"I often thinks o' Columbus and the egg. All them big folks in Spain was settin' areound, ye know, ta'ntin' of him, and sayin' as how an egg couldn't be made to sot.
"So Columbus, he took one up and give her a tunk, pretty solid, deown onto the table. 'There!' says he; 'you stay sot,' says he, 'and keep moderate a spall,' says he. 'Forced-to-go never gits far,' says he.
"Then there was Lot's wife.
"I don't remember jest the partickelers, nor what she was turnin' areound to look for; whether she was goin' to a sewin'-circle and lookin' back to see what Lot was dewin' to home, or whether she was jest strokin' deown her polonaise a little, the way women does; but anyway, she was one o' this 'ere kind that needed moderatin'.
"So she got turned into a pillar o' salt, and there she sot. But I've heerd lately that she 's got up and went?"
"I don't know," I murmured.
"Yes; Nason was tellin' me how 't, the last time he went cruisin', he met a man 't 'd jest come from Jaffy, 't told him how 't Lot's wife had got up and went.
"Wal, I was glad to hear on't. Moderation 's a virtu', even in all things. She must 'a' sot there some three or four hunderd pretty consid'rable number o' years, 's it was. Don't want to ride a free hoss to death, ye know. I wish 't this critter that's visitin' up to Garrison's Neck could be got sot a spall. She fa'rly w'ars me out."
Captain Leezur blinked at the sun, however, all heavenly placid and unworn.
"I happened to meet her in the lane," I said. "She had not seen me before. She screamed."
"Thar'! that 's jest her! Wal, neow, I hope ye didn't mind. Sech folks don't do no harm 'reound on the 'arth, no more'n lady-bugs, 'nd r'a'ly, they dew help to parss away the time.
"Neow this Langham girl, she driv up here with Note t'other day, to git some lobsters.
"'O Mr. Garrison,' says she, 'see that darlin' old aberiginile a-settin' out thar' on that log,' says she. 'Dew drive up; I want ter talk to him,' says she.
"Wal, I put in a chaw o' tobackker, and tucked her up comf'table one side, and there I sot, with my head straight for'ards, not lettin' on as I'd heered a word; t'wouldn't dew, ye know.
"So she came up with a yaller lace parasol, abeout twelve foot in c'cumf'rence, sorter makin' me think of a tud under a harrer; though, I sh'd have to say it afore the meetin'-house, she was dreadful purty-lookin', an' blamed ef she didn't know it.
"Wal, I see she'd made up her mind to kile herself 'reound me, ef she could. She kept a-arskin' questions, and everything she arsked I arnswered of her back dreadful moderate, and every time I arnswered of her back she'd give a little larff, endin' up on 'sol la ce do,' sorter highsteriky; so't I was kind o' feelin' areound in my pocket t' find her a narvine lozenger.
"And then I thought I wouldn't. All they want is the least little excuse and they'll begin to kile. When ye're in deoubt, ye know, stand well to leeward."
I looked at my friend with new gratitude, for the perils he had passed.
"She said she thought the folks to the Basin was so full of yewmer and pathers, 'don't yew?' says she.
"Wal, I told her I didn't know ars to that. 'Yewmer 's that 'ar' 'diction 't Job had, ain't it?' says I,' and pathers—thar' ye've kind o' got me,' says I, ''less maybe it 's some fancy New York way o' reelin' off pertaters,' says I.
"'Oh, dear!' says she, kind o' highsteriky ag'in, and Note driv off with her, she a-wavin' her hand to me: but I set straight for'ards, not lettin' on to take no notice of her. 'No, no, young woman,' thinks I to myself, 'ye don't git in no kile on me!'"
The nervine lozenge which my friend had cautiously refrained from giving Miss Langham he now bestowed upon me. I accepted it, for I was in sore need of it.
I could not refrain from asking him, however, if he had offered Miss Langham his deer-bone tooth-pick.
"No," said he, "she's lent neow, anyway. John Seabright 's got her over to Herrinport. I don't say but what if that 'ar' Langham girl sh'd have a r'al bad spall o' toothache come on, but what I'd let her take her, but I'd jest as soon she didn't know nothin' 'beout it. I'd ruther not make no openin' for a kile."
We sucked our nervine lozenges with mutual earnestness.
"You are getting on finely with the barn," I said, noticing several new rows of shingles on the roof.
