Say the philosophers how, to the properly sane mind, there is no sorrow. But Vesty, only a Basin, fighting Christ's war against the flesh—Vesty had sorrow.
"It was," she confessed to me alone, I being as a ghost or confessor—"it was like pulling my heart out, to have Notely go away so. It was like taking little Gurd away—but it was the only way."
"He has gone back to his wife?"
"Yes." Vesty shivered. I had chanced to meet her in the lane, and the wind was chill.
"And what are you going to do, Vesty?"
"I am going where they want me to help." She held the thin, frayed shawl at her neck, the rosy child wrapped as usual on her arm: "there is always some one wanting me to help, and little Gurd is not so much care now but I can get along with it."
"You go out as general drudge or charwoman!" I felt my nostrils quiver and a bitter harshness in my voice.
Vesty looked at me with surprise. "I go to help," she said, "just as you helped me, with Uncle Benny, when I was sick."
"Oh, I could do"—the child knew not with what a glance I studied her face—"what it is hard to let you do, Vesty."
A gentle pallor at that, as though I had been strong and seemly in her sight; the Basin eyes fixed on me as if with a community of experience and sorrow.
"Shall you go away from the Basin this winter, as you did before?"
"I think so;" for myself, I could not look at her. "You see, I have my—'show,' that I must attend to a little in the winter: and here, exposed to the hard climate, if I were taken ill, or should be in want, there is no one who would care for me, you know."
"You should never want or suffer," cried Vesty of the Basins, "while I have two hands to work with!"
"Perhaps then," I murmured gravely, with sphinx face, "I might stay. I have to ask so much, Vesty, you see. All my life seems to be asking, not giving."
"I don't know who you are!" said she, with puzzled brow, the utter frankness of Basin speech escaping her unawares. "What I thought first, when I saw you—I never mind that now. And you are poor and all alone, and you never make anything of yourself—but somehow I always think you are pretending; somehow—I think—you are stronger than us all."
"You are a little arch-flatterer," I said; "and the Basin, out of its goodness of heart, has made me vain, that is all. It won't do. I need to sweep some more floors and peel some more potatoes." She would not smile; she shook her puzzled head at me. "And, Vesty," I said, "where are you going now?"
"Why, to Uncle Benny's! Didn't you know?" exclaimed the girl eagerly, with whom the realities of life were always pressing, stern. "He stood out in the water,that day, helping get the men in, and he was around that evening, singing, without any dry clothes or fire; nobody thought, then. And you know he 's had a cough ever since, and now—he 's sick."
A thought smote me. "He won't lead the children to school any more, then?"
Vesty's lip quivered. "Come," she said; "he has asked for you."
At sight of Vesty with her child and me, Uncle Benny, to whom the shadows were coming as to the truly sane, without grief or surprise, touched his unribboned throat with feeble apology.
"I look dreadful," he murmured. That was not troubling him! He had a secret beyond all that, I saw.
"There 's been ten in to call to-day," he exulted sweetly, with folded hands of satisfaction, death's bloom high in his cheeks; "ten!—ahem!—to call."
Vesty looked at me with her sad smile. "It is because we love you, Uncle Benny," she said, "and you took—take such care of the children. Who?" she asked, for his mind was on it.
"Mother," said Uncle Benny, since he was sane now, "and"—he mentioned a number of the living Basins, and went on, in the same tone—"and Fluke and Gurd."
Vesty looked at him with touching sorrow and despair, being troubled and not sane.
"They played," he said, his hands moving with the recollection of the melody; "they played wonderful—but sometimes it was an organ!"
"Good!" I said, Vesty stood so pale. "We are getting health, I see. We are on the straight road now."
Uncle Benny, hearing my voice, beckoned me.
"All the things in the drawer!" he said, "because you were 'flicted." His eyes shone lovingly and compassionately on me. "All for you. But go and see!"
Enough surely to relieve all physical defects! The worn and treasured blue necktie, for one thing; a little pocket hand-glass, a pin-cushion devoted to the tender ingathering of strayed and crooked pins, some sprays of mint and lavender among the rest.
I felt his eyes beaming proudly on me—treasures beautiful from long habit, now yielded in a spirit so complete and lofty! I brushed the back of my hand along my eyes, in the Basin way.
"You mustn't feel bad," said Uncle Benny, as I came back to him: "nature didn't do much for you, but it 's going to be all right. I had a talk with mother."
"I am glad of that, Uncle Benny."
"Oh, yes! it 's going to be all right." So full of secrets! he spoke excitedly, with discreetly covered joy; "you needn't feel bad."
He lay back, lest he should say too much. And so, as he, wise, covered up his sublime knowledge among us, unwise, with smiling lips, he sank into a sleep.
