see her top-s'ils over there beyond the p'int, where she was to
anchor. Well, I thank Heaven 'Lisha was averse to goin' to sea,"
declared the mother.
"There's dangers ashore, Lucy Ann," said the grandfather, solemnly;
but there was no answer, and they sat there in silence until the old
man grew drowsy again.
"Yisterday was the first time it fell onto my heart that 'Lisha was
goin' off," the mother began again, after a time had passed. "P'r'aps
folks was right about our needing of him. I've been workin' every way
I could to further him and git him a real good chance up to Boston,
and now that we've got to part with him I don't see how to put up with
it."
"All nateral," insisted the old man. "My mother wept the night through
before I was goin' to sail on my first v'y'ge; she was kind of
satisfied, though, when I come home next summer, grown a full man,
with my savin's in my pocket, an' I had a master pretty little figured
shawl I'd bought for her to Bristol."
"I don't want no shawls. Partin' is partin' to me," said the woman.
"'T ain't everybody can stand in her fore-door an' see the chimbleys
o' three child'n's houses without a glass," he tried eagerly to
console her. "All ready an' willin' to do their part for you, so as
you could let 'Lisha go off and have his chance."
"I don't know how it is," she answered, "but none on 'em never give me
the rooted home feelin' that 'Lisha has. They was more varyin' and
kind o' fast growin' and scatterin'; but 'Lisha was always 'Lisha when
he was a babe, and I settled on him for the one to keep with me."
"Then he's just the kind to send off, one you ain't got to worry
about. They're all good child'n," said the man. "We've reason to be
thankful none on 'em's been like some young sprigs, more grief 'n
glory to their folks. An' I ain't regrettin' 'Lisha's goin' one mite;
I believe you'd rather go on doin' for him an' cossetin'. I think 't
was high time to shove him out o' the nest."
"You ain't his mother," said Lucy Ann.
"What be you goin' to give him for his breakfast?" asked the stern
grandfather, in a softened, less business-like voice.
"I don't know's I'd thought about it, special, sir. I did lay aside
that piece o' apple pie we had left yisterday from dinner," she
confessed.
"Fry him out a nice little crisp piece o' pork, Lucy Ann, an' 't will
relish with his baked potatoes. He'll think o' his breakfast more
times 'n you expect. I know a lad's feelin's when home's put behind
him."
The sun was up clear and bright over the broad sea inlet to the
eastward, but the shining water struck the eye by its look of vacancy.
It was broad daylight, and still so early that no sails came stealing
out from the farmhouse landings, or even from the gray groups of
battered fish-houses that overhung, here and there, a sheltered cove.
Some crows and gulls were busy in the air; it was the time of day when
the world belongs more to birds than to men.
"Poor 'Lisha!" the mother went on compassionately. "I expect it has
been a long night to him. He seemed to take it in, as he was goin' to
bed, how 't was his last night to home. I heard him thrashin' about
kind o' restless, sometimes."
"Come, Lucy Ann, the boy ought to be stirrin'!" exclaimed the old
sailor, without the least show of sympathy. "He's got to be ready when
John Sykes comes, an' he ain't so quick as some lads."
The mother rose with a sigh, and went into the house. After her own
sleepless night, she dreaded to face the regretful, sleepless eyes of
her son; but as she opened the door of his little bedroom, there lay
Elisha sound asleep and comfortable to behold. She stood watching him
with gloomy tenderness until he stirred uneasily, his consciousness
roused by the intentness of her thought, and the mysterious current
that flowed from her wistful, eager eyes.
But when the lad waked, it was to a joyful sense of manliness and
responsibility; for him the change of surroundings was coming through
natural processes of growth, not through the uprooting which gave his
mother such an aching heart.
A little later Elisha came out to the breakfast-table, arrayed in his
best sandy-brown clothes set off with a bright blue satin cravat,
which had been the pride and delight of pleasant Sundays and rare
holidays. He already felt unrelated to the familiar scene of things,
and was impatient to be gone. For one thing, it was strange to sit
down to breakfast in Sunday splendor, while his mother and grandfather
and little sister Lydia were in their humble every-day attire. They
ate in silence and haste, as they always did, but with a new
constraint and awkwardness that forbade their looking at one another.
At last the head of the household broke the silence with simple
straightforwardness.
"You've got an excellent good day, 'Lisha. I like to have a fair start
myself. 'T ain't goin' to be too hot; the wind's working into the
north a little."
"Yes, sir," responded Elisha.
