CHAPTER I
The tide was half way out, and the rocks were already showing strange shaggy shapes as the water retreated from their weed-draped sides. A man, who had just beached his dory and had loaded his wheelbarrow with gaping cod and shining mackerel, stood looking off toward the cliffs for a moment before he should trundle his burden up the slanting path which led toward a group of white houses.
"Look like buffaloes," he said to himself. "That furthest one's most like a lion." He turned his gaze from the rocks to the pile of fish in his barrow. "You poor miserable wide-mouthed critturs," he said. "There's nothing I know of that can look so down-at-mouth as a fish out of water. Every day I think I'll give up, and I don't. What would I do if I did? I guess it's good for me to see something unhappy-looking: it makes me feel as if I weren't the sorriest wretch in the world. Maybe I'm not, either."
He took up the handles of his barrow and started along the path, which led past clumps of bayberry bushes and thickets of wild roses, into a grove of pines, and at last emerged before the door of one of the white houses which, at intervals, dotted the island. It was early morning and as Luther Williams came into the open, he met a party of workmen swinging along, dinner pails in hand. They hailed him cheerily. "Good catch, Mr. Williams?"
"Pretty fair," was the response. "What's going on to-day, boys?"
"We cal'late to start Miss Elliott's cawtage," said the foremost.
"Another cottage?" Luther Williams frowned. "Where is it going to be, Thad?"
"Oh, down along. Sot right on the rawks, she cal'lates to have it. What she wants to be down there where she'll hear all that bellerin', is more than I know, but women-folks are cranky."
They passed on, through the stile and over the hummocky ground toward the sea while Luther stood still. "Elliott," he said, "Elliott." He watched the men till they finally stopped on a knoll a few feet from the shore line, when he trundled his barrow around the corner of the house and was lost to view.
The men on the knoll stood for a few moments looking off at the blue waves which sparkled and danced in the morning light. White-sailed ships, like pale moths, poised on the water. A line of foam curled along the edge of the crags, and the murmuring ripples sang a gentle plaint as they stole in upon a small stretch of shelly beach.
"There ain't no bellerin' this morning," said one of the men. "She's only sloppin' in."
"She pounded pretty hard last night," responded another. "Kept me awake."
"Nawthin' keeps me awake," returned the first beginning to drive a stake into the ground.
"Where's this Miss Elliott from?" asked Mart Johnson. "She's noo, ain't she?"
"She was up here for a week last summer," Thad Eaton answered. "Liked the place and bought this lawt in Ben's pasture. She's from down around Baltimore or Washington, I hear."
"Single woman?"
"Yeah. Ben says he'd rather sell to them and widders, then he knows there'll be no men-folks trying to get the best of him. He's terrible afraid of city sharpers. Moreover, he says he don't care about a passel of children traipsing over his land."
The four men worked mightily to lift the great stones which they laid for the foundation of the cottage. There were many orders of "Shove her a little to the west'ard, Jim." "Jest a little wee mite to the north'ard," and the work went on so rapidly that in a short time the length and breadth of the foundation were evident.
Down by the cove, toward which the houses of the fishermen faced, a half busy, half idle life went on. At the fish house the morning's catch was being weighed. The lobstermen came in one after another from hauling their traps. Captain Purdy's vessel lay at anchor, her crew lounging about with tales of the last cruise. Luther Williams stood listening to the good-natured chaff. Big Mil Stevens was weighing the fish, once in a while putting in a humorous word as the others talked. A fat-faced, round-bodied man, ready with anecdotes, sat on an overturned keg.
"What ye think Hen Fosdick was telling me, yist'day?" he said. "Told me he didn't think nawthin' of eatin' a six pound cawd all by himself. Said he'd done it. Showed me one 'bout the size of what he'd eat the day before. 'Bout like this." He touched with the toe of his boot a slippery fish which lay on the floor. "Said it didn't bawther him a mite to eat it all."
"What do you think of that, Mil?" asked one of the men.
