The captain could not believe that two months had passed since his sister's death, but Mrs. French assured him one evening that it was so. He had troubled himself very little about public opinion, though hints of his housekeeper's suspicious character and abominable intentions had reached his ears through more than one disinterested tale-bearer. Indeed, the minister and his wife were the only persons among the old family friends who kept up any sort of intercourse with Mrs. French. The ladies of the parish themselves had not dared to asperse her character to the gruff captain, but were contented with ignoring her existence and setting their husbands to the fray. "Why don't you tell him what folks think?" was a frequent question; but after a first venture even the most intimate and valiant friends were sure to mind their own business, as the indignant captain bade them. Two of them had been partially won over to Mrs. French's side by a taste of her good cooking. In fact, these were Captain Dunn and Captain Allister, who, at the eleven o'clock rendezvous, reported their wives as absent at the County Conference, and were promptly bidden to a chowder dinner by the independent Captain Ball, who gloried in the fact that neither of his companions would dare to ask a friend home unexpectedly. Our hero promised his guests that what they did not find in eatables they should make up in drinkables, and actually produced a glistening decanter of Madeira that had made several voyages in his father's ships while he himself was a boy. There were several casks and long rows of cobwebby bottles in the cellar, which had been provided against possible use in case of illness, but the captain rarely touched them, though he went regularly every morning for a social glass of what he frankly persisted in calling his grog. The dinner party proved to be a noble occasion, and Mrs. French won the esteem of the three elderly seamen by her discreet behavior, as well as by the flavor of the chowder.
They walked out into the old garden when the feast was over, and continued their somewhat excited discussion of the decline of shipping, on the seats of the ancient latticed summer-house. There Mrs. French surprised them by bringing out a tray of coffee, served in the handsome old cups which the captain's father had brought home from France. She was certainly a good-looking woman, and stepped modestly and soberly along the walk between the mallows and marigolds. Her feminine rivals insisted that she looked both bold and sly, but she minded her work like a steam-tug, as the captain whispered admiringly to his friends.
"Ain't never ascertained where she came from last, have ye?" inquired Captain Alister, emboldened by the best Madeira and the good-fellowship of the occasion.
"I'm acquainted with all I need to know," answered Captain Ball, shortly; but his face darkened, and when his guests finished their coffee they thought it was high time to go away.
Everybody was sorry that a jarring note had been struck on so delightful an occasion, but it could not be undone. On the whole, the dinner was an uncommon pleasure, and the host walked back into the house to compliment his housekeeper, though the sting of his friend's untimely question expressed itself by a remark that they had made most too much of an every-day matter by having the coffee in those best cups.
Mrs. French laughed. "'T will give 'em something to talk about; 't was excellent good coffee, this last you got, anyway," and Captain Asaph walked away, restored to a pleased and cheerful frame of mind. When he waked up after a solid after-dinner nap, Mrs. French, in her decent afternoon gown, as calm as if there had been no company to dinner, was just coming down the front stairs.
She seated herself by the window, and pretended to look into the street. The captain shook his newspaper at an invading fly. It was early September and flies were cruelly persistent. Somehow his nap had not entirely refreshed him, and he watched his housekeeper with something like disapproval.
"I want to talk with you about something, sir," said Mrs. French.
"She's going to raise her pay," the captain grumbled to himself. "Well, speak out, can't ye ma'am?" he said.
"You know I've been sayin' all along that you ought to get your niece"—
"She's mygreat-niece," blew the captain, "an' I don't know as I want her." The awful certainty came upon him that those hints were well-founded about Mrs. French's determination to marry him, and his stormy nature rose in wild revolt. "Can't you keep your place, ma'am?" and he gave a greatwhoo!as if he were letting off superabundant steam. She might prove to carry too many guns for him, and he grew very red in the face. It was a much worse moment than when a vessel comes driving at you amidships out of the fog.
"Why, yes, sir, I should be glad to keep my place," said Mrs. French, taking the less grave meaning of his remark by instinct, if not by preference; "only it seems your duty to let your great-niece come some time or other, and I can go off. Perhaps it is an untimely season to speak, about it, but, you see, I have had it in mind, and now I've got through with the preserves, and there's a space between now and house-cleaning, I guess you'd better let the young woman come. Folks have got wind about your refusing her earlier, and think hard of me: my position isn't altogether pleasant," and she changed color a little, and looked him full in the face.
The captain's eyes fell. He did owe her something. He never had been so comfortable in his life, on shore, as she had made him. She had heard some cursed ill-natured speeches, and he very well knew that a more self-respecting woman never lived. But now her moment of self-assertion seemed to have come, and, to use his own words, she had him fast. Stop! there was a way of escape.
"Then Iwillsend for the gal. Perhaps you're right, ma'am. I've slept myself into the doldrums.Whoo! whoo!" he said, loudly—anything to gain a little time. "Anything you say, ma'am," he protested. "I've got to step down-town on some business," and the captain fled with ponderous footsteps out through the dining-room to the little side entry where he hung his hat; then a moment later he went away, clicking his cane along the narrow sidewalk.
