HAWK ISLAND
An hour later Miss Martha had the escort of her niece down to the shore
again. She peered about alertly for a sign of her boatman.
"Now I told Benny that I shouldn't fail"--she began with annoyance.
"Oh, there he is," for the top of the mast was visible beyond a farther
jutting point of rock. "Benny!" she called. His hand appeared and waved
a signal. "I suppose we shall have to go over there. I should like to
know why he couldn't stay where I told him to. Benny," as they drew
near enough to be heard, "you gave me a start for a minute. Why didn't
you wait for me in that same place?"
Benny glanced toward Sylvia. "Thought yew mightn't care to squat on
that rock all night," he drawled imperturbably.
"What do you mean? Oh--wasn't the tide right?"
"No; most likely it didn't hear what you said. Anyways, it didn't wait.
It kep' on a-goin' down jest the same."
Miss Martha's lips drew in. "You absurd boy. Benny, this is my niece,
another Miss Lacey; and Sylvia, this is Benny Merritt. We couldn't get
along without him at the island; and now we must fly. How's the wind,
Benny?"
"Pretty good chance; we'll have to beat some."
"Well, you mustn't let the boat tip," responded Miss Martha, as she
crept gingerly along the slippery rocks, and helped by Sylvia jumped in
and took her seat. "Don't fall so in love with The Rosy Cloud that you
can't come to see us, Sylvia, and do be careful with your new toy. It
doesn't look much more substantial than a cloud to me. Benny, look
_out_!" For the wind had seized the sail and flapped it noisily before
it set firmly. The last words Sylvia caught were, "You are letting it
tip now. You know I don't like it, Benny."
Sylvia laughed as she sprang up the bank. Even in this brief visit she
had observed how habitually the uppermost thought in her aunt's mind
effervesced into speech, and she saw how natural had been Miss Martha's
lack of repression at Hotel Frisbie. She felt for Benny Merritt with
his nervous passenger, but her sympathy was wasted. When Miss Lacey
sailed alone with Benny she always kept up an intermittent stream of
directions and suggestions to which the boy paid not the slightest
attention.
"Doin' my best, Miss Marthy," he used to reply sometimes. "If ye say so
I'll stop and let ye get out and walk."
Each time the boat had to come about for a new tack, necessitating the
sail's passing over Miss Martha's head, the air was vibrant with her
small shrieks and louder suggestions; but to-day, every time they
settled down for the smooth run, a pensiveness fell upon her.
"The Mill Farm is looking real prosperous, Benny," she remarked during
one of these calms.
"I s'pose so," returned the boy. "More folks comin' to the islands
every summer. More folks to want their truck."
"Seems to me," observed Miss Martha, "I used to hear that things
weren't very pleasant between the mainland folks and the islanders."
"Used to be so. Hated each other, I've heard my father say, but sence
I've been a-growin' up things have changed. We've ben findin' out that
they wasn't all potato vines, and they've ben findin' out that we ain't
all fish scales. My father says Thinkright Johnson's at the bottom o'
the change."
"Thinkright's a good man," returned Miss Martha, and with that she fell
into pensive mood again until time for another acute moment of dodging
the sail and coming about.
To think that in those few hours Judge Trent should have come to take
such an interest in Sylvia. So her thoughts ran. Was it the girl's good
looks, or was it simply that twinges of the judge's conscience had
induced the wish to make the _amende honorable_, and that the gift of
the expensive boat was an effort to reinstate the giver in his own
eyes?
Something of an intimate nature must have passed between them. To what
could "the rosy cloud" have reference which should bring such conscious
color to Sylvia's softly rounded cheek?
Miss Lacey shook her head. "If I only had Thinkright's chance," she
thought, "I'd find out; but men are so queer. Probably he won't make
the least effort. Provoking!"
She was correct in her suspicion. Thinkright did not ask any questions.
He suspected that the judge's interview with his niece might have
brought to light some of her new ideas, and he knew the judge's opinion
of all that class of thought which he termed transcendental; but
however ironical might be the reference in the boat's name, he would
not have gone to the trouble of having it lettered thereon without a
kindly intent.
Thinkright was satisfied, and contented himself with building a small
boathouse on the waterside for Sylvia's new possession. She was his
constant companion during the work, and sat beside him on the grass
while he sawed and hammered, waiting upon him whenever opportunity
offered.
He missed an eagerness of enthusiasm which he would have expected in
the girl regarding the handsome boat. He could not know how fervently
she wished that Uncle Calvin had given her instead the money it had
cost. She could not express this thought to her cousin for obvious
reasons; but as she sat beside him on an old log she built air castles
that grew faster than the little boathouse.
"There isn't anything too good to be true, is there, Thinkright?" she
said to him during a pause one day.
He came over and took a seat beside her, wiping his lined brow with his
handkerchief.
She looked at him wistfully. "I'm expecting something very good to
happen to me," she added.
"That's right; and something has. How about The Rosy Cloud?"
She sighed, and leaned her head against her companion's blue cotton
shoulder.
"It's beautiful. I shall have all sorts of fine times with it. Think of
throwing a lot of cushions inside, and taking a good story, then rowing
out into the middle of the basin to float and read. All the trees would
be leaning forward and beckoning, and I shouldn't know which The Rosy
Cloud would favor."
Thinkright clasped his knee. "The Tide Mill would do its share of
beckoning, remember. Look out for the current."
"The poor old thing!" remarked Sylvia. "Sometimes the mill looks so
dignified and pathetic that I sympathize with it, and then again it
seems just sulky and obstinate."