Mil slid a shining mass from the scales. "Wal," he drawled, "I think he was either a hawg or a liar." A shout of laughter went up at this in which Luther Williams joined. When he laughed the man's whole face changed, and one might have said that at one time he knew well how to be merry. He was a man above medium height, spare of flesh, with far-seeing eyes and a mouth whose melancholy droop seldom altered to a smile. He wore a close-cut beard and mustache, and his iron gray hair where it was not too short curled about his forehead. He was not much of a talker, but was evidently held in respect, for in that community, where even children called their elders by their first name, he was the only one dignified by the title of "Mister." Leaving the jolly crew, he trundled his barrow out of the fish house over the boards of the boat-landing, and on uphill to where the white cottages shone out in the brightness of the May morning. At the rear of one of the houses he stopped and went in. The room he entered was a cheerful sunshiny kitchen with painted floors of yellow, doors of blue, mouldings of pink. It was fresh and clean. Geraniums blossomed in the windows. The great stove sent out almost too intense a heat for the day, but the woman at the table making pies would have scorned to open a window. She was a small, neat-featured person, light-haired, blue-eyed, faded before her time. She wore a gray calico gown of indefinite pattern.
"Where's Miss Phenie?" asked Luther Williams, throwing himself down on the lounge in the corner.
"She's getting the room ready for the boarders," Miss Phosie answered. The Tibbett sisters rejoiced in the names of Tryphena and Tryphosa.
"Boarders? What boarders?" Mr. Williams raised himself on one elbow and looked alert.
"Ain't you heard, Mr. Williams? We're going to take Miss Elliott and her niece till their house is ready. She wants to be here where she can overlook it, and Almira Green says she can't take anybody till June. I don't blame Miss Elliott for wanting to be on hand, so sister and me talked it over, and as Almira said Miss Elliott was so persistent and we'd no excuse when we already had one boarder, we gave in. To be sure I said you wasn't like common boarders, seeing that you'd been here twenty years. But then it did seem churlish to refuse when we meant to take boarders anyhow this year, and what difference did a few weeks, sooner or later, make? So we said we'd try to accommodate 'em, and they're coming on the boat to-day."
"Humph!" ejaculated Luther from his corner.
"I told sister you'd be upsot," Miss Phosie went on as she rolled out her pie-crust, "but she said you'd have your breakfast before sun up anyway, and could have your other meals here in the kitchen, as you always do, so she guessed you wouldn't be bothered much by 'em. You never was much for seeing folks, Mr. Williams, and I guess we won't insist on your settin' up and makin' yourself agreeable if you don't want to."
Mr. Williams gave a short laugh and settled back while Miss Phosie went on with her pie-making. He drew a book from his pocket and lay back to read, but somehow he could not fix his mind on the pages. His thoughts would wander back to that time which had been newly brought to remembrance by the name of Elliott. He sat up, dropped his head between his hands and was lost in memories. Yes, it had been nearly twenty years since he came to Fielding's Island. He had come for a week's stay and had remained for a score of years. Old Captain Ben Tibbett had taken him in and he had stayed on and on. In these twenty years the Tibbett girls had grown to be middle-aged women, the island, then a lonely spot whose aloofness had been its chief charm, was growing to be popular. First one then another wandering visitor had discovered its beauties, had bought a plat of ground, and had built a cottage. The channel between the island and the mainland, once crossed only by sailing-vessels or row-boats, was now the highway for a steamboat which touched daily at the new wharf and brought the mail. In those early days the mail-bag was sent over from the Neck in a dory, and few were the letters it contained. Then the low-roofed houses all faced the cove, most of them nestling down in the more sheltered spots under the hill; now the summer residents had their cottages all looking seaward and the line of these was increasing year by year. "I shall have to go," said Luther Williams aloud.
Miss Phosie looked around in surprise. "Dear suz!" she exclaimed, "what do you mean, Mr. Williams?"
The man rose to his feet, picked up his hat and said, "I must be going down along, Phosie."
"It's most dinner time," she warned him.
"I'll be back in time," he assured her as he closed the door after him.
"He don't like it a mite," Miss Phosie soliloquized. "I never did see a man so sot against outsiders, unless it be Mil Stevens. Mil can't abide them, though I can't see that they do a namable thing to him. He maintains that they overrun the place and look down on us that belongs here, says they call us Islanders, and they're so high and mighty he calls 'em Highlanders. Well, I don't see that either name hurts much. One's about as good as the other and neither's bad. But Mr. Williams is different. He has a solitary kind of disposition like one of these hermits you read about. I wish I knew why. I wish I knew. There's one thing certain, he sha'n't be put to inconvenience. I'll stand between him and bother if I can."