He had escaped that time, and wrote the brief note to his great-niece, Ann Ball—how familiar the name looked!—with a sense of victory. He dreaded the next interview with his housekeeper, but she was business-like and self-possessed, and seemed to be giving him plenty of time. Then the captain regretted his letter, and felt as if he were going to be broken up once more in his home comfort. He spoke only when it was absolutely necessary, and simply nodded his head when Mrs. French said that she was ready to start as soon as she showed the young woman about the house. But what favorite dishes were served the captain in those intervening days! and there was one cool evening beside, when the housekeeper had the social assistance of a fire in the Franklin stove. The captain thought that his only safety lay in sleep, and promptly took that means of saving himself from a dangerous conversation. He even went to a panorama on Friday night, a diversion that would usually be quite beneath his dignity. It was difficult to avoid asking Mrs. French to accompany him, she helped him on with his coat so pleasantly, but "she'd git her claws on me comin' home perhaps," mused the self-distrustful mariner, and stoutly went his way to the panorama alone. It was a very dull show indeed, and he bravely confessed it, and then was angry at a twinkle in Mrs. French's eyes. Yet he should miss the good creature, and for the life of him he could not think lightly of her. "She well knows how able she is to do for me. Women-folks is cap'ns ashore," sighed the captain as he went upstairs to bed.
"Women-folks is cap'ns ashore," he repeated, in solemn confidence to one of his intimate friends, as they stood next day on one of the deserted wharves, looking out across the empty harbor roads. There was nothing coming in. How they had watched the deep-laden ships enter between the outer capes and drop their great sails in home waters! How they had ruled those ships, and been the ablest ship-masters of their day, with nobody to question their decisions! There is no such absolute monarchy as a sea-captain's. He is a petty king, indeed, as he sails the high seas from port to port.
There was a fine easterly breeze and a bright sun that day, but Captain Ball came toiling up the cobble-stoned street toward his house as if he were vexed by a headwind. He carried a post-card between his thumb and finger, and grumbled aloud as he stumped along. "Mis' French!" he called, loudly, as he opened the door, and that worthy woman appeared with a floured apron, and a mind divided between her employer's special business and her own affairs of pie-making.
"She's coming this same day," roared the captain. "Might have given some notice, I'm sure. 'Be with you Saturday afternoon,' and signed her name. That's all she's written. Whoo! whoo! 'tis a dreadful close day," and the poor old fellow fumbled for his big silk handkerchief. "I don't know what train she'll take. I ain't going to hang round up at the depot; my rheumatism troubles me."
"I wouldn't, if I was you," answered Mrs. French, shortly, and turned from him with a pettish movement to open the oven door.
The captain passed into the sitting-room, and sat down heavily in his large chair. On the wall facing him was a picture of his old ship the Ocean Rover leaving the harbor of Bristol. It was not valuable as a marine painting, but the sea was blue in that picture, and the white canvas all spread to the very sky-scrapers; it was an emblem of that freedom which Captain Asaph Ball had once enjoyed. Dinner that day was a melancholy meal, and after it was cleared away the master of the house forlornly watched Mrs. French gather an armful of her own belongings, and mount the stairs as if she were going to pack her box that very afternoon. It did not seem possible that she meant to leave before Monday, but the captain could not bring himself to ask any questions. He was at the mercy of womankind. "A jiggeting girl. I don't know how to act with her. She sha'n't rule me," he muttered to himself. "She and Mis' French may think they've got things right to their hands, but I'll stand my ground—I'll stand my ground," and the captain gently slid into the calmer waters of his afternoon nap.
When he waked the house was still, and with sudden consciousness of approaching danger, and a fear lest Mrs. French might have some last words to say if she found him awake, he stole out of his house as softly as possible and went down-town, hiding his secret woes and joining in the long seafaring reminiscences with which he and his friends usually diverted themselves. As he came up the street again toward supper-time, he saw that the blinds were thrown open in the parlor windows, and his heart began to beat loudly. He could hear women's voices, and he went in by a side gate and sought the quiet garden. It had suffered from a touch of frost; so had the captain.
Mrs. French heard the gate creak, and presently she came to the garden door at the end of the front entry. "Come in, won't ye, cap'n?" she called, persuasively, and with a mighty sea oath the captain rose and obeyed.
The house was still. He strode along the entry lite a brave man: there was nothing of the coward about Asaph Ball when he made up his mind to a thing. There was nobody in the best parlor, and he turned toward the sitting-room, but there sat smiling Mrs. French.
"Where is the gal?" blew the captain.
"Here I be, sir," said Mrs. French, with a flushed and beaming face. "I thought 't was full time to put you out of your misery."
"What's all this mean?Whoo! whoo!"
"Here I be; take me or leave me, uncle," answered the housekeeper: she began to be anxious, the captain looked so bewildered and irate. "Folks seemed to think that you was peculiar, and I was impressed that it would be better to just come first without a word's bein' said, and find out how you an' me got on; then, if we didn't make out, nobody 'd be bound. I'm sure I didn't want to be."
"Who was that I heard talking with ye as I come by?" blew the captain very loud.