"We're very apt to read our feelings into the landscape," returned the
other.
"Yes," went on the girl, her eyes as she leaned on her cousin's
shoulder resting on the deserted, weather-beaten building in the
distance, "when I first came, my heart just yearned toward that old
mill. It looked just as I felt. It had made up its mind never to
forgive. I had made up my mind never to forgive. Love has opened my
locked shutters, and do you know, Thinkright, some afternoons those
closed mill blinds seem to be melting in the sun. They grow so soft and
rosy, I watch them fascinated. It seems as if they were giving way and
I find myself expecting to see them slowly turn back. Oh," impulsively,
"I want them to turn back! Couldn't we get a ladder and row out there
some day and climb up and open them?"
Thinkright smiled. "They're nailed tight, dear, and they don't belong
to us."
Sylvia shook her head. "Well," she persisted whimsically, "I believe
they will open some time. I shan't be content until they do; and
somehow or other I shall be mixed up with it."
"Is that the good thing you are expecting?" asked Thinkright, smiling,
"to become a house-breaker?"
"No. Love will open the shutters yet. You don't understand me."
"Nothing that Love should accomplish would surprise me in the least,"
was the response. "Well, what is your hope then,--the thing you
referred to a few minutes ago?"
Sylvia's eyes looked across the water. "I'd better not tell you yet,"
she replied. "It isn't your problem. It's mine."
"Very well," agreed Thinkright. "Just keep remembering 'Thy will be
done,'--His great Will for good. His great Will that all shall be on
earth as it is in heaven; that all shall be good and harmonious; and
then your own little will and its puny strength won't get in the way,
and you will find yourself helping to carry out your Father's designs."
Sylvia took a deep breath. "That is what I want to do. Once I should
have been so happy, so contented to float in my boat with cushions and
a good story!"
"Well," Thinkright smiled, "I hope you're not going to lose that
ability. It has its place."
Sylvia turned her curly head until she met his shining eyes. "I'm too
strong now to play all the time," she said.
Her companion patted her arm. "Mrs. Lem says you are a regular busy
bee."
"Yes, but she did perfectly well without me."
Her companion met her gaze for a silent moment and speculated as to
what its gravity might mean.
"Are you thinking again of the stage, Sylvia?"
"No, no!" she exclaimed vehemently, for instantly a vision of Nat rose
before her. "I"--she hesitated, looked out again to the water and back
at her cousin. She was sorely tempted to tell him, but the old motive
restrained her in time. That was not the way for the solution to come,
merely by making herself a heavier tax upon Thinkright's simple
fortunes.
"Then you have some definite idea of what you would like to do?" he
asked.
His manner was quiet, but there was a note of mental exultation within
him at the healthful symptom.
"Yes, but it isn't time yet to tell you of it."
He put his arm around her. "Very well. What more can we wish to be sure
of than Omnipotence and Omnipresence. You know that it is only good
that is constructive. Evil is destructive, and in the end even destroys
itself. So long as you want only good you are safe in the everlasting
arms and are blessed." The speaker changed his position and his tone.
"This is rest enough now for me, little girl. I must be up and doing,
for we want to get that boat of yours out of dry dock."
It was about a week later that Sylvia made her first visit to Hawk
Island. Thinkright sailed her over. It was the longest trip she had
made by water, and the changing aspect of mainland and islands from
each new viewpoint delighted her.
The landmark which most interested her was the dark clump of trees by
which she had always distinguished Hawk Island. It began to spread and
alter in form as they approached, until it became a low forest,
cresting the hill which gradually rose some seventy feet above the
water. At last they entered a still cove which made a natural harbor in
the island's side, and there Thinkright moored his boat. As soon as
they stepped out upon the shore Sylvia saw a girl hurrying toward them
down the sloping grass, and waving her hand. She wore a short dark
skirt and a white waist and no hat.
"We've been watching you with the glass," she said, greeting them.
"Your note came last night. I'm so glad you had such a perfect
morning."
Her cheeks were brown and her eyes danced with good cheer. "Why, Miss
Sylvia, your aunt told me; yet I was not prepared to see such a change.
There's nothing like Casco Bay, is there?"
Sylvia's gaze clung to the vivacious face, and she had a realization of
the small part which time plays in our mental processes. It seemed to
her that transforming years had passed since that evening when she
shivered outside the door of the Mill Farm, and heard this same
laughing voice within.
"Miss Lacey is watching for us." Edna took Thinkright's arm, and they
began to walk up the path through a green meadow. Snowdrifts of daisies
whitened the field. "The dear things are lasting so much longer than
usual this year," said Edna, as Sylvia exclaimed over their charm. "We
have the last of things out in this exposed spot, you see, and I think
it's quite as pleasant as having the first of them the way you do in
your sheltered nook."
The breeze freshened as they ascended, and at last they stood on the
crest of the green ridge.
To the south of the island the pointed firs made a dark, irregular
sky-line against the azure. Here there were no trees, nothing to
obstruct the illimitable stretches of water and picturesque shore. It
was a nearer and more overwhelming view of what had taken Sylvia's
breath when she discovered the mighty sea on that first day, driving to
the Mill Farm.
How far away seemed that day and the sore heart whose resentment
embittered all the beauty; when her hand was against every man because
she believed every man's hand to be against her.
As the three stood there, watching, in silence, Edna saw the blue eyes
fill, and her heart warmed toward her guest, although she could not
guess at the flood of feeling that forced those bright drops from their
fountain.