She shoved her pies into the oven and added another pinch of tea to that already brewing on the stove. The teapot was never empty but stood all day where Cap'n Ben could get a cup of the hot black infusion whenever he came in. Miss Phenie, too, frequently liked to indulge in a draught from the brown teapot.
"They ought to be ready by this time," said Miss Phosie looking up at the clock which was set by sun time and was far ahead of Luther Williams' watch. "I wonder where father is and Ora."
She passed out of the kitchen and on through the pantry into the sitting-room. This was empty though showing the late presence of Cap'n Ben, for his pipe lay on the window-sill and his yesterday's paper was on a chair. Miss Phosie hearing voices in the room beyond, gathered that the family had congregated there. Beyond the sitting-room was the entry, oilcloth covered, chill and clean. From it a straight staircase led to the rooms above. On either side the entry were the best rooms, the parlor opened only on state occasions, and the spare chamber reserved for such particular company as the minister or some such dignitary. It was the spare chamber which Miss Phenie was preparing for the coming boarders, and it was here that Miss Phosie found her sister, her father and her niece Ora.
"Well, I swan, Phosie!" ejaculated Cap'n Ben as his daughter came in. "You ain't come to call us to dinner yet, hev ye?"
"Not yet," Miss Phosie told him. "I wondered where you all were, and I wanted to ask Phenie if I'd better bake two kinds of cake, or if one, with the gingerbread, would do."
"You'd better bake two," said Miss Phenie, putting an added touch to the mantel by setting an advertising calendar thereon. "They say Miss Elliott's quite particular. Father, you'll have to fix that door; it don't latch, and Miss Elliott won't feel safe."
"Wun't?" said Cap'n Ben pulling up his ponderous weight from the chair in which he sat. "I'd like to know who she thinks is going to carry her off. They'd drop her pretty quick if they did ketch her up by mistake, wouldn't they, Ora?"
Ora giggled and stood off to see the effect of the arrangement of the dressing-bureau on which she had placed a very hard, red velvet pincushion, a shell-covered box and an extremely ornate glass vase.
"It looks real nice," said Miss Phosie admiringly. "I'll go stir up the cake. I guess I can get one in before dinner."
"You go help her, Ora," commanded the girl's grandfather. "I guess Phenie can spare you now."
"I did want her to help me make the bed," said Miss Phenie, a round-faced, rather stout woman, who must have been good looking in her youth, but who, like most of the women on the island, had aged early. Those who had not faded had grown heavy and hard featured. Miss Phosie preserved her gentle expression, but exposure and hard work had seamed the delicate skin and turned the slimness of youth to angularity. Miss Phenie loved ease and was not inclined to do more than she must, therefore she had grown stout, but the sparkling prettiness of youth had given place to a certain coldness of eye and sensuousness of mouth which indicated the growth of selfishness. But for the authority of Cap'n Ben Miss Phosie would have been more put upon than she was.
"Go on, Ora," said her grandfather, as the girl hesitated. "If Phosie has two cakes to bake, she'll need two pairs of hands, and I cal'late one woman's enough to make one bed."
So Ora joined Miss Phosie in the kitchen. She, like her younger aunt, was fair-haired and blue-eyed, with the milk-white skin and delicately tinted cheeks of the northern girl. She was but sixteen and was already ambitious to have "a waist you could span." She therefore wore a belt several inches too small for beauty, unaware that such compression was out of fashion. Her hair was arranged in the extremest of pompadours, but, alas! among her possessions she did not count a toothbrush as her innocent mouth only too plainly evidenced. However since most of her companions were no more particular than herself, she did not realize how much her looks suffered because of her neglect.
Miss Phosie looked up with a smile as her niece came in. "Could Phenie spare you?" she asked.
"She had to. Grandpap said I was to help you."
"That's real nice," said Miss Phosie gratefully. "You just cream the butter and sugar together in this bowl and I'll get the eggs. I must get out my pies first. I hope the cake will turn out firstrate so's the boarders will be satisfied."
"I guess they'll have to be," returned Ora with a little toss of her head. "Nobody asked them to come."