"Yes, I sh'd be afoul of her ag'in to-day, only 't Nason come over yisterday and borrowed my lardder. I'm expectin' of him back with her along in the shank o' the evenin'. Preachin' ain't so bad," continued my friend, contemplatively, as the school-teacher passed by; "but I'd ruther be put to bone labor 'n school teachin'. Ye've all'as got to be thar', no marter heow many other 'ngagements——"
"Leezur!" called the soft voice of a Basin matron from the door. "Leezur, have ye fished the bucket out o' the well?"
"Jest baitin' my hook, mother," said my friend, his face breaking into the broadest human beam I ever saw.
He rose, and we walked toward the well. Now first I noticed his gait; every step was a smiling protest against further advancement, which, however, was made not unwillingly.
I observed, too, an illustration of this same smile in his rear, made by an unconscious and loving wife, in a singular disposition of patches: three on his blouse fortuitously representing eyes and nose, and a long horizontal one, lower down, combining with these in an undesigned but felicitous grin.
My friend disclosed this smiling posterior to full view, stretching himself face downward on the earth, and burying his head, with the grappling pole, in the well.
"This 'ere job," his voice came to me with resonant jubilance, "requires a vary moderate dispersition: 'specially arfter the women folks has been a-grapplin' for her, and rilin' the water, and jabbin' of her furder in. But ef we considers ourselves to' be—as we be—heirs of etarnity——
"Thought I'd got ye that time! But neow don't be too easy abeout gittin' caught, down there! Priceless gems holds themselves skeerce, ye know."
In which sarcastic but ever reasonable and moderate conversation with that coy bucket I left my friend, and continued on my way with my basket, under Miss Pray's commission to purchase "dangle-berries" at the home of Dr. Spearmint.
I heard as I approached:
"Oh the road is winding, the road is dark,But sail away to Galilee!Sail away to Galilee!"
******
There was a company as usual gathered at Dr. Spearmint's weather-beaten hut: the door wide open, one could see his bed neatly made by his own hands within, his mother's picture against the wall, a sweet, intelligent face—like his, only that in his there was some light gone out forever for this world.
Notely was there with Miss Langham, to hear Dr. Spearmint sing, and to purchase berries, and to be entertained a little in this way in the growing evening.
Miss Langham did not scream on seeing me now. She smiled upon me with manifest kindness and condescension. She had beautiful bright brown eyes, and the "style" of town life pervaded her very atmosphere.
"Doctor," said Notely, "Miss Langham has heard about you, and, ahem! considering what she has heard, she is perfectly willing to make the first advances."
Dr. Spearmint bowed, stammering before such new bewitchment and beauty.
"Ilookdreadful," he said, fingering his blue necktie.
"Oh, dear, no, doctor!" rippled out Miss Langham's voice, in willing accompaniment of the joke; "I'm sure you are perfectly charming!"
"Miss Langham is from New York," said Notely.
"There 's a great deal o' passin' there, ain't there?" said Dr. Spearmint in his soft voice, turning to her.
"What?" said she to Notely. "Oh, my! oh, how funny! oh dear, yes, doctor; you've no idea!"
"Some there 's worth——"
Notely, laughing, pressed with his muscular brown hand a note into Dr. Spearmint's hand that would do more for his next winter's comfort than many weeks of dangleberrying.
"Miss Langham would like to have her fortune told, doctor," he said.
She pulled off her glove with a laughing grace. As Dr. Spearmint took her slender jewelled hand in his he trembled with vanity and happiness. He brushed a joyful tear from his eye, and began:
"I see a bew-tiful future here," he said.
"Oh, my!" said Miss Langham, looking up at him, her mirthful eyes full of incredulous rapture.
"Yes, I see a tall man, quite a tall man."
Dr. Spearmint himself was quite a tall man.
"Dear me!" exclaimed Miss Langham.
"He has curly brown hair and a—a smooth face," said Dr. Spearmint, delighted in his delight.Hehad curly brown hair and a smooth face.
"He has blue eyes"—he glanced, a little troubled, at Notely's big sparkling orbs—"mildblue eyes," he corrected the statement, in such a soft voice!
"Indeed they must bemild," cried Miss Langham.
Dr. Spearmint coughed considerably, and blushed.
"He—he wears a blue necktie," he said, the mild blue eyes falling.
"O Dr. Spearmint! I believe—why, it must beyou!" cried the merry girl, with a laugh as gay as rushing brooks.
The boys and girls in the audience laughed loudly at this not unexpected climax.
Dr. Spearmint, much embarrassed, went inside to put away his money, but was seen to steal sly glances, and a rearrangement of the blue neck-ribbon in his little cracked mirror.
"Dew come again!" he said faintly, as they were going.