Uncle Benny, dying, slept with a smile on his lips; and little Gurd, homeless, fatherless, laid in this poor habitation or in that, humbly and roughly, slept in beautiful health with a smile on his lips; and we, unwise, watched dolefully.
"You must not stay," said Vesty. "You are not used to lose your rest. I am so used to watching, and—I am not afraid. Lunette said she would come to help me before morning."
Starless, moonless darkness showed through the low window, and the candle was burning dimly on the table.
"I shall stay," I said. I had a student's knowledge of death. "He will wake soon, and then—it will be morning."
But Vesty's dear face turned to me with the sorrow of dying.
I was not used to lose my rest. I dozed faintly, with faithfully sleepless lids. In that east of heavy blackness the candle made a strange sun. The world, elsewhere so far from heaven, here at the Basin ascended to it by a common stairway, and little children and the pure of heart climbed upward without dread.
"May I go?" I said, watching them.
"If a child leads thee," said a voice.
So I looked to a little child, to take my hand, and I saw my mother's face waiting from above, and the beams of glory narrowed; it was the candle burning dimly on the table.
"Notely!" I heard a voice calling.
I started up.
"Notely!" called Uncle Benny, very sweetly and tremulously from the bed. "Where is he? I led him to school."
Vesty had gone to the door, and leaned her head there, as if to press back the unbearable anguish and pathos sweeping over her like a flood.
"Notely! Little Note! He was the handsomest of them all, but sometimes he ran away. Notely! Little Note! come home with Uncle Benny now; come home!"
"He will come," I said, going to him: "he will come home."
"Vesty! Where is she? I led her to school."
She tottered toward him and pressed her warm hands upon his, cold.
"And you," he said, trying to turn to me, lovingly, faintly, "you are one of them. I will bring you home. Sing, Vesty; sing 'Sail away——'"
"'As Christ went down the Lonesome Road'"
Vesty's voice broke.
"Sing, little one," said Uncle Benny, covering his glad secrets again with a sort of heavenly duplicity; "it 's all right—sing."
"'He left the crown and He took the cross—Sail away to Galilee!He left the crown and He took the cross—Sail away to Galilee,Sail away to Galilee!****"'There 's a tree I see in Paradise——'"
"Sing, Vesty!"
"It 's the beautiful waiting Tree of Life—Sail away to Galilee!It 's the beautiful——'"
Uncle Benny hushed her with an awed motion of the hand, and a look upward of unspeakable recognition—he, without doubt, seeing now, beyond us blind.
"What I thought first when I saw you—I never mind that now."
Vesty's words: and "You shall never want or suffer while I have hands to work with." So it seems that, at the Basin, even one poor and afflicted may have good hope to be sustained!
There was a woman once, beautiful and high, who, spurning me, would have married me for my wealth and name.
But pity is sweet and true. I am not ashamed of pity. Some time—if all things failed her—should I even say, "Vesty, could you marry me, for pity—for pity, Vesty?" For it was the thought of the Basins that compassion was greater than love, in some way the diviner side of love.
Then should I turn on her and say, sly as Captain Leezur—alas! so much slyer: "My lady! My Lady of M——; there are none, even among the rich and high, who can condescend to you; wide lands have you, you and your little son, possessions and palaces; and others you shall build where you will, only come and be pitiful where you move: the world needs not these, but love and pity like thine, O Vesty of the Basins!"
But the time was not yet to plead my cause for pity. I shall know if ever that time comes. I have never mistaken Vesty. I wait.
"For pity"—for it is not in the power of gold or rank to exalt her. I cannot exalt her.
It is sweet to bear about with one the secret of a strange country. But, ah me! I love the Basin. I love the ragged shawl that Vesty holds at her throat. Nowhere else will the winter come so dreary and beautiful, with wild hearth fires. And Fate, bidding me hope, may crush me. As God wills. I wait.
It is but late summer now. There is a meeting.
"It 's been a very busy time o' year," said Elder Skates, with timid, inoffensive apology; "and we've ruther neglected religion lately. But I hope we've gathered here to the old school-house once more this Sunday afternoon, with a dispersition and a willin' and firm determination that as for us we will not let 'er drop."
Vesty had a native sense of the humorous, but the holy lids were down; only the mouth trembled a little. Captain Pharo and Captain Shamgar were finishing a game of croquet with the one set of those implements which the Basin possessed, dedicated for Sundays, and to the school-house yard, as being dimly understood to be a sort of Sabbatical pastime. Their voices pealed in with unconscious vigor through the open windows:
"Did ye shove her through the wire, Pharo?"
"Yis, by clam! and I'm a-comin' for ye, Shamgar, an' the next crack I git on that thar rollin' cruiser o' yourn, she'll wish she'd 'a' died las' week!"