"The great p'int about gittin' on in life is bein' able to cope with
your headwinds," continued the old man earnestly, pushing away his
plate. "Any fool can run before a fair breeze, but I tell ye a good
seaman is one that gits the best out o' his disadvantages. You won't
be treated so pretty as you expect in the store, and you'll git plenty
o' blows to your pride; but you keep right ahead, and if you can't run
before the wind you can always beat. I ain't no hand to preach, but
preachin' ain't goin' to sarve ye now. We've gone an' fetched ye up
the best we could, your mother an' me, an' you can't never say but
you've started amongst honest folks. If a vessel's built out o' sound
timber an' has got good lines for sailin', why then she's seaworthy;
but if she ain't, she ain't; an' a mess o' preachin' ain't goin' to
alter her over. Now you're standin' out to sea, my boy, an' you can
bear your home in mind and work your way, same's plenty of others has
done."
It was a solemn moment; the speaker's voice faltered, and little Lydia
dried her tearful blue eyes with her gingham apron. Elisha hung his
head, and patted the old spotted cat which came to rub herself against
his trowsers-leg. The mother rose hastily, and hurried into the pantry
close by. She was always an appealing figure, with her thin shoulders
and faded calico gowns; it was difficult to believe that she had once
been the prettiest girl in that neighborhood. But her son loved her in
his sober, undemonstrative way, and was full of plans for coming home,
rich and generous enough to make her proud and happy. He was half
pleased and half annoyed because his leave-taking was of such deep
concern to the household.
"Come, Lyddy, don't you take on," he said, with rough kindliness.
"Let's go out, and I'll show you how to feed the pig and 'tend to the
chickens. You'll have to be chief clerk when I'm gone."
They went out to the yard, hand in hand. Elisha stopped to stroke the
old cat again, as she ran by his side and mewed. "I wish I was off and
done with it; this morning does seem awful long," said the boy.
"Ain't you afraid you'll be homesick an' want to come back?" asked the
little sister timidly; but Elisha scorned so poor a thought.
"You'll have to see if grandpa has 'tended to these things, the pig
an' the chickens," he advised her gravely. "He forgets 'em sometimes
when I'm away, but he would be cast down if you told him so, and you
just keep an eye open, Lyddy. Mother's got enough to do inside the
house. But grandsir'll keep her in kindlin's; he likes to set and chop
in the shed rainy days, an' he'll do a sight more if you'll set with
him, an' let him get goin' on his old seafarin' times."
Lydia nodded discreetly.
"An', Lyddy, don't you loiter comin' home from school, an' don't play
out late, an' get 'em fussy, when it comes cold weather. And you tell
Susy Draper,"--the boy's voice sounded unconcerned, but Lydia glanced
at him quickly,--"you tell Susy Draper that I was awful sorry she was
over to her aunt's, so I couldn't say good-by."
Lydia's heart was the heart of a woman, and she comprehended. Lydia
nodded again, more sagely than before.
"See here," said the boy suddenly. "I'm goin' to let my old woodchuck
out."
Lydia's face was blank with surprise. "I thought you promised to sell
him to big Jim Hooper."
"I did, but I don't care for big Jim Hooper; you just tell him I let
my wood-chuck go."
The brother and sister went to their favorite playground between the
ledges, not far from the small old barn. Here was a clumsy box with
wire gratings, behind which an untamed little wild beast sat up and
chittered at his harmless foes. "He's a whopping old fellow," said
Elisha admiringly. "Big Jim Hooper sha'n't have him!" and as he opened
the trap, Lydia had hardly time to perch herself high on the ledge,
before the woodchuck tumbled and scuttled along the short green turf,
and was lost among the clumps of juniper and bayberry just beyond.
"I feel just like him," said the boy. "I want to get up to Boston just
as bad as that. See here, now!" and he flung a gallant cart-wheel of
himself in the same direction, and then stood on his head and waved
his legs furiously in the air. "I feel just like that."
Lydia, who had been tearful all the morning, looked at him in vague
dismay. Only a short time ago she had never been made to feel that her
brother was so much older than herself. They had been constant
playmates; but now he was like a grown man, and cared no longer for
their old pleasures. There was all possible difference between them
that there can be between fifteen years and twelve, and Lydia was
nothing but a child.
"Come, come, where be ye?" shouted the old grandfather, and they both
started guiltily. Elisha rubbed some dry grass out of his
short-cropped hair, and the little sister came down from her ledge. At
that moment the real pang of parting shot through her heart; her
brother belonged irrevocably to a wider world.
"Ma'am Stover has sent for ye to come over; she wants to say good-by
to ye!" shouted the grandfather, leaning on his two canes at the end
of the bam. "Come, step lively, an' remember you ain't got none too
much time, an' the boat ain't goin' to wait a minute for nobody."