"Why, certainly, as the understanding is now, Miss Langham will expect to call often, I suppose," said Notely.
"Oh, dear me! yes," cried Grace Langham.
"Are we—ahem!"—Dr. Spearmint could not lift those mild blue eyes—"are we engaged?"—his sweet voice sinking, almost inaudible.
"Oh, positively, doctor! Why, of course! Oh, dear me! good-by, poor dear. Oh, how pathetically amusing!" said she, walking with Notely toward the carriage.
A tall girl had come up, and stood in the shadow, in the doorway.
Notely, catching a glimpse of her in passing, lifted his cap, his face burning, his eyes glowing, with a look of intense love and of possession.
Grace Langham turned, with a woman's instinct.
Vesty, standing there, dim and tall, in her laceless, fashionless gown, met her glance with a long, serious look that contained nothing either of alarm or suspicion.
"I know," murmured Grace. "I've heard the name of 'Vesty'—thatis Vesty."
"That is Vesty," said her companion.
"And you love her, I believe," said Grace Langham to her own breast, but sighed aloud; a gentle, bewitching sigh that divined deeper of Notely's mood than further laughter would have done then.
As they passed out of sight, riches and gay things and the last light of day seemed to go with them.
The mirth the children were having, congratulating Dr. Spearmint on his engagement, sounded crude.
"Nature has done so much for me, you know," he said, with his weak, throbbing vanity, his hand nervously on the blue tie.
Vesty went over to him and put both hands on his head.
The children hushed.
"Here are the pennies for my berries, Uncle Benny," she said quietly. "I've taken just a quart."
"Yes, yes; all right, Vesty. I'm—ahem!—engaged, Vesty. Such a bew-tiful——"
Vesty held her hands on his head. "Uncle Benny" (she would never, even to please him, call him Dr. Spearmint), "you must not think of that. She did not mean that. Besides, you have promised to be always a friend to me, don't you remember?—and to lead the children home from school. You know your mother expects"—they glanced up together at the picture—"that you will do what Jesus told you about doing—that about leading the little children home from school. What if one of them should get lost, or hurt? O Uncle Benny!"
"Oh, my!" he gasped. "I didn't think, Vesty," tears streaming down his pale but now placid and restored face.
Vesty smiled, standing there. A light crossed her face; she began to sing:
"The road is winding, the road is dark,Sail away to Galilee!"
******
Her voice seemed to me, in that dim hour, to take up Uncle Benny and bear him away, with his great hurt, to the breast of his mother, in heaven, to be healed.
He joined her in the chorus, and then they sang together, she modulating sweetly her full, rich tones to his. Her voice made heavenly rapture of Uncle Benny's song:
'There 's a tree I see in Paradise—Sail away to Galilee.It 's the beautiful, waiting Tree of Life—Sail away to Galilee,Sail away to Galilee,Put on your long white robe of peace,And sail away to Galilee."
"How can I approach the girl?" thought Mrs. Garrison. "If I should send word for Vesta Kirtland to come here and see me, Notely would be sure to hear of it; he would wonder; ask questions. If I go down and see her it will provoke endless comment and wonder among those people. I never visit them. There is no other way. Notely takes the Langhams for the day in his boat to-morrow. I will be driven to the Basin. I will ask Vesta indifferently, by the way, to go with me in those woods where I played in childhood, too timid now to walk there alone. They will say, as well as they can express it, that sentiment must be getting fashionable! Never mind. I shall see and talk with the girl. We will see."
Mrs. Garrison alighted from her carriage before she reached Vesty's door.
"Wait here," she said to her coachman. Vesty saw her approach. Off there in the bay, sublimely guarding and making a gateway to its waters, were two little green mountain peaks of islands, just a narrow surge of the waters flowing between; the "Lions," the "Twin Brothers," they were called.
One does not look off daily, from one's very infancy, on such a view for nothing. Mrs. Garrison saw the "lion" in Vesty's quick-divining eyes, and was glad.
"Anything but heart-break and slow consumption. Of battle I am not afraid," she said to herself.
"I took a fancy to leave my carriage and walk a bit among those old trees. I used to know them well. Will you go with me, child?"
"Certainly, Mrs. Garrison." Vesty handed the baby which she was tending to its mother, and walked away with the fine lady.
"Vesta Kirtland," said Mrs. Garrison, as they entered the shadow of the woods, "your face tells me plainly that you know I have some object in asking you to walk with me here. I have.