The Basin conception of the game not being based on a spirit of emulation so much as on the cheerful clash of immediate vivid strokes, Captain Shamgar laughed loudly.
"We are now open for remarks," intimated Elder Skates feebly, afflicted but firm in his rubber boots.
After a season of respectful silence within the school-house there was a sepulchral whisper from one elderly female to another on the back seats:
"Did ye know 't Elvine had plucked her geese?"
"Sartin. She plucked 'em too clost, and they was around fryin' in the sun scand'lous; but I don't surmise as she knew no better."
"In course not. Ye know Miss Lester's boardin' some folks 't Gov'ment sent down t' inspect the lighthouse. It's a young man, an' he brought his wife, an' after he'd finished his job they liked it so well they're jest stayin' on, cruisin' 'round an' playin' tricks on each other. So, ef you'll believe me, what does that Gov'ment young man do one day but go an' bring home a passel o' snakes——"
The voice, to the eager ears of the listeners, ventured more and more upon audibility—
"An' he fixed 'em in a box in the woodshed, with a string to the cover, an' then stepped into the kindlin'-closet, holdin' the string, ter wait till the women came out, ter pull it an' then see what the verdick would be! Wal, what think you—but his wife she suspicioned of 'im, an' she was around thar hidin', an' jest as soon as he stepped into the closet, afore he could pull the string, she flounced up an' fastened the door on the outside. An' she kep' 'im in there till he'd say: 'Wife, wife, there's lots o' green in my eye; but I'll make my supper on humble pie. I'll dump them snakes in the pond, dear wife; an' ef you'll only let me out I'll be good all my life."
"Wal, thar now!" said an admiring voice; "I should think she must be r'al gifted. Did he say it?"
"Yes, he got it out, somewheres along in the shank o' the evenin'. But Miss Lester says it's jest as good as bein' to the front seat in a show, the whole livin', endurin' time."
"Gov'ment pays their board, in course?"
"Sartin, and well it c'n be some use now an' then, settin' 'round there, not knowin' nothin' in this world what to do with its surplice."
A sharp peal rang through the window.
"Thar, Pharo! Ef ye want to find yerself, ye'd better start on down t' the south eend o' the Basin, 'n' negotiate around to leeward o' Leezur's bresh-heap; that's the d'rection yer ball was a-startin' for, las' time I seen 'er!"
"Poo! poo!" said Captain Pharo, drawing a Sunday "parlor" match explosively along his boot-leg; "jest hold on thar, Shamgar. Jest hold on till I git my old chimley here a-goin' ag'in——"
"The meetin' is open and patiently waitin' for remarks," said Brother Skates, poising himself wearily but ever enduringly on one boot.
After an appreciative silence within, the whisper finally arose once more: "But he paid her off pretty well."
"Dew tell!"
"She took 'n' hid his pipe one day, and her clo's was hangin' out on the line—she wears the mos' beautiful, 'labberotest-trimmed clo's you ever see—so what does he do but go an' git a padlock an' padlocked them clo's onto the line. 'When you git me my pipe,' says he, 'I'll unlock your wardrobe,' says he."
"Wal, I never! Ain't them ructions!"
"Did the peddler come around to your house this month?"
"He did so. I bought a pictur' 't was named 'Logan.' It's a fancy skitch, I guess, 'but I'm goin' to have that pictur', Cap'n Nason Ted,' says I, 'ef 't takes every egg the hens is ekil to from now t' deer-stalkin',' says I. It jest completely drored me somehow; it had sech a feelin' look."
"Did Nason let ye buy it?"
"Yis, he did; but he was dreadful sneakish an' j'ilous. 'It's jest a fancy skitch,' says he; "'tain't nothin' 't ever slammed around in shoes,' says he."
"I bought a pair o' black stockings," said the voice of a young matron. "I remember 'cause I wore 'em the very day that Johnny swallowed six buttons—andsmut!—wal——" A picture too dark for the imagination was relieved by the hum of a discussion now bravely finding voice on the male side of the house.
"There's some difference in the price of a hoss afore blueberryin' and after blueberryin', I can tell ye."
"All the difference 'twixt black an' white. Wal, thar's mos' things I can do without, but when you find me without a hoss you'll find me done 'ith trouble altogether an' stretched out ca'm an' laid on the cooler."
"Skates's raisin' a pretty good colt thar, 'ceptin' 't she's a leetle twisty in her off hin' leg. What do you consider on her worth, Skates?"
"I refused two hunderd dollars for 'er last week," said Brother Skates, in a clearly round, secular tone of voice.
"Now look a-here, Skates; that stock o' yourn's good workin'-stock, but they're tirrible hard feeders. Ef you've been offered two hunderd dollars for that colt don't you wait 'tell after blueberryin'."