"Now Ora, that ain't the right spirit," reproved Miss Phosie. "They'll pay for what they get, and we hadn't ought to take their money without making a proper return. That would be next door to stealing."
"That's not the way Aunt Phenie talks," answered Ora. "She says if we put ourselves out to accommodate them they'd ought to be satisfied with what they can get."
"We ain't putting ourselves out so very much, and if we are we're doing it in order to earn their money," replied Miss Phosie. "I guess they'll be satisfied, and I don't see the use of talking in that stiff-necked way. The niece will be nice company for you, Ora."
"She won't be then," returned Ora with a quick movement of her spoon. "I can get along without the Highlanders as well as they can without me."
"You hadn't ought to talk that way, Ora," Miss Phosie continued her reproof. "I realize that us natives haven't so much in common with city folks, and yet I'm perfectly willing to be polite to them when they are to me. I haven't a doubt but what they'd treat us well if we went to where they live. I don't believe in being so stand-offish as some are."
Ora made no reply but continued to stir the butter and sugar vigorously.
"We don't know their ways and they don't know ours," Miss Phosie went on, "and while maybe we can't be as intimate with them as we can be with those we've been brought up with, I don't see why we can't be polite and friendly like your grandpap is. Everybody likes and respects him."
"I don't want to be liked and respected except by them I like and respect," retorted Ora obstinately.
"There comes Zerviah Hackett," said Miss Phosie. "She'll want to know everything I suppose. Well, I can't stop to talk. She'll have to go to Phenie."
Miss Zerviah Hackett was the newsmonger of the place. Not an ill-natured gossip at all; quite the contrary, but nothing went on that her vigilant eye did not observe; nothing was planned about which she did not have an opinion. They were often good opinions too, just as her advice was good, and her views of life sound. But, as Miss Phosie often plaintively said: "Zerviah can't even see you darn a stocking without telling you how it ought to be done." Miss Hackett was not the sharp-eyed, angular woman her name would suggest, but was plump and fair, though possessed of a voice which shrilled out like a steamboat whistle, in striking contrast to the unusually pleasant tones of her neighbors. She was a small person, though one whose presence could not be ignored. She now entered the kitchen without knocking,—all had that privilege when they came to Cap'n Ben's,—and throwing off her shawl, she began: "Busy getting ready for your boarders, are you, Phosie? Well, I hear they're coming to-day. I hope Thad Eaton won't be sot by the ears when Miss Elliott gets here. He does hate to have women folks interfering while he's building. It's going to be a right sightly cottage, he says, but I could have told Miss Elliott she'd be kept awake nights by the noise, so near the water."
"She's been here before. She knows what it's like, Zerviah," said Miss Phosie.
"Yes, but she didn't realize it, like as not. She's going to have her front door facing east'ard, too, and she'll regret that, I know."
"I don't see why," returned Miss Phosie.
"Now, Tryphosy Tibbett, you know the storms come that way, and the rain'll beat in, and the wind."
"She won't be here in winter, and it won't matter much in summer."
"Of course it will matter. Well, it ain't my business, I suppose; but I do hate to see things going wrong when they could be bettered. What you making, Ora?"
"Cake," was the laconic reply.
"You've got gingerbread, too, I see. Going to give 'em both? What kind you making?"
Ora told her.
"Well, I s'pose you're bound to feed 'em good, but as long as they ain't going to stay any longer than they can get into their own house, I don't see the odds. Thad cal'lates they'll be in by the middle of June, but I s'pose you know that. He says they'd ought to have had their well dug first, and I say so, too. Ten to one they won't strike water."
"Asa Bates was up with his willow wand and he prophesies they'll get a plenty," Miss Phosie told her.
"Well, I don't gainsay it, but they'll have to board up their windows whilst the men are blowing the well."
"I hear they ain't going to begin the well till fall. They'll use Miss Grey's well this summer. She's given them leave."
"That so? Then maybe they can make out, but I'd have had my well before I did my house. Got the room ready for 'em?"
"Yes, Phenie is in there now."
"Then I'll go look at it. I won't get another chance, maybe." And Miss Zerviah went confidently through to the best room, leaving Miss Phosie and Ora with smiles on their faces and glad to be free of their inquisitive caller.