"I am proud, cold, indifferent regarding you people here; I have not noticed you, hardly even by recognition, if we chanced to meet in the lanes; yes, I know. I bring no personal claims. But"—she was going to say, "you are fond of Notely," but she looked at the girl, and a proud, sarcastic smile curved her lips instead—"my son, Notely Garrison, adores you, I believe? I do not know whether you care for him; I presume not so ardently; but if you were even a little fond of him, for the sake of childhood days when he made you his little playmate—you would try to do the best for his good now—would you not, child?"
Vesty showed so few symptoms of slow consumption, and the lions in the gateway of her soul glowed so ominously, that Mrs. Garrison concluded to be brief. She turned her face away a little; the operation was unpleasant, and she took out the knife, only in speech.
"Notely has quixotic ideas in many ways: if he had given any ground for a foolish confidence in his boyhood he would hold to it now, against all his life's advancement, filial duty—yes, even against personal inclination, for that matter."
Mrs. Garrison was a resolved surgeon. "Do you know what Notely's prospects are in life—socially, politically, financially? But he must take the tide as it serves. To turn now is to lose all. He has many friends. He is beloved by a rich, beautiful, accomplished girl, influential in that sphere where her family have for so long moved. I seem cruel, child."
"Call me by my name. Call me Vesty Kirtland. I hate you! With my whole heart and soul I hate you!"
So the bold lions at the gate, desperately guarding sea-depths of pain behind.
"Really, Vesta Kirtland! if things were different I would rather be mother-in-law to you than to Grace Langham. You are a pupil worthy of my metal! You are fire, I see. Bravo!"
Vesty stood with her head on her arm, resting against a tree, holding herself.
"I do not know that there is anything more to say. Notely will never seek his own release. But, if you loved himtruly——"
"I do!"
Flaming scorn and a smile as defiant as Mrs. Garrison's own.
"Do you?" said the surgeon. "Then release him."
"You told a lie. Notely does not want to be released. He loves me, not Grace Langham. You know how it is with men. If I should go to your house and say to him, 'Come with me; come down to my father's house, since there is no other way, and help troll, and haul the traps, and make the nets, and be with me,' he would come!"
"Yes," said the lady, pale, "he would go. Therefore, as I said, do you save him."
"What makes that life so much better, out there, than ours, that I should give him up to it, and break my heart and his? Are you one that they make?"
"All people do not regard me with such disfavor." She looked at the girl almost wistfully. "Lifeishard, Vesta, and exacting, spite of all that we can do; and the world is hard and exacting, supercilious, ready to pick at a flaw—you do not know."
"Well, I think Notely will be happier here with me."
Yet one could see the girl's pale resolve, only she was turning the knife a little on the heartless surgeon. It cut sharply.
"For a month or two, Vesta, yes."
"And then?"
"One who has been accustomed to champagne from an ice-cooler will not be satisfied forever with sucking warm spring water in the sun, however wholesome."
"Ah!"
"He will grow very tired. He will not speak, but he will regret."
"Ah! he will think what he has given up; and itisso much, all in all; yes, it is too much!"
Mrs. Garrison turned, startled at the girl's voice. The lions held the gateway, sad and gloomy. Into those heaving depths behind she should not enter.
"You have not told me anything. I only got you to say it over. I had thought it all out for myself. I do not mean, any more, that Notely shall marry me."
Mrs. Garrison gave her a wild glance of gratitude, of sorrow. In that instant her heart yearned intensely over the long-limbed girl, standing so sorrowful and proud, and cut by Fate.
"How will you manage?" she cried impulsively. "Heisso fond of you!"
"I can manage. Promise me one thing?"
"Anything I have."
Vesty smiled. "Promise me, if Notely should be sick, in danger, I mean, or hurt, unfortunate, it might be—you would let me know, and let me come and care for him, just while he needed care. I want you to promise me!"
Her voice took the sharp tone, her eyes the frenzy, of a bird guarding its young.
"Ah, Vesta Kirtland, you did love him! Oh, I promise."
"If you did not, there 's such a feeling toward him, different from the others, I can't tell; if you did not, and I should ever know, it would be like I had some little child of my own—yes, like I had some poor little baby of my own, crying for me, and I did not come—I did not come!"
Vesty turned. The tide had run so high those wild ocean guards were covered by the surge.
She led the way to the outskirts of the wood and stood aside for Mrs. Garrison to pass. The woman would have drawn near her; she waved her hand, standing aside from her. Mrs. Garrison hesitated. The sight of Dan Kirtland's low, brown cottage, the squalid babies in the doorway, the fishing-nets, Vesty's last week's cotton gown swinging on the line, some humiliating, harsh memories of her own, spurred her on, with a sigh.