"Mebbe you think," said Brother Skates, now firmly established on both boots, "'t I'm as green as a yaller cucumber!"
"Look out thar, Shamgar!" rang through the windows. "Give me sea-room here!—give me sea-room!"—we saw and heard the preparatory swinging of Captain Pharo's mallet—"cl'ar the way thar, Shamgar; for by the everlastin' clam, I'm a-goin' to give ye a clip that'll send ye t' the west shore o' Machias!"
A mighty concussion followed.
Elder Skates, as if reminded by these thunders of his duty, blushed deeply with shame and penitence.
"Vesty," he pleaded tremulously, "will you start 'Carried by the Angels'?"
Vesty went to the little organ.
Now we forgot all the rest, all that was rude and incongruous, forgot how mean the school-house was, how few protective boards left upon it. Captain Pharo and Captain Shamgar dropped their mallets at the first sound of Vesty's voice, and came in on tiptoe, with changed faces, reverent.
For there was the Basin sorrow in Vesty's voice, enough to subdue greater discords, and the Basin hope in it, implicit, wonderful, thrilled to tearful vision by a word:
"Carried by the angels,"
she sang.
"Carried by the angels.Carried by the angels to the skies.Carried by the angels,Carried by the angels,"Gathered with the lost in Paradise."
Coat-sleeves began to do duty across moist eyes; seeing—we all being simple Basins—winged white forms in the still air outside the battered schoolhouse, bearing worn, earth-weary forms away—
"Gathered with the lost in Paradise."
It was not so hard to speak now.
"I've got my finger on a tex' here," said a white-haired, weather-beaten Basin, rising; "'In His love and in His pity He redeemed us.' Now thar was a time when I didn't want nobody to say a word to me about pity—no sir! Love I wanted and admirin' I wanted, but no pity; that thar set me broilin'. But—now—I'd e'en a'most ruther have pity than love; 'nd I thank God most o' all that, in my pride and in my stren'th, and not wantin' no help an' gittin' mad at the thought of it—all'as He pitied me, an' He pitied me cl'ar through to the end.
"For I tell ye, thar can be love and admirin', that flashes up in the pan mighty strong at first, an' goes out, an' nary mite o' pity in it. But thar' ain't no pity 'ithout love; and it's a love 't ain't no fine-spun thread, but a ten-inch hawser; a love 't stands by ye when thar' 's a trackless path afore and a lost trail ahind; when ye're scuddin' afore the squall, an' the seas come thunderin' down on ye; when yer boat 's in splinters, and ye're a-bitin' the sand. Yis, an' when yer cruisin' 's all done at las', an' ye're jest a poor old hulk around in the way, driftin' in an' out 'ith the tides, 't calls out to ye, as ef ye was somebody, 'Ship ahoy! What port?'
"An' ye says, kind o' hopin', but not darin' nothin', 'The port as they calls Heaven.'
"An' 't shouts back to ye, strong across the wave, 'What are ye doubtin', man? That 's a port sure! and home 's thar, and folks 's thar, and the little children ye lost is thar. D'ye want a pilot?'
"'Ay, ay, sir!—ay, ay, sir!'"
The deep voice sank in tears, then broke out again:
"Git under the lee o' the wrack!
"For days an' nights once, in a storm 't I shall never forgit, we pulled under the lee o' a wracked vessel, 'n' no other way could we 'a' been saved.
"An' it was so, 't, in this sea o' life, all open ter the winds o' sorrer an' temptation, Christ come down, an' He giv' up joy an' a safe harbor, 'n' all that, jest ter be made a wrack on, so 't we might git under His lee, an' foller safe.
"It 's the great Breakwater o' the seas; don't ye fear but it 's a safe one!
"Young man, I know 't ye think o' somethin' more'n this, an' vary diffur'nt from this, a-startin' out each one in his clipper-bark, gay an' hunky in every strand, 'ith a steady follerin' breeze, an' everythin' set from skysail pole to the water's edge.
"All right! ye are the lad for me; ye can pull side an' feather stroke; ye can cl'ar a tops'l reef-tackle when the sail is full, ye are the lad for me. Steer bold; only steer true, by night an' day. I wish 't ye might no' meet wi' fogs an' icebergs an' collisions an' gales——
"An' yit, I wish it not. The sea an' the storm is jest to teach us t' git under the lee o' the great wrack o' Love an' Pity, 't made hisself lost for us; ay, an' so to make a wrack o' our own happiness for the poor an' weak, 't's out a-tossin' shelterless, to lead 'em to the true Breakwater. That 's life, that 's the sea, that 's the lesson. Till we pass on, up the roads, into the harbor——"
The old mariner's voice failed him; he sat down.