"That was Mis' Cap'n Topliff; an' an old cat she is," calmly replied Mrs. French. "She hasn't been near me before this three months, but plenty of stories she's set goin' about us, and plenty of spyin' she's done. I thought I'd tell you who I was within a week after I come, but I found out how things was goin', and I had to spite 'em well before I got through. I expected that something would turn up, an' the whole story get out. But we've been middlin' comfortable, haven't we, sir? an' I thought 't was 'bout time to give you a little surprise. Mis' Calvinn and the minister knows the whole story," she concluded: "I wouldn't have kep' it from them. Mis' Calvinn said all along 't would be a good lesson"—
"Who wrote that card from the post-office?" demanded the captain, apparently but half persuaded.
"I did," said Mrs. French.
"Good Hector, you women-folks!" but Captain Ball ventured to cross the room and establish himself in his chair. Then, being a man of humor, he saw that he had a round turn on those who had spitefufly sought to question him.
"You needn't let on, that you haven't known me all along," suggested Mrs. French. "I should be pleased if you would call me by my Christian name, sir. I was married to Mr. French only a short time; he was taken away very sudden. The letter that came after aunt's death was directed to my maiden name, but aunt knew all about me. I've got some means, an' I ain't distressed but what I can earn my living."
"They don't call me such an old Turk, I hope!" exclaimed the excited captain, deprecating the underrated estimate of himself which was suddenly presented. "I ain't a hard man at sea, now I tell ye," and he turned away, much moved at the injustice of society. "I've got no head for geneology. Ann usually set in to give me the family particulars when I was logy with sleep a Sunday night. I thought you was a French from Massachusetts way."
"I had to say somethin'," responded the housekeeper, promptly.
"Well, well!" and a suppressed laugh shook the captain like an earthquake. He was suddenly set free from his enemies, while an hour before he had been hemmed in on every side.
They had a cheerful supper, and Ann French cut a pie, and said, as she passed him more than a quarter part of it, that she thought she should give up when she was baking that morning, and saw the look on his face as he handed her the post-card.
"You're fit to be captain of a privateer," acknowledged Captain Asaph Ball, handsomely. The complications of shore life were very astonishing to this seafaring man of the old school.
Early on Monday morning he had a delightful sense of triumph. Captain Allister, who was the chief gossip of the waterside club, took it upon himself—a cheap thing to do, as everybody said afterwards—to ask many questions about those unvalued relatives of the Balls, who had settled long ago in New York State. Were there any children left of the captain's half-brother's family?
"I've got a niece living—a great-niece she is," answered Captain Ball, with a broad smile—"makes me feel old. You see, my half-brother was a grown man when I was born. I never saw him scarcely; there was some misunderstanding an' he always lived with his own mother's folks; and father, he married again, and had me and Ann thirty year after. Why, my half-brother 'd been 'most a hundred; I don't know but more."
Captain Ball spoke in a cheerful tone; the audience meditated, and Captain Allister mentioned meekly that time did slip away.
"Ever see any of 'em?" he inquired. In some way public interest was aroused in the niece.
"Ever see any of 'em?" repeated the captain, in a loud tone. "You fool, Allister, who's keepin' my house this minute? Why, Ann French; Ann Ball that was, and a smart, likely woman she is. I ain't a marryin' man: there's been plenty o' fools to try me. I've been picked over well by you and others, and I thought if 't pleased you, you could take your own time."
The honest captain for once lent himself to deception. One would have thought that he had planned the siege himself. He took his stick from where it leaned against a decaying piece of ship-timber and went clicking away. The explanation of his housekeeping arrangements was not long in flying about the town, and Mrs. Captain Topliff made an early call to say that she had always suspected it from the first, from the family likeness.
From this time Captain Ball submitted to the rule of Mrs. French, and under her sensible and fearless sway became, as everybody said, more like other people than ever before. As he grew older it was more and more convenient to have a superior officer to save him from petty responsibilities. But now and then, after the first relief at finding that Mrs. French was not seeking his hand in marriage, and that the jiggeting girl was a mere fabrication, Captain Ball was both surprised and a little ashamed to discover that something in his heart had suffered disappointment in the matter of the great-niece. Those who knew him well would have as soon expected to see a flower grow out of a cobble-stone as that Captain Asaph Ball should hide such a sentiment in his honest breast. He had fancied her a pretty girl in a pink dress, who would make some life in the quiet house, and sit and sing at her sewing by the front window, in all her foolish furbelows, as he came up the street.
On the coast of Maine, where many green islands and salt inlets fringe the deep-cut shore line; where balsam firs and bayberry bushes send their fragrance far seaward, and song-sparrows sing all day, and the tide runs plashing in and out among the weedy ledges; where cowbells tinkle on the hills and herons stand in the shady coves,—on the lonely coast of Maine stood a small gray house facing the morning light. All the weather-beaten houses of that region face the sea apprehensively, like the women who live in them.
This home of four people was as bleached and gray with wind and rain as one of the pasture rocks close by. There were some cinnamon rose bushes under the window at one side of the door, and a stunted lilac at the other side. It was so early in the cool morning that nobody was astir but some shy birds, that had come in the stillness of dawn to pick and flutter in the short grass.