"She is fire, thank God! It will be all right," she said.
Vesty drew back into the woods.
She pressed her forehead hard against the rough bark of a tree. To "fall down there, and to be found and taken home and put away beside her own mother in the little home lot by the sea-wall—not to have to stand up wearily any more, and walk back, dazed and sick, into the light"—so she yearned—"what was there to stand up for?"
A pitiful little wail, and "Lowizy's" weary voice trying to sing reached her.
Clouds drifted over the sky. The poplars shivered; no voice of the thrush now chanting from the wood-depths; but the poplars, that Christ's cross was made from, what soft voice is this of theirs falling? "Love, love, love"—this too? sighing with strange rapture.
Vesty pulled her thick hair down over the bruised place on her forehead. She went out of the woods, toward her father's poor house and the wailing and the feeble singing.
"Vesty! Vesty!" one of the school-children came running toward her. "Lowizy said you was up here. I came to look for you. Here 's a note Jane Pray sent."
DEAR VESTY: You told me last meetun you was comern up to sett with me and my border some evening. Come tonyte. hees a poor erflickted creetur, seems to me. hees lamer 'an ever an smaller 'an ever this week, an' the burth-scalds on his face shows more, seems to me. Ef that he was payin' 3 dollars a week, I should feel easier, bring your soing an' sett a good long spale.
yours truly, JANE PRAY.
Vesty came, just as the firelight grew welcome and tender. She put aside her hat and shawl, unrolled her parcel of sewing-work, and sat down by the little lamp at one end of the room with Miss Pray.
She took in my presence naturally, with no obtrusive kindness; she was at a necessitous task—putting a broad gray patch, the best available from the resources at home, on Jimmy Kirtland's brown jacket, doing it deftly with her supple hands.
"You'll be doing that for some boys of your own by and by," said Miss Pray, intending to have a cheerful evening.
Vesty grew sweet and pale; she shook her head. Her dark eye-sockets had a look, I thought, as though she had been ill and fasting. I mused in the firelight.
"And what if that should not be your fate indeed, Vesta Kirtland: not bearing, and toil, and pain, and all the heart-breaking vicissitudes of woman's life, but some peculiar station?
"So tall and gracious, to go robed costly, to ride splendidly accoutred and attended, to condescend almost toall, to give graciousdownwardsmiles.
"What if they knew the power of wealth and alien rank, for that matter, I held in that miserable, lean, little paw of mine! You should outshine Grace Langham as the sun, Vesty. Some time, if she were wronged and sorrowful, could I point her, delicately, with all forbearance and worship of my own, that way?"
"Be you rebellious?" Unsuccessful in her cheerful attempts with Vesty, Jane Pray had turned to me.
But Vesty resented her companion's question, almost involuntarily turning to me with a quick and awful pity.
(No; I had been lost, dreaming: not that way, surely; not though her heart were moved with the purest pity angels could bestow; not thou, Vesty, above all, sweet one, beautiful one! to a union so unfit and repelling.)
But I had to bring my thoughts back from a long way to answer Miss Fray's question.
"No," I said. "I settled that with God long ago. It is all right between us."
Miss Pray, confused by Vesty's look, blushed painfully.
"Thank you for asking me about it," I said gently.
At that Miss Pray rose. "Come; le's play words," she said.
So the girl and the woman folded their sewing, and Miss Pray brought from some hitherto unknown recreative source a little box of cardboard letters, and we sat at the table together.
Miss Pray and Vesty thoughtfully selected some letters and shook them together and handed them each to me to make into words. I gave them each a word.
The letters I gave Miss Pray composed a simple and striking feature of the Basin vocabulary, "w-h-a-l-e."
Those I gave Vesty I studied to make a little more difficult, "c-o-n-t-i-n-u-e."
Miss Pray gave me three letters. It happened as I dropped them on the table that they fell of themselves into complete literary sequence, "c-o-w." But Vesty handed me eleven shuffled letters, a ladylike aspiration, and looked at me with a little appealing blush—the Basin school is so brief, so limited in its curriculum.
Miss Pray put on her glasses and studied wearily and long on her letters, placing them every way. I saw that she had them now at last, "w-h-a-l-e," but was regarding them as blankly as ever.
"Pray do not move them again," I cried hopefully, finding the game more exciting than I had anticipated. "You have it, 'w-h-a-l-e,' whale—see?"