"Vesty," said Elder Skates, and cleared his throat huskily; "Vesty, will you start 'The Tempests broke on Thee'?"
Vesty's voice:
"'O Christ, it broke on Thee!Thy open bosom was my ward,It braved the storm for me.Thy form was scarred, Thy visage marred,—O Christ, it broke on Thee!'"
Great preachers have I heard dry-eyed, and skilled plaintive music enough; but now I looked out through the broken Basin windows, on the clear Basin sky, through a mist.
"Vesty," said Elder Skates, "let 's keep right along into 'Beautiful Valley o' Eden'!"
"'How often amid the wild billows,I dream of thy rest, sweet rest,Sweet rest.'"
sang Vesty, with eyes darkly circled and sunken, and the beautiful, strong hand, labor-worn, and the thin old shawl fallen back from her shoulders.
There was a different tone now in the parting salutations of the Basins.
"I'm a-comin' up to help ye paper," said one woman to another; "ye got sick last year, and I'm a-comin', whether ye want me to or not."
"Oh, I want ye bad enough, Mar'ette."
But I knew what a struggle had been gone through with when I heard Miss Pray say:
"Car' Ann, if ye want to borry my ice-cream freezer I ain't a-usin' it for to-morrer."
Miss Pray alone of the Basins had acquired the monumental honor of possessing an ice-cream freezer, esteemed by others with a no less sacred jealousy than by herself; but she had hitherto refused all intimations tending toward social interchange and fellowship in the matter.
"Vesty's kind o' poorin' away," said one matron, looking wistfully after the girl.
"No wonder, with that great boy, and all she does. Aunt Low-ize tried to hold him, jest while Vesty was singin', an' she had to take him out and walk twict around Blueberry Hill t' keep him still; he's one o' this 'ere all-alive, jumpin' kind. I sh'd think he'd kill her."
I overtook Vesty in the lane; she was gathering flowers in Sunday pastime for the baby.
She turned to look at me with quiet gladness, kindness.
"I love to hear Captain Seabale. He doesn't come very often," said she, "but he makes me cry."
"I believe he made me cry," I answered. I watched her shaking a handful of flowers over the laughing boy. "How far do you think pity could ever go, Vesty?"
"Why?"—there was that high, grave study of me in her eyes, that haunting thought that I was sly! But for all her pains, too simple was she! No discovery; only the beautiful Basin unconsciousness. "Christ never said where to stop, did He?"
Leafless and brown are the trees, but the Basin has diviner glories than at midsummer, in colors unspeakable of sea and sky, of wild-sailing cloud, of sunset and of moon.
There come great news of Notely. In pursuance of which, "Did ye ever notice," said Captain Leezur, sitting on the log in the late sunshine, ambrosially sucking a nervine lozenge; "did ye ever notice, major, how 't all the great folks, or them 't 's risin' tew be great—how 't they all comes from a squantum place like this?"
"Yes," I said, "I've heard it as a remarkable fact."
"I don't mean t' say 'teverybodyin a squantum place is beound and destined tew be great or die!" said Captain Leezur, with whole-souled disparagement of such a thought: "no, no; they can't carry it on us so fur as that. 'Forced-to-go,' ye know."
"No, indeed!" I consented.
I accepted a nervine lozenge, and we braced ourselves firmly on the log, placid, but set, against all resistance, not to be great!
"What is this rewmer abeout Notely, major? I heered how 't you took a lot o' noos-sheets."
"It is fine. He is making for himself a name in your politics, and at the same time there 's the old fire in him, flashing out over conventions; one can almost hear him laugh. He rings out, clear, amid any false notes; it is a grand satire; sometimes the dry bones quake."
"Lord sakes!" said Captain Leezur, turning on me with deep-smitten dismay; "I heered how't he was bein' successful!"
"His financial speculations seem touched with magic, they say; he is courted, feared, praised, maligned; he laughs and rings out, the true note! His health is not strong, never since that fall. There; you have all I know, Captain Leezur."
Captain Leezur meditated. "Therebetimes—I sh'd never want this said except between you an' me, major—when I'm glad 't Notely Garrison didn't marry Vesty, after all! Notely 'n' me was great mates, all'as. But I'll tell ye this, when Notely got everythin' he wanted he'd carry sail enough to sink the boat, all'as; couldn't never jump rough enough or fast enough on a high sea; kept the rest on us bailin' water: that was Note, when he had all the wind he wanted; that was Note, all'as—but I all'as loved him better 'n them 't was more keerful sailors."
The sun saw itself globed in a tear that fell on Captain Leezur's felts.
"Moderation in all things, ye know," he added, beaming, not to distress me; "even in passnips."
I mused with him in silent sympathy. "Oiling the saw again, I see," I said at last glancing with reverent admiration of such benign industry at the oil-can.