They flew away together as some one softly opened the unlocked door and stepped out. This was a bent old man, who shaded his eyes with his hand, and looked at the west and the east and overhead, and then took a few lame and feeble steps farther out to see a wooden vane on the barn. Then he sat down on the doorstep, clasped his hands together between his knees, and looked steadily out to sea, scanning the horizon where some schooners had held on their course all night, with a light westerly breeze. He seemed to be satisfied at sight of the weather, as if he had been anxious, as he lay unassured in his north bedroom, vexed with the sleeplessness of age and excited by thoughts of the coming day. The old seaman dozed as he sat on the doorstep, while dawn came up and the world grew bright; and the little birds returned, fearfully at first, to finish their breakfast, and at last made bold to hop close to his feet.
After a time some one else came and stood in the open door behind him.
"Why, father! seems to me you've got an early start; 't ain't but four o'clock. I thought I was foolish to get up so soon, but 't wa'n't so I could sleep."
"No, darter." The old man smiled as he turned to look at her, wide awake on the instant. "'T ain't so soon as I git out some o' these 'arly mornin's. The birds wake me up singin', and it's plenty light, you know. I wanted to make sure 'Lisha would have a fair day to go."
"I expect he'd have to go if the weather wa'n't good," said the woman.
"Yes, yes, but 'tis useful to have fair weather, an' a good sign some says it is. This is a great event for the boy, ain't it?"
"I can't face the thought o' losin' on him, father." The woman came forward a step or two and sat down on the doorstep. She was a hard-worked, anxious creature, whose face had lost all look of youth. She was apt, in the general course of things, to hurry the old man and to spare little time for talking, and he was pleased by this acknowledged unity of their interests. He moved aside a little to give her more room, and glanced at her with a smile, as if to beg her to speak freely. They were both undemonstrative, taciturn New Englanders; their hearts were warm with pent-up feeling, that summer morning, yet it was easier to understand one another through silence than through speech.
"No, I couldn't git much sleep," repeated the daughter at last. "Some things I thought of that ain't come to mind before for years,—things I don't relish the feelin' of, all over again."
"'T was just such a mornin' as this, pore little 'Lisha's father went off on that last v'y'ge o' his," answered the old sailor, with instant comprehension. "Yes, you've had it master hard, pore gal, ain't you? I advised him against goin' off on that old vessel with a crew that wa'n't capable."
"Such a mornin' as this, when I come out at sun-up, I always seem to see her top-s'ils over there beyond the p'int, where she was to anchor. Well, I thank Heaven 'Lisha was averse to goin' to sea," declared the mother.
"There's dangers ashore, Lucy Ann," said the grandfather, solemnly; but there was no answer, and they sat there in silence until the old man grew drowsy again.
"Yisterday was the first time it fell onto my heart that 'Lisha was goin' off," the mother began again, after a time had passed. "P'r'aps folks was right about our needing of him. I've been workin' every way I could to further him and git him a real good chance up to Boston, and now that we've got to part with him I don't see how to put up with it."
"All nateral," insisted the old man. "My mother wept the night through before I was goin' to sail on my first v'y'ge; she was kind of satisfied, though, when I come home next summer, grown a full man, with my savin's in my pocket, an' I had a master pretty little figured shawl I'd bought for her to Bristol."
"I don't want no shawls. Partin' is partin' to me," said the woman.
"'T ain't everybody can stand in her fore-door an' see the chimbleys o' three child'n's houses without a glass," he tried eagerly to console her. "All ready an' willin' to do their part for you, so as you could let 'Lisha go off and have his chance."
"I don't know how it is," she answered, "but none on 'em never give me the rooted home feelin' that 'Lisha has. They was more varyin' and kind o' fast growin' and scatterin'; but 'Lisha was always 'Lisha when he was a babe, and I settled on him for the one to keep with me."
"Then he's just the kind to send off, one you ain't got to worry about. They're all good child'n," said the man. "We've reason to be thankful none on 'em's been like some young sprigs, more grief 'n glory to their folks. An' I ain't regrettin' 'Lisha's goin' one mite; I believe you'd rather go on doin' for him an' cossetin'. I think 't was high time to shove him out o' the nest."
"You ain't his mother," said Lucy Ann.
"What be you goin' to give him for his breakfast?" asked the stern grandfather, in a softened, less business-like voice.
"I don't know's I'd thought about it, special, sir. I did lay aside that piece o' apple pie we had left yisterday from dinner," she confessed.
"Fry him out a nice little crisp piece o' pork, Lucy Ann, an' 't will relish with his baked potatoes. He'll think o' his breakfast more times 'n you expect. I know a lad's feelin's when home's put behind him."
The sun was up clear and bright over the broad sea inlet to the eastward, but the shining water struck the eye by its look of vacancy. It was broad daylight, and still so early that no sails came stealing out from the farmhouse landings, or even from the gray groups of battered fish-houses that overhung, here and there, a sheltered cove. Some crows and gulls were busy in the air; it was the time of day when the world belongs more to birds than to men.
"Poor 'Lisha!" the mother went on compassionately. "I expect it has been a long night to him. He seemed to take it in, as he was goin' to bed, how 't was his last night to home. I heard him thrashin' about kind o' restless, sometimes."
"Come, Lucy Ann, the boy ought to be stirrin'!" exclaimed the old sailor, without the least show of sympathy. "He's got to be ready when John Sykes comes, an' he ain't so quick as some lads."
