' her old friends can ever make up her loss.  For me, I don't
+want to go there no more.  There's some folks you miss and some
+folks you don't, when they're gone, but there ain't hardly a day I
+don't think o' dear Sarah Tilley.  She was always right there; yes,
+you knew just where to find her like a plain flower.  'Lijah's
+worthy enough; I do esteem 'Lijah, but he's a ploddin' man."
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+
+The Backward View
+
+AT LAST IT WAS the time of late summer, when the house was cool and
+damp in the morning, and all the light seemed to come through green
+leaves; but at the first step out of doors the sunshine always laid
+a warm hand on my shoulder, and the clear, high sky seemed to lift
+quickly as I looked at it.  There was no autumnal mist on the
+coast, nor any August fog; instead of these, the sea, the sky, all
+the long shore line and the inland hills, with every bush of bay
+and every fir-top, gained a deeper color and a sharper clearness. 
+There was something shining in the air, and a kind of lustre on the
+water and the pasture grass,--a northern look that, except at this
+moment of the year, one must go far to seek.  The sunshine of a
+northern summer was coming to its lovely end.
+
+The days were few then at Dunnet Landing, and I let each of
+them slip away unwillingly as a miser spends his coins.  I wished
+to have one of my first weeks back again, with those long hours
+when nothing happened except the growth of herbs and the course of
+the sun.  Once I had not even known where to go for a walk; now
+there were many delightful things to be done and done again, as if
+I were in London.  I felt hurried and full of pleasant engagements,
+and the days flew by like a handful of flowers flung to the sea
+wind.
+
+At last I had to say good-by to all my Dunnet Landing friends,
+and my homelike place in the little house, and return to the world
+in which I feared to find myself a foreigner.  There may be
+restrictions to such a summer's happiness, but the ease that
+belongs to simplicity is charming enough to make up for whatever a
+simple life may lack, and the gifts of peace are not for those who
+live in the thick of battle.
+
+I was to take the small unpunctual steamer that went down the
+bay in the afternoon, and I sat for a while by my window looking
+out on the green herb garden, with regret for company.  Mrs. Todd
+had hardly spoken all day except in the briefest and most
+disapproving way; it was as if we were on the edge of a quarrel. 
+It seemed impossible to take my departure with anything like
+composure.  At last I heard a footstep, and looked up to find that
+Mrs. Todd was standing at the door.
+
+"I've seen to everything now," she told me in an unusually
+loud and business-like voice.  "Your trunks are on the w'arf by
+this time.  Cap'n Bowden he come and took 'em down himself,
+an' is going to see that they're safe aboard.  Yes, I've seen to
+all your 'rangements," she repeated in a gentler tone.  "These
+things I've left on the kitchen table you'll want to carry by hand;
+the basket needn't be returned.  I guess I shall walk over towards
+the Port now an' inquire how old Mis' Edward Caplin is."
+
+I glanced at my friend's face, and saw a look that touched me
+to the heart.  I had been sorry enough before to go away.
+
+"I guess you'll excuse me if I ain't down there to stand
+around on the w'arf and see you go," she said, still trying to be
+gruff.  "Yes, I ought to go over and inquire for Mis' Edward
+Caplin; it's her third shock, and if mother gets in on Sunday
+she'll want to know just how the old lady is."  With this last word
+Mrs. Todd turned and left me as if with sudden thought of something
+she had forgotten, so that I felt sure she was coming back, but
+presently I heard her go out of the kitchen door and walk down the
+path toward the gate.  I could not part so; I ran after her to say
+good-by, but she shook her head and waved her hand without looking
+back when she heard my hurrying steps, and so went away down the
+street.
+
+When I went in again the little house had suddenly grown
+lonely, and my room looked empty as it had the day I came.  I and
+all my belongings had died out of it, and I knew how it would seem
+when Mrs. Todd came back and found her lodger gone.  So we die
+before our own eyes; so we see some chapters of our lives come to
+their natural end.
+
+I found the little packages on the kitchen table.  There was
+a quaint West Indian basket which I knew its owner had valued, and
+which I had once admired; there was an affecting provision laid
+beside it for my seafaring supper, with a neatly tied bunch of
+southernwood and a twig of bay, and a little old leather box which
+held the coral pin that Nathan Todd brought home to give to poor
+Joanna.
+
+
+There was still an hour to wait, and I went up the hill just
+above the schoolhouse and sat there thinking of things, and looking
+off to sea, and watching for the boat to come in sight.  I could
+see Green Island, small and darkly wooded at that distance; below
+me were the houses of the village with their apple-trees and bits
+of garden ground.  Presently, as I looked at the pastures beyond,
+I caught a last glimpse of Mrs. Todd herself, walking slowly in the
+footpath that led along, following the shore toward the Port.  At
+such a distance one can feel the large, positive qualities that
+control a character.  Close at hand, Mrs. Todd seemed able and
+warm-hearted and quite absorbed in her bustling industries, but her
+distant figure looked mateless and appealing, with something about
+it that was strangely self-possessed and mysterious.  Now
+and then she stooped to pick something,--it might have been her
+favorite pennyroyal,--and at last I lost sight of her as she slowly
+crossed an open space on one of the higher points of land, and
+disappeared again behind a dark clump of juniper and the pointed
+firs.
+
+As I came away on the little coastwise steamer, there was an
+old sea running which made the surf leap high on all the rocky
+shores.  I stood on deck, looking back, and watched the busy gulls
+agree and turn, and sway together down the long slopes of air, then
+separate hastily and plunge into the waves.  The tide was setting
+in, and plenty of small fish were coming with it, unconscious of
+the silver flashing of the great birds overhead and the quickness
+of their fierce beaks.  The sea was full of life and spirit, the
+tops of the waves flew back as if they were winged like the gulls
+themselves, and like them had the freedom of the wind.  Out in the
+main channel we passed a bent-shouldered old fisherman bound for
+the evening round among his lobster traps.  He was toiling along
+with short oars, and the dory tossed and sank and tossed again with
+the steamer's waves.  I saw that it was old Elijah Tilley, and
+though we had so long been strangers we had come to be warm
+friends, and I wished that he had waited for one of his mates, it
+was such hard work to row along shore through rough seas and tend
+the traps alone.  As we passed I waved my hand and tried to call to
+him, and he looked up and answered my farewells by a solemn nod. 
+The little town, with the tall masts of its disabled schooners in
+the inner bay, stood high above the flat sea for a few minutes then
+it sank back into the uniformity of the coast, and became
+indistinguishable from the other towns that looked as if they were
+crumbled on the furzy-green stoniness of the shore.
+
+The small outer islands of the bay were covered among the
+ledges with turf that looked as fresh as the early grass; there had
+been some days of rain the week before, and the darker green of the
+sweet-fern was scattered on all the pasture heights.  It looked
+like the beginning of summer ashore, though the sheep, round and
+warm in their winter wool, betrayed the season of the year as they
+went feeding along the slopes in the low afternoon sunshine. Presently
+the wind began to blow and we struck out seaward to double the long
+sheltering headland of the cape, and when I looked back again, the
+islands and the headland had run together and Dunnet Landing and
+all its coasts were lost to sight.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of "The Country of the Pointed Firs"
+
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