"No," said Captain Leezur kindly; "I wa'n't, I was a-goin' deown, by 'n' by, to the cove, to ca'm the water deown, 'n' see ef I c'd spear up a few fleounders; but I ain't in no hurry. I'd jest as soon set areound on the int'rust o' my money!"
This was a joke insatiable between us, always bubbling over, always enough of it left for next rime. At its utterance Captain Leezur's countenance was accustomed to break up entirely, while I laughed with an appreciation that never fainted or palled.
We felt that there was never aught sparkling enough to be said after it, but parted in succulent silence, Captain Leezur with his oil-can, going down to compose the waters, while I pursued my less omnipotent way to the Basin "post-office."
"Ef there 's anything trying," said Lunette, though with the peculiarly official air she always wore on post days, "it is dressin' sand-peeps. But thar! Tyson come home with a harf-bushel, an' what are ye goin' to do? Onct a year, Ty says, he wants ter jest stuff himself to the collar-bone on sand-peep pie, an' then he don't want to see nary one, nor hear 'em mentioned in his sight—not for another year."
It might have troubled the casual observer at first to discover, in the variety of Lunette's official capacity, which was post-office and which was sand-peeps, so agreeably and informally did these two elements combine in her surroundings.
"Mis' Pharo Kobbe!" she called.
That lady, thus summarily summoned, sprang forward from a cloud of witnesses, as choice and flattered assistant.
"Won't you take them letters 't Major Henry's jest brought in, and deface the stamps on 'em? Turn the ink enter them pictur's o' George Washin'ton so 't his own mother's son wouldn't know him. I don't calk'late to have no stamps 't 's sent out from the Basin post-office washed out an' used over ag'in. The defacement they gets here is for everlastin' an' for aye."
I watched helplessly a full discharge of this command on the part of Mrs. Pharo Kobbe, and proceeded to pluck one of the sand-peeps meanwhile, along with the rest, waiting the arrival of the post bag.
"Some o' the rusticators 't was here in the summer," continued Lunette, sneezing over a culinary preparation of pepper, "though 't we ought to have two mails a week! Ef I was so dyin' crazy for news 's that, I'd go an' live to Machias!"
"That does seem dissipated and unreasonable, certainly," I assented, interested in the endeavor to extract the minutest pin-feathers from the tail of the sand-peep.
"Ef they was all like Major Henry, I told 'em, the post-office 'ud be easy runnin', an' I don't care if I do say it afore his face. I'd say it afore the meet'n-house—ef there was one. The very first time 't Major Henry ever stepped inter this post-office he come up to me an' handed me a five-dollar bill, 'n' says he:
"'Mardam, could you kin'ly put my mail t' one side, me not all'as bein' convienent to be here at its openin', maybe; an' all the mail that ain't called for at its openin' bein' thrun up onter the top pantry shelf,' says he, ''nd everybody 't comes in lookin' it over t' see ef they've got anything, is a most beautiful compliment to human natur',' says he, 'an' one that I wish I could interduce everywhere; but me not bein' vary tall,' he says, 'an' kind o' near-sighted, I'm afeered as I might git somethin' 't didn't belong to me. Have ye got anythin' like a dror, or anythin' 't ye could lock up?' says he.
"'No,' says I, 'I hain't, but I'll tell ye what I can do. I can put 'em inter th' old Gran'mother Tyson soup-turreen, 't I don't believe the led of it 's been lifted this ten year; they'll be as safe as ef they was buried an' in their graves,' says I. An' so I thought, but ye know how things is all'as sartin to happen.
"What, in the name o' ructions, did Ty do but come home that afternoon with a bag o' ches'nits, which he knows I won't have in the pantry on account o' breedin' worms; but me bein' over to Mis' Kobbe's, what does he do, manlike, but dump them letters inter the churn, an' go an' sneak his ches'nits inter th' old Granm'er Tyson soup-turreen.
"Wal, I all'as churn my butter Friday mornin', come hail, come wind: so I gits up—an' 'twas kind o' dark yit—an' in I pours the pail o' cream an' begins to churn, an' thinks I, 'This spatters onaccountable this mornin',' an' took off the cover to see what the ructions was!
"Wal, the verdick of it was, after I'd laid into Ty, I went down to major with the five-dollar bill an' another atop of it, all I had in this livin' world—'An' ef that 's any objec', major,' says I, a-wipin' of my eyes, 'it's all I c'n do.'
"Wall, what think you, but major laughs, an' wouldn't tetch ary cent of it, but took 'is letters, an' says he, 'They've ackired a peculiar richness,' says he, 'an' I'd orter be up there mail-openin' an' not make a lady so much trouble,' says he. That's the kind o' poppolation 's I, for one, sh'd like to fill up the Basin with!" said Lunette, flourishing her rolling-pin.