The mother rose with a sigh, and went into the house. After her own sleepless night, she dreaded to face the regretful, sleepless eyes of her son; but as she opened the door of his little bedroom, there lay Elisha sound asleep and comfortable to behold. She stood watching him with gloomy tenderness until he stirred uneasily, his consciousness roused by the intentness of her thought, and the mysterious current that flowed from her wistful, eager eyes.
But when the lad waked, it was to a joyful sense of manliness and responsibility; for him the change of surroundings was coming through natural processes of growth, not through the uprooting which gave his mother such an aching heart.
A little later Elisha came out to the breakfast-table, arrayed in his best sandy-brown clothes set off with a bright blue satin cravat, which had been the pride and delight of pleasant Sundays and rare holidays. He already felt unrelated to the familiar scene of things, and was impatient to be gone. For one thing, it was strange to sit down to breakfast in Sunday splendor, while his mother and grandfather and little sister Lydia were in their humble every-day attire. They ate in silence and haste, as they always did, but with a new constraint and awkwardness that forbade their looking at one another. At last the head of the household broke the silence with simple straightforwardness.
"You've got an excellent good day, 'Lisha. I like to have a fair start myself. 'T ain't goin' to be too hot; the wind's working into the north a little."
"Yes, sir," responded Elisha.
"The great p'int about gittin' on in life is bein' able to cope with your headwinds," continued the old man earnestly, pushing away his plate. "Any fool can run before a fair breeze, but I tell ye a good seaman is one that gits the best out o' his disadvantages. You won't be treated so pretty as you expect in the store, and you'll git plenty o' blows to your pride; but you keep right ahead, and if you can't run before the wind you can always beat. I ain't no hand to preach, but preachin' ain't goin' to sarve ye now. We've gone an' fetched ye up the best we could, your mother an' me, an' you can't never say but you've started amongst honest folks. If a vessel's built out o' sound timber an' has got good lines for sailin', why then she's seaworthy; but if she ain't, she ain't; an' a mess o' preachin' ain't goin' to alter her over. Now you're standin' out to sea, my boy, an' you can bear your home in mind and work your way, same's plenty of others has done."
It was a solemn moment; the speaker's voice faltered, and little Lydia dried her tearful blue eyes with her gingham apron. Elisha hung his head, and patted the old spotted cat which came to rub herself against his trowsers-leg. The mother rose hastily, and hurried into the pantry close by. She was always an appealing figure, with her thin shoulders and faded calico gowns; it was difficult to believe that she had once been the prettiest girl in that neighborhood. But her son loved her in his sober, undemonstrative way, and was full of plans for coming home, rich and generous enough to make her proud and happy. He was half pleased and half annoyed because his leave-taking was of such deep concern to the household.
"Come, Lyddy, don't you take on," he said, with rough kindliness. "Let's go out, and I'll show you how to feed the pig and 'tend to the chickens. You'll have to be chief clerk when I'm gone."
They went out to the yard, hand in hand. Elisha stopped to stroke the old cat again, as she ran by his side and mewed. "I wish I was off and done with it; this morning does seem awful long," said the boy.
"Ain't you afraid you'll be homesick an' want to come back?" asked the little sister timidly; but Elisha scorned so poor a thought.
"You'll have to see if grandpa has 'tended to these things, the pig an' the chickens," he advised her gravely. "He forgets 'em sometimes when I'm away, but he would be cast down if you told him so, and you just keep an eye open, Lyddy. Mother's got enough to do inside the house. But grandsir'll keep her in kindlin's; he likes to set and chop in the shed rainy days, an' he'll do a sight more if you'll set with him, an' let him get goin' on his old seafarin' times."
Lydia nodded discreetly.
"An', Lyddy, don't you loiter comin' home from school, an' don't play out late, an' get 'em fussy, when it comes cold weather. And you tell Susy Draper,"—the boy's voice sounded unconcerned, but Lydia glanced at him quickly,—"you tell Susy Draper that I was awful sorry she was over to her aunt's, so I couldn't say good-by."
Lydia's heart was the heart of a woman, and she comprehended. Lydia nodded again, more sagely than before.
"See here," said the boy suddenly. "I'm goin' to let my old woodchuck out."
Lydia's face was blank with surprise. "I thought you promised to sell him to big Jim Hooper."
"I did, but I don't care for big Jim Hooper; you just tell him I let my wood-chuck go."
The brother and sister went to their favorite playground between the ledges, not far from the small old barn. Here was a clumsy box with wire gratings, behind which an untamed little wild beast sat up and chittered at his harmless foes. "He's a whopping old fellow," said Elisha admiringly. "Big Jim Hooper sha'n't have him!" and as he opened the trap, Lydia had hardly time to perch herself high on the ledge, before the woodchuck tumbled and scuttled along the short green turf, and was lost among the clumps of juniper and bayberry just beyond.
"I feel just like him," said the boy. "I want to get up to Boston just as bad as that. See here, now!" and he flung a gallant cart-wheel of himself in the same direction, and then stood on his head and waved his legs furiously in the air. "I feel just like that."
Lydia, who had been tearful all the morning, looked at him in vague dismay. Only a short time ago she had never been made to feel that her brother was so much older than herself. They had been constant playmates; but now he was like a grown man, and cared no longer for their old pleasures. There was all possible difference between them that there can be between fifteen years and twelve, and Lydia was nothing but a child.