Miss Pray looked shocked and dubious. I saw at once that she was suffering under the sorrowful mental conviction that I had spelled the word wrongly: but that she was resolved not again to wound my feelings. She turned to assist Vesty.
"That," she said at length, struck by some suggestive combination, "might be 'continnu,' Vesty, ef it had more 'n's and no 'e'."
"Oh," said Vesty, pleased and enlightened. "But major knows," she added promptly, "about the spelling."
"I have your word, you see, Vesty," I said. "'S-e-p-p-e-r-a-t-i-o-n.'"
I had it spread out proudly on the table. She looked at me and blushed again. I smiled, only as I would at a priceless child.
"Youarecute atguessin', major," said Miss Pray admiringly; but I saw that she held me deficient in the classical prearrangement of words, and that the game had lost interest to her on that account. So we laid it by.
When Vesty rose to go home, "I will go with you," I said, wrapping my sad little presence in an overcoat.
Miss Pray looked as she had when she asked me if I was rebellious.
But Vesty said quickly: "I wish you would. I am so afraid in the dark!"
Afraid in the dark! Not she; but this was some ointment for that unconscious thrust Miss Pray had given.
I walked home with her. Coming back, there was ever a slight crackling in the bushes and stealthy breathing behind me. It was the lad, Jimmy Kirtland, sent by Vesty surreptitiously to see that I arrived safely at Miss Pray's.
I regarded sacredly this innocent device, but, arrived in the house, I heard Jimmy outside pleading cautiously to Miss Pray through the window that he was afraid to go back alone.
Miss Pray tried to arouse one of her two orphans—her help: for answer they screamed aloud, sinking back into a sleep deep with snores of utter repose.
"Sh! sh!" she said. "I'll go home with you, Jimmy."
I had not taken off my great-coat. I went out of my room and followed them, unseen. In sight of the Kirtland home-light Jimmy ran in, glad. Miss Pray turned to face the darkness alone; she went a few paces, stopped, hesitated, and began to weep softly.
"I am here to walk home with you, Miss Pray," I said. "Come; I can see very well in the dark."
"Thank God!" said she, and came toward me with a little bound; for it seemed that it did not make any difference to her in this emergency that I did not know how to spell.
"Admiral 's I sum-sit-up," collector of road-taxes, a title cheerfully accorded him through the genial courtesy of the Basin, came down from the Point.
In the distance we could hear him approaching as usual, the passionless monotone of his voice growing ever nearer and more distinct, as he flapped methodically first one rein, then the other, over the unhurried action of his horse, sagely admonishing him to "G'long! ye old fool! Git up! ye old skate!"
His mortal conversation, too, though cutting and profound, was, in the deepest sense, without rancor or emotion.
"'S I sums it up," said he, "yer road down through the woods 's gittin' more ridick'lous 'n ever."
"Poo! poo! Wouldn't be afraid to bet ye she ain't," said Captain Pharo Kobbe, with glowing pipe.
"Ye seem to boast yerselves 't ye don't belong to nothin' down here," continued the admiral; "but ye does. Ye belongs to a shyer town. Ye orter have some pride. 'S I sums it up, be you goin' to pay yer rates, or work 'em out mendin' yer roads?"
"I've noticed pretty darned well 't I don't belong to no town, only when it comes to votin' some on ye into offis' up there and payin' taxes," said one of the Basin group—Captain Dan Kirtland, Vesty's father. "I ain't a-goin' to pay no rates, nor work 'em out on no roads neither. When I goes I goes by boat, 'n' I didn't see, when I was out pollockin' this mornin', but what the water 's jest as smooth as she ever was!"
A low murmur of sympathetic laughter ran through the group.
"I goes by boat—when I goes," said Captain Leezur benignantly. "Sheissmoother, sartin she is. But some, ye know, 's never sartisfied. Some neow 's all'as shiftin' a chaw o' tobackker——"
"Comparin' of the road with the water," said Captain Rafe, father of Fluke and Gurdon, "I permits it to ye all that thar' ain't that steadiness about the land that thar' is about the water. Thar 's a kind o' a weaviness and onsartainty about the land."
"'S I sums it up," said the imperturbable collector, grave pipe of expired ashes in mouth, "thar 's some bottom to the water, but it 's purty nigh fell out o' yer roads down here. Ye're a disgrace to a shyer town."
Loud and unoffended laughter from the group.