A murmur of approval ran through the room.
Blushing, embarrassed, but swollen with pride, I picked up another sand-peep to pluck.
At that instant "Snipe," the household and post-office dog, ran across the floor with high-careering head, holding a huge envelope in his teeth.
"Stop him! stop him!" cries arose: "it's Elvine's registered letter, 't 's goin' to Boston for a tea-set!"
A rush followed Snipe into the bedroom, the door of which stood open; the evil dog ran under the bed and into the farthest corner, where, with his jaws formed into the semblance of a menace and a mocking laugh, he assumed an attack upon that potential tea-set.
Lunette rushed in after him. Now the bed, in default, for some unknown though doubtless wise Basin reasons, of other stanchions, was set up on four chairs, one at each corner, and as Lunette rushed under it, she displaced the outermost chair; whereat the bed at that source collapsed with a crash, imprisoning both her and the dog.
"I've been a-threatenin' to have that bed fixed," said Tyson, with politic zeal, as his wife and dog were delivered.
Lunette with voiceless indignation seized one of a buttress of birch-switches behind the door, and began applying it to the consciously ruined Snipe, at the arising of whose howls the post-carrier drove up, and, entering, threw the bag, in loud token of his arrival, upon the floor.
Snipe, of all places, ran and entrenched himself behind my feeble legs! Whereat, "Don't whip him any more," I pleaded, being already flattered, in one way and another, as high as mortal could sustain.
Lunette turned unwillingly to the post. The post-driver stood about seven feet in his boots, with a handsome face, all mud-bespattered. Many voices beset him familiarly.
"Say, Will, did ye bring down my molasses?" "Say, Will, did ye match that ribbin f'r me?" "Say, Will," etc., etc.
"You bet I did, every time!" he answered jovially, showing his white teeth. Interest in the post was comparatively moribund; a general parcel-distributing and hand-shaking followed—until we were startled by a cry from Lunette:
"Look a' this, Will Hunson!" said she; "look a' this, will ye? A whole pot o' strawberry jam soaked right plumb inter the middle o' the United States Governmunt!"
It was only too true. The pile of letters and papers which she had emptied onto the moulding table were red and glowing as the summer rose.
Will hung his dismayed head.
"Be them ructions, or ain't they?" coldly demanded Lunette, pointing to the awful pile.
"I didn't mean to," said Will.
"Didn't mean to!" cried Lunette. "Didn't mean to, lived in a lean-to!"
Blasted by terror and sarcasm, we all hung our heads. Snipe grovelled in still farther behind my legs.
"There 's got to be something done!" cried Lunette. "Folks's got to learn 't the United States Governmunt is a awful an' a solemn an' a turrible thing. What ef it sh'd be told 't we hadn't no more respec' for her down here to the Basin 'n to soak her through with strawberry jam an' molarsses! These here ructions have been a-goin' on too long with the Basin post-office. I'm a-goin' to fill out a blank an' send it to Washin'ton!"
Snipe howled. Lively apprehension, none the less poignant for being vague, sat on every pale brow.
"Here," continued Lunette, "'s major's business letters, looks as though they'd been a-settin' in the dentist's chair, havin' all the old stumps extracted for a whole set of uppers and unders!"
Lunette's comparison, though tragic, was not inapt.
"Here"—blind terror yielded to curiosity on many features—"here is Jennie Cossey's letter from her beau, down to New London, with a cardboard dagarrier in it. Yes," said Lunette, manipulating the envelope curiously and holding it to the light; "I knew 't the next thing he'd be sendin' his pictur'. How 'd you feel, Will Hunson, ef you was stan'in' in his shoes an' had gone an' combed yer hair 'tell yer arm ached, an' stuck the end o' yer hankercher outer yer pocket, an' had yer pictur' took, an' then sot down an' wrote a lot o' sweetness to wrop around it—an' when she took it out have it look like Injuns a-yellin' on the warpath!"
"Say, Lunette," said honest Will, his handsome face redder than any of the lively imageries she had called up to terrorize his conscience; "I got that front hair fascinater ye wanted, an' I sold the spruce gum for two dollars for ye. Look a' here!"
"Will Hunson, don't ye ride no more strawberry jam an' molarsses down here in the middle o' the United States Governmunt ag'in, will ye?" said Lunette, determined to fall gently.
But it appeared then that no blank was to be filled out and sent to Washington!
With a sharp yelp of joy Snipe sprang from behind the impregnable covert of my legs, and rushed out into the free and gladsome elements.
I gathered up my portion of matter from the illuminated heap of "government," beside the sand-peep pie on the table, and with a fond smile at Lunette I also departed.