"Come, come, where be ye?" shouted the old grandfather, and they both started guiltily. Elisha rubbed some dry grass out of his short-cropped hair, and the little sister came down from her ledge. At that moment the real pang of parting shot through her heart; her brother belonged irrevocably to a wider world.
"Ma'am Stover has sent for ye to come over; she wants to say good-by to ye!" shouted the grandfather, leaning on his two canes at the end of the bam. "Come, step lively, an' remember you ain't got none too much time, an' the boat ain't goin' to wait a minute for nobody."
"Ma'am Stover?" repeated the boy, with a frown. He and his sister knew only too well the pasture path between the two houses. Ma'am Stover was a bedridden woman, who had seen much trouble,—a town charge in her old age. Her neighbors gave to her generously out of their own slender stores. Yet with all this poverty and dependence, she held firm sway over the customs and opinions of her acquaintance, from the uneasy bed where she lay year in and year out, watching the far sea line beyond a pasture slope.
The young people walked fast, sometimes running a little way, light-footed, the boy going ahead, and burst into their neighbor's room out of breath.
She was calm and critical, and their excitement had a sudden chill.
"So the great day's come at last, 'Lisha?" she asked; at which 'Lisha was conscious of unnecessary aggravation.
"I don't know's it's much of a day—to anybody but me," he added, discovering a twinkle in her black eyes that was more sympathetic than usual. "I expected to stop an' see you last night; but I had to go round and see all our folks, and when I got back 't was late and the tide was down, an' I knew that grandsir couldn't git the boat up all alone to our lower landin'."
"Well, I didn't forgit you, but I thought p'r'aps you might forgit me, an' I'm goin' to give ye somethin'. 'T is for your folks' sake; I want ye to tell 'em so. I don't want ye never to part with it, even if it fails to work and you git proud an' want a new one. It's been a sight o' company to me." She reached up, with a flush on her wrinkled cheeks and tears in her eyes, and took a worn old silver watch from its nail, and handed it, with a last look at its white face and large gold hands, to the startled boy.
"Oh, I can't take it from ye, Ma'am Stover. I'm just as much obliged to you," he faltered.
"There, go now, dear, go right along." said the old woman, turning quickly away. "Be a good boy for your folks' sake. If so be that I'm here when you come home, you can let me see how well you've kep' it."
The boy and girl went softly out, leaving the door wide open, as Ma'am Stover liked to have it in summer weather, her windows being small and few. There were neighbors near enough to come and shut it, if a heavy shower blew up. Sometimes the song sparrows and whippoorwills came hopping in about the little bare room.
"I felt kind of'shamed to carry off her watch," protested Elisha, with a radiant face that belied his honest words.
"Put it on," said proud little Lydia, trotting alongside; and he hooked the bright steel chain into his buttonhole, and looked down to see how it shone across his waistcoat. None of his friends had so fine a watch; even his grandfather's was so poor a timekeeper that it was rarely worn except as a decoration on Sundays or at a funeral. They hurried home. Ma'am Stover, lying in her bed, could see the two slight figures nearly all the way on the pasture path; flitting along in their joyful haste.
It was disappointing that the mother and grandfather had so little to say about the watch. In fact, Elisha's grandfather only said "Pore creatur'" once or twice, and turned away, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand. If Ma'am Stover had chosen to give so rich a gift, to know the joy of such generosity, nobody had a right to protest. Yet nobody knew how much the poor wakeful soul would miss the only one of her meagre possessions that seemed alive and companionable in lonely hours. Somebody had said once that there were chairs that went about on wheels, made on purpose for crippled persons like Ma'am Stover; and Elisha's heart was instantly filled with delight at the remembrance. Perhaps before long, if he could save some money and get ahead, he would buy one of those chairs and send it down from Boston; and a new sense of power filled his honest heart. He had dreamed a great many dreams already of what he meant to do with all his money, when he came home rich and a person of consequence, in summer vacations.
The large leather valise was soon packed, and its owner carried it out to the roadside, and put his last winter's overcoat and a great new umbrella beside it, so as to be ready when John Sykes came with the wagon. He was more and more anxious to be gone, and felt no sense of his old identification with the home interests. His mother said sadly that he would be gone full soon enough, when he joined his grandfather in accusing Mr. Sykes of keeping them waiting forever and making him miss the boat. There were three rough roundabout miles to be traveled to the steamer landing, and the Sykes horses were known to be slow. But at last the team came nodding in sight over a steep hill in the road.
Then the moment of parting had come, the moment toward which all the long late winter and early summer had looked. The boy was leaving his plain little home for the great adventure of his life's fortunes. Until then he had been the charge and anxiety of his elders, and under their rule and advice. Now he was free to choose; his was the power of direction, his the responsibility; for in the world one must be ranked by his own character and ability, and doomed by his own failures. The boy lifted his burden lightly, and turned with an eager smile to say farewell. But the old people and little Lydia were speechless with grief; they could not bear to part with the pride and hope and boyish strength, that were all their slender joy. The worn-out old man, the anxious woman who had been beaten and buffeted by the waves of poverty and sorrow, the little sister with her dreaming heart, stood at the bars and hungrily watched him go away. They feared success for him almost as much as failure. The world was before him now, with its treasures and pleasures, but with those inevitable disappointments and losses which old people know and fear; those sorrows of incapacity and lack of judgment which young hearts go out to meet without foreboding. It was a world of love and favor to which little Lydia's brother had gone; but who would know her fairy prince, in that disguise of a country boy's bashfulness and humble raiment from the cheap counter of a country store? The household stood rapt and silent until the farm wagon had made its last rise on the hilly road and disappeared.