"I permits 't thar 's some advantages about the land," continued Captain Rafe. "I wants ter go out and shute me a mess o' coots once in a while, and ketch me a mess o' brook-trout, but as for tinkerin' over the roads—why, that artis' that was down here three months las' summer, paintin' a couple o' Leezur's sheep eatin' rock-weed off'n a nubble, said 't our roads was picturusque. You don't suppose I'm goin' around a-shorin' up and sp'ilin' the picturusque, do ye?"
Inextinguishable laughter from the group. At this juncture Captain Shamgar came up with his cows.
"Ain't ye drivin' yer cows home ruther early, Shamgar? Sun 's a-p'intin' 'bout tew in the arternoon."
"Wal, yes, but I got through cuttin' weir-stays, and thought 's the cows was over there, I'd take 'em along home with me. Save goin' back arter 'em by 'n' by, ye know."
Captain Shamgar disposed himself on the fence, and the cows fell to browsing in the lane.
"Got your road-tax ready for the adm'r'l, Shamgar?"
"Sartin, sartin," said that individual, firmly and permanently buttressing his cowhide boots between the rails; "charge 'er to the town pump, and take 'er out o' the handle!"
Uproarious laughter.
"You'd orter see the roads in Californy," said a dark spectre with shifty eyes on the outskirts of the group.
"Gold, ain't they, Pershal?"
"No, no," said the spectre modestly; "jest common silver-leavin's. Arfter they've made silver dollars they scrape up all the cornder pieces and leavin's, and heave 'em out into the road. They wears down smooth in a little while—and shine? Wal——"
"Speakin' o' coots," firmly interposed Captain Dan Kirtland, "onct when I was cruisin' to Boston, I seen a lot o' coots hangin' up thar' in the market 't looked as though they'd been hangin' thar' ever senct before Adam cut his eye-teeth. 'How long be you goin' to keep them coots?' says I. 'Coots!' says he; 'them's converse-back ducks.' 'Converse-back ducks!' says I; 'them 's coots,' says I, 'and they're gittin' to beoldcoots too,' says I. 'You come from Maine, I guess, don't ye?' says he. 'Never mind whether I come from Maine or whether I come from Jaffy,' says I, 'I come from sech a quarter of this 'arth as whar' coots is jestcoots,' says I."
"Ye'd orter see the coots in Californy," wailed the voice of the shifty spectre on the outskirts.
"Kind o' resemblin' cows in size, ain't they, Pershal?"
"No, no; the biggest I ever seen was the size o' Shamgar's tom-turkey; but plenty? Wal——"
"Speakin' o' Jaffy," said Captain Leezur; "somebody was tellin' me 't they'd heered how 't Lot's wife—she that was turned into a pillar o' salt, ye know——"
"Ye'd orter see the hunks o' salt in Californy!" moaned triumphantly the spectre.
"Had got up and went!" joyfully concluded Captain Leezur.
"Wal, now, speakin' o' trout (I permits that they have termenjus trout in Californy," wisely subjoined Captain Rafe), "larst Sunday I was startin' for Shadder Brook with my pole and line, and I met this noospaper man's wife, 't's boardin' up to Lunette's. She was chopped down so small tow'ds the waist line, looked as ef, ef she sh'd happen to get ketched in a nor'wester, she'd go clean in tew. Didn't bear no more resemblance to your Vesty, Dan, than a hourglass on the shelf does to the nateral strompin' figger o' womankind (I permits the women has splendid figgers in Californy).
"'Wal,' says she to me, and sighs. 'I wish 't there was a chapel to this place,' says she. 'I know,' says I; 'I've all'as said, ef they'd start 'er up I'd contribbit to 'er—'s fur as my purse 'u'd allow.'"
Exhaustive laughter for some cause from the group.
"'Do you think it's right to go a-fishin' Sunday?' says she. 'No, marm,' says I, 'not big fish, but little treouts?' says I; 'won't you jest think it over, marm?' says I. And while she was thinkin' I kind o' shied and sidled off, an' got away outer the ship's channel."
"Wal, thar' neow," said Captain Leezur, beaming with fond sympathy at the heavens, "sech folks dew help to parss away the time, amazin'."
"'S I sums it up," said the impassively listening collector, "ef ye don't pass away some o' yer time on yer roads down here, ye'll break some o' yer d—d necks."
Renewed unresentful laughter from the group.
"Grarsshoppers, neow," said Captain Leezur, seriously and reflectively, "makes better treoutin' bait 'n angle-worms (I know 't we don't have no sech grarsshoppers nor angle-worms neither as they dew in Californy).