Always now on the evening of post day, after I had read my newspapers, came the worn shawl and the dark, weary eyes—Vesty, to sit awhile with Miss Pray.
"Is there any news of Notely, Major Henry?"
Now and then I made her put the question, but oftener I was kind and volunteered any information on this subject that I had been able to glean; and at the news of joy or success for him, how her eyes glowed! Basin pure and great, with no thought for the shadow of her own lot—Vesty of the Basins.
"Is there any news of Notely, Major Henry?"
She was pinning the shawl at her throat after a short call, before going out; and she gave me her direct, reproachful look, as though I had been teasing her.
But I was not teasing her; my heart yearned over her where she stood, facing the dark.
"I will tell you what I have read," I said, "as I walk home with you. You are 'helping' them at your own father's again now?"
She bowed her head. Her dark eyes filled me with a kind of frenzy to make rest and comfort about her; and I had hard news for her!
"In my papers of the past week the beginning of what concerned Notely Garrison was a medley. 'Reformer,' 'The old never-heeded cry of a St. John in the wilderness,' and again, from the other side, 'Fanatic,' 'Visionary,' 'Throwing out his by no means boundless wealth like water for the sake of chimeras, ideally noble enough, but still vain chimeras!' And the news at the week's end, 'Young Garrison stricken: a shock. Overwork, over-excitement, and the result of an accident suffered not long since. Recovery very doubtful.'"
"I want to go to him," said Vesty. I heard her breath coming painfully and quick.
"I knew that. I have already made arrangements for you to leave early in the morning."
"Just to see him. I promised him. Notely! Notely! I can't bear it—just as though it was little Gurd."
"You shall see him by to-morrow night. I have sent a messenger to make special arrangements for conveyance, in case you should desire this."
"Major Henry, I forgot. I cannot; I have no money."
"Ah, but you can and must. It is arranged."
"And I do not know the way. I was never from the Basin."
"I am going with you. In my country high ladies travel with a servant, thus. Get what rest you can and be ready at four. They will take good care of little Gurd while you are gone."
"Some time," said Vesty, on the morrow, "when Gurd is a little older, and I can take him away somewhere where I can earn wages, I can pay you, Major Henry. They want me now—his mother wants me, somehow, I know."
"You are safe to think that."
"My clothes are not like theirs," said Vesty quietly, when we came at night more and more into the throngs of civilized life. "Do you mind? I knew that I should not be dressed like them."
"In my country high ladies wear what they will."
She gave a low, perplexed laugh, looking at me with curious sorrow for my hallucinations.
"But I am only Vesty."
"Surely. But you remind me so of a lady."
At least Vesty travelled as a princess might. I brought her the long and devious journey swiftly, with as little fatigue as possible: but it was late at night when we mounted the steps of the Garrison town residence; the house was all alight.
Mrs. Garrison brushed past the servant at the door.
"Vesty Rafe! I knew it was you. I knew you would come, somehow, child." She drew her in, and fell on her neck, weeping.
"He is dying?" murmured Vesty then, with cold lips.
"He has not spoken since the shock. He does not know us; but it may be he will know you! Come!"
Servants from the doorways of the wide, rich hall were staring strangely at Vesty and at me. Vesty turned to me now, to consider me.
I gave her the warning look. "I came to show Vesty the way," I said in simple Basin speech. "I will go to my hotel. I will call."
The girl's sad eyes looked reproach at me, but she obeyed me.
"Wait," she said then; "I want to speak with Major Henry." She came to me in the door.
"When will you come back?" she murmured, low.
"I will call in the morning."
"You will come?" A strange abandoned distress was in her eyes, as of a child lost in crowded city ways.
"Vesty!"
She turned, chidden, but with a sort of wilful content.
My heart bounded as I limped down the steps. I smiled to myself, safe in the dark, sardonically. Make what you will of it, with other men she was strong, womanly, serene; with me, she had the sweet grace to show weakness.
The carriage bounded over the paving-stones and stopped at my hotel. The driver lifted his hat obsequiously. I, with sardonic smile, entered the hotel, where I was not unknown. No doubt was made as to the character of my apartments.
I rested sumptuously, but could not sleep.
"How was he now, who lay stricken yonder? Had he known her, or would those rare blue eyes be lifted to her too, unrecognizing, and so break her heart?"
Eyes once seen, to haunt one, the handsomest in form and color and expression that I had ever seen in human head.
Now I saw them again, as I had first seen them at the meeting in the Basin school-house; the firm, brown hand grasping the sailor's bonnet; eyes omnipotent with health and joy, casting their mischievous, beautiful glances over toward Vesty—she, patient, struggling, with her holy look!
And the Basin wind blew in through the cracked windows, and a bird flew upward:
"Softly through the storm of life,Clear above the whirlwind's cry"—