"Well, he's left us now," said the sorrowful, hopeful old grandfather. "I expect I've got to turn to an' be a boy again myself. I feel to hope 'Lisha'll do as well as we covet for him. I seem to take it in, all my father felt when he let me go off to sea. He stood where I'm standin' now, an' I was just as triflin' as pore 'Lisha, and felt full as big as a man. But Lord! how I give up when it come night, an' I took it in I was gone from home!"
"There, don't ye, father," said the pale mother gently. She was, after all, the stronger of the two. "'Lisha's good an' honest-hearted. You'll feel real proud a year from now, when he gits back. I'm so glad he's got his watch to carry,—he did feel so grand. I expect them poor hens is sufferin'; nobody's thought on 'em this livin' mornin'. You'd better step an' feed 'em right away, sir." She could hardly speak for sorrow and excitement, but the old man was diverted at once, and hobbled away with cheerful importance on his two canes. Then she looked round at the poor, stony little farm almost angrily. "He'd no natural turn for the sea, 'Lisha hadn't; but I might have kept him with me if the land was good for anything."
Elisha felt as if lie were in a dream, now that his great adventure was begun. He answered John Sykes's questions mechanically, and his head was a little dull and dazed. Then he began to fear that the slow plodding of the farm horses would make him too late for the steamboat, and with sudden satisfaction pulled out the great watch to see if there were still time enough to get to the landing. He was filled with remorse because it was impossible to remember whether he had thanked Ma'am Stover for her gift. It seemed like a thing of life and consciousness as he pushed it back into his tight pocket. John Sykes looked at him curiously. "Why, that's old Ma'am Stover's timepiece, ain't it? Lend it to ye, did she?"
"Gave it to me," answered Elisha proudly.
"You be careful of that watch," said the driver soberly; and Elisha nodded.
"Well, good-day to ye; be a stiddy lad," advised John Sykes, a few minutes afterward. "Don't start in too smart an' scare 'm up to Boston. Pride an' ambition was the downfall o' old Cole's dog. There, sonny, the bo't ain't nowheres in sight, for all your fidgetin'!"
They both smiled broadly at the humorous warning, and as the old wagon rattled away, Elisha stood a moment looking after it; then he went down to the wharf by winding ways among piles of decayed timber and disused lobster-pots. A small group of travelers and spectators had already assembled, and they stared at him in a way that made him feel separated from his kind, though some of them had come to see him depart. One unenlightened acquaintance inquired if Elisha were expecting friends by that morning's boat; and when he explained that he was going away himself, asked kindly whether it was to be as far as Bath. Elisha mentioned the word "Boston" with scorn and compassion, but he did not feel like discussing his brilliant prospects now, as he had been more than ready to do the week before. Just then a deaf old woman asked for the time of day. She sat next him on the battered bench.
"Be you going up to Bath, dear?" she demanded suddenly; and he said yes. "Guess I'll stick to you, then, fur's you go; 't is kind o' blind in them big places." Elisha faintly nodded a meek but grudging assent; then, after a few moments, he boldly rose, tall umbrella in hand, and joined the talkative company of old and young men at the other side of the wharf. They proceeded to make very light of a person's going to Boston to enter upon his business career; but, after all, their thoughts were those of mingled respect and envy. Most of them had seen Boston, but no one save Elisha was going there that day to stay for a whole year. It made him feel like a city man.
The steamer whistled loud and hoarse before she came in sight, but presently the gay flags showed close by above the pointed spruces. Then she came jarring against the wharf, and the instant bustle and hurry, the strange faces of the passengers, and the loud rattle of freight going on board, were as confusing and exciting as if a small piece of Boston itself had been dropped into that quiet cove.
The people on the wharf shouted cheerful good-byes, to which the young traveler responded; then he seated himself well astern to enjoy the views, and felt as if he had made a thousand journeys. He bought a newspaper, and began to read it with much pride and a beating heart. The little old woman came and sat beside him, and talked straight on whether he listened or not, until he was afraid of what the other passengers might think, but nobody looked that way, and he could not find anything in the paper that he cared to read. Alone, but unfettered and aflame with courage; to himself he was not the boy who went away, but the proud man who one day would be coming home.
"Goin' to Boston, be ye?" asked the old lady for the third time; and it was still a pleasure to say yes, when the boat swung round, and there, far away on its gray and green pasture slope, with the dark evergreens standing back, were the low gray house, and the little square barn, and the lines of fence that shut in his home. He strained his eyes to see if any one were watching from the door. He had almost forgotten that they could see him still. He sprang to the boat's side: yes, his mother remembered; there was something white waving from the doorway. The whole landscape faded from his eyes except that faraway gray house; his heart leaped back with love and longing; he gazed and gazed, until a height of green forest came between and shut the picture out. Then the country boy went on alone to make his way in the wide world.