"Nason was over t'other day, helpin' me shingle my barn. 'Twas a dreadful warm day, and we was takin' our noonin' arfter dinner, settin' thar' on the log, 'nd there was a lot o' these 'ere little green grarsshoppers hoppin' areound in the grarss: so arfter a spall, we speared up some on 'em and——"
"'S I sums it up, ef ye want to stay here and ketch the last fish 't God ever made, 'ste'd o' bracin' up and mendin' yer roads and takin' yer part in a shyer town, ye must do so."
"Sho!" said Captain Leezur, regarding him with wistful compassion; "I hain't seen as fish was gittin' skeerce."
By winks and insinuations of niggardliness, through Captain Rafe, father of Fluke, he was moved to take a nervine lozenge out of his pocket and display it temptingly before the sapient, immovable countenance of the collector. The latter, cold pipe in mouth, solemnly shook his head.
"Theydewcome kind o' high, I know," said Captain Leezur, "but I'm all'as willin' to sheer 'em with a friend. I ain't one o' that kind that's all'as peerin' anxiously into the futur'."
"The furderest time 't I ever looked into the futur'," said Captain Dan Kirtland, "was once when I was a boy 'bout nineteen, and my father told me not to take the colt out. He was a stallion colt (I know 't we don't have no sech colts here as they do in Californy), jest three years and two months old, and sperrited—oh, no; I guess he wa'n't sperrited none! Wal, my father was gone one day, and I tackled him up and off I went. Might 'a' fetched up all right, but 't happened jest as I was passin' by them smoke-houses to Herrinport, some boys 't was playin' with a beef's blawder had hove her up onto the roof, and she bounded down right atween that stallion's ears and eyes. In jest about one second I looked so far into the futur' that I run my nose two inches into the 'arth, and she 's been broke ever since."
"Never mind, Kirtland, she 's all thar'. The furderest time 't I ever looked ahead," said the voice of Shamgar, "was once in war time. Flour fifteen dollars a barrel, seven girls and five boys (I know 't we don't raise no sech families here as they do in Californy), everything high. All to once the thought come to me, 'Mebbe herrin'll be high tew.' And sure enough herrin' was high!"
"The furderest time 't I ever looked ahead——" deliciously began Captain Leezur.
"G'long! ye old fool! Git up! ye old skate!"
Admiral 'S I Sums-it-up was turning his horse about.
"I believe you and me 's got a bet on, ain't we, adm'r'l?" said Captain Pharo.
"I told 'em 'twas wastin' waggin ile to come down here to c'lect. G'long! ye old fool! Git up! ye old skate! 'S I sums it up, bet ye, goin' 'tween here and the Point I could scrape twenty-five pound o' mud off 'n yer kerridge time ye gits thar', Kobbe. G'long! ye old fool! Git up! ye old skate!"
His unbaffled monotone grew gradually faint in the distance.
"Roadsbeall porridge up there a piece, I reckon," chuckled Captain Pharo; "but as long as Crooked River runs, I don't calk'late to lose no bet. Poo! poo!"
Music fragment: 'My days are as the grass, Or as--'
Music fragment: 'My days are as the grass, Or as--'
"Jest give me time," beamed Captain Leezur, sounding mellifluously, "'n' I can row any Pointer ashore in an argyment 't ever was born yit. I takes a moderate little spall to dew it in. Forced-to-go——"
"Ye be a lazy, yarn-reelin' set, all on ye," said Captain Rafe, grinning with affection and delight on the group. "I'm going to have ye all posted and put on the teown!"
Murmurs of rich and deep laughter.
A tall, dark form, shifty-eyed, had been insensibly moving and disintegrating me from the group. I found myself drifting strangely ever farther and farther away. I was sitting beside him on a rock in the covert of the woods, the sun setting over the bay, and all was still save his voice.
"I went to Californy minding" (mining), said he. "She ain't nothin' so wonderful of a State as you might think: she ain't no bigger 'n Maine 'n' New York and Alabamy, 'n' Afriky 'n' Bar Harbor all put into one!"
"Great heavens!" said I, scratching my feeble little cane into the earth, "is she that?"
Of all that had been denied him in the recent general conversation, of colossal hunks of salt, of grasshoppers "no larger than Dorking hens," of fishes, women, horses fabulous, I listened, rapt with wonder and admiration.
The sun went down, the moon arose, and still I listened. I was not weary, I was not hungry; I was absorbed in sincere and awful attention. But the world is callous and cold, and I shall not repeat those tales.
The world is callous and cold; but, as the shifty spectre at last pointed me, unwilling, homeward, he murmured, with tears in his eyes: "I never found sech an intellergent listener as you be—not in the whole length and breadth of Californy."