The last of the neighbors was going home; officious Mrs. Peter Downs had lingered late and sought for additional housework with which to prolong her stay. She had talked incessantly, and buzzed like a busy bee as she helped to put away the best crockery after the funeral supper, while the sisters Betsey and Hannah Knowles grew every moment more forbidding and unwilling to speak. They lighted a solitary small oil lamp at last, as if for Sunday evening idleness, and put it on the side table in the kitchen.
"We ain't intending to make a late evening of it," announced Betsey, the elder, standing before Mrs. Downs in an expectant, final way, making an irresistible opportunity for saying good-night. "I'm sure we're more than obleeged to ye,—ain't we, Hannah?—but I don't feel's if we ought to keep ye longer. We ain't going to do no more to-night, but set down a spell and kind of collect ourselves, and then make for bed."
Susan Downs offered one more plea. "I'd stop all night with ye an' welcome; 't is gettin' late—an' dark," she added plaintively; but the sisters shook their heads quickly, while Hannah said that they might as well get used to staying alone, since they would have to do it first or last. In spite of herself Mrs. Downs was obliged to put on her funeral best bonnet and shawl and start on her homeward way.
"Closed-mouthed old maids!" she grumbled as the door shut behind her all too soon and denied her the light of the lamp along the footpath. Suddenly there was a bright ray from the window, as if some one had pushed back the curtain and stood with the lamp close to the sash. "That's Hannah," said the retreating guest. "She'd told me somethin' about things, I know, if it hadn't 'a' been for Betsey. Catch me workin' myself to pieces again for 'em." But, however grudgingly this was said, Mrs. Downs's conscience told her that the industry of the past two days had been somewhat selfish on her part; she had hoped that in the excitement of this unexpected funeral season she might for once be taken into the sisters' confidence. More than this, she knew that they were certain of her motive, and had deliberately refused the expected satisfaction. "'T ain't as if I was one o' them curious busy-bodies anyway," she said to herself pityingly; "they might 'a' neighbored with somebody for once, I do believe." Everybody would have a question ready for her the next day, for it was known that she had been slaving herself devotedly since the news had come of old Captain Knowles's sudden death in his bed from a stroke, the last of three which had in the course of a year or two changed him from a strong old man to a feeble, chair-bound cripple.
Mrs. Downs stepped bravely along the dark country road; she could see a light in her own kitchen window half a mile away, and did not stop to notice either the penetrating dampness, or the shadowy woods at her right. It was a cloudy night, but there was a dim light over the open fields. She had a disposition of mind towards the exciting circumstances of death and burial, and was in request at such times among her neighbors; in this she was like a city person who prefers tragedy to comedy, but not having the semblance within her reach, she made the most of looking on at real griefs and departures.
Some one was walking towards her in the road; suddenly she heard footsteps. The figure stopped, then it came forward again.
"Oh, 't is you, ain't it?" with a tone of disappointment. "I cal'lated you'd stop all night, 't had got to be so late, an' I was just going over to the Knowles gals'; well, to kind o' ask how they be, an'"—Mr. Peter Downs was evidently counting on his visit.
"They never passed me the compliment," replied the wife. "I declare I didn't covet the walk home; I'm most beat out, bein' on foot so much. I was 'most put out with 'em for letten' of me see quite so plain that my room was better than my company. But I don't know's I blame 'em; they want to look an' see what they've got, an' kind of git by theirselves, I expect. 'T was natural."
Mrs. Downs knew that her husband would resent her first statements, being a sensitive and grumbling man. She had formed a pacific habit of suiting her remarks to his point of view, to save an outburst. He contented Himself with calling the Knowles girls hoggish, and put a direct question as to whether they had let fall any words about their situation, but Martha Downs was obliged to answer in the negative.
"Was Enoch Holt there after the folks come back from the grave?"
"He wa'n't; they never givehimno encouragement neither."
"He appeared well, I must say," continued Peter Downs. "He took his place next but one behind us in the procession, 'long of Melinda Dutch, an' walked to an' from with her, give her his arm, and then I never see him after we got back; but I thought he might be somewhere in the house, an' I was out about the barn an' so on."
"They was civil to him. I was by when he come, just steppin' out of the bedroom after we'd finished layin' the old Cap'n into his coffin. Hannah looked real pleased when she see Enoch, as if she hadn't really expected him, but Betsey stuck out her hand's if 't was an eend o' board, an' drawed her face solemner 'n ever. There, they had natural feelin's. He was their own father when all was said, the Cap'n was, an' I don't know but he was clever to 'em in his way, 'ceptin' when he disappointed Hannah about her marryin' Jake Good'in. She l'arned to respect the old Cap'n's foresight, too."
"Sakes alive, Marthy, how you do knock folks down with one hand an' set 'em up with t' other," chuckled Mr. Downs. They next discussed the Captain's appearance as he lay in state in the front room, a subject which, with its endless ramifications, would keep the whole neighborhood interested for weeks to come.
An hour later the twinkling light in the Downs house suddenly disappeared. As Martha Downs took a last look out of doors through her bedroom window she could see no other light; the neighbors had all gone to bed. It was a little past nine, and the night was damp and still.