"Ma'am Stover?" repeated the boy, with a frown. He and his sister knew
only too well the pasture path between the two houses. Ma'am Stover
was a bedridden woman, who had seen much trouble,--a town charge in
her old age. Her neighbors gave to her generously out of their own
slender stores. Yet with all this poverty and dependence, she held
firm sway over the customs and opinions of her acquaintance, from the
uneasy bed where she lay year in and year out, watching the far sea
line beyond a pasture slope.
The young people walked fast, sometimes running a little way,
light-footed, the boy going ahead, and burst into their neighbor's
room out of breath.
She was calm and critical, and their excitement had a sudden chill.
"So the great day's come at last, 'Lisha?" she asked; at which 'Lisha
was conscious of unnecessary aggravation.
"I don't know's it's much of a day--to anybody but me," he added,
discovering a twinkle in her black eyes that was more sympathetic than
usual. "I expected to stop an' see you last night; but I had to go
round and see all our folks, and when I got back 't was late and the
tide was down, an' I knew that grandsir couldn't git the boat up all
alone to our lower landin'."
"Well, I didn't forgit you, but I thought p'r'aps you might forgit me,
an' I'm goin' to give ye somethin'. 'T is for your folks' sake; I want
ye to tell 'em so. I don't want ye never to part with it, even if it
fails to work and you git proud an' want a new one. It's been a sight
o' company to me." She reached up, with a flush on her wrinkled cheeks
and tears in her eyes, and took a worn old silver watch from its nail,
and handed it, with a last look at its white face and large gold
hands, to the startled boy.
"Oh, I can't take it from ye, Ma'am Stover. I'm just as much obliged
to you," he faltered.
"There, go now, dear, go right along." said the old woman, turning
quickly away. "Be a good boy for your folks' sake. If so be that I'm
here when you come home, you can let me see how well you've kep' it."
The boy and girl went softly out, leaving the door wide open, as Ma'am
Stover liked to have it in summer weather, her windows being small and
few. There were neighbors near enough to come and shut it, if a heavy
shower blew up. Sometimes the song sparrows and whippoorwills came
hopping in about the little bare room.
"I felt kind of'shamed to carry off her watch," protested Elisha, with
a radiant face that belied his honest words.
"Put it on," said proud little Lydia, trotting alongside; and he
hooked the bright steel chain into his buttonhole, and looked down to
see how it shone across his waistcoat. None of his friends had so fine
a watch; even his grandfather's was so poor a timekeeper that it was
rarely worn except as a decoration on Sundays or at a funeral. They
hurried home. Ma'am Stover, lying in her bed, could see the two slight
figures nearly all the way on the pasture path; flitting along in
their joyful haste.
It was disappointing that the mother and grandfather had so little to
say about the watch. In fact, Elisha's grandfather only said "Pore
creatur'" once or twice, and turned away, rubbing his eyes with the
back of his hand. If Ma'am Stover had chosen to give so rich a gift,
to know the joy of such generosity, nobody had a right to protest. Yet
nobody knew how much the poor wakeful soul would miss the only one of
her meagre possessions that seemed alive and companionable in lonely
hours. Somebody had said once that there were chairs that went about
on wheels, made on purpose for crippled persons like Ma'am Stover; and
Elisha's heart was instantly filled with delight at the remembrance.
Perhaps before long, if he could save some money and get ahead, he
would buy one of those chairs and send it down from Boston; and a new
sense of power filled his honest heart. He had dreamed a great many
dreams already of what he meant to do with all his money, when he came
home rich and a person of consequence, in summer vacations.
The large leather valise was soon packed, and its owner carried it out
to the roadside, and put his last winter's overcoat and a great new
umbrella beside it, so as to be ready when John Sykes came with the
wagon. He was more and more anxious to be gone, and felt no sense of
his old identification with the home interests. His mother said sadly
that he would be gone full soon enough, when he joined his grandfather
in accusing Mr. Sykes of keeping them waiting forever and making him
miss the boat. There were three rough roundabout miles to be traveled
to the steamer landing, and the Sykes horses were known to be slow.
But at last the team came nodding in sight over a steep hill in the
road.
Then the moment of parting had come, the moment toward which all the
long late winter and early summer had looked. The boy was leaving his
plain little home for the great adventure of his life's fortunes.
Until then he had been the charge and anxiety of his elders, and under
their rule and advice. Now he was free to choose; his was the power of
direction, his the responsibility; for in the world one must be ranked
by his own character and ability, and doomed by his own failures. The
boy lifted his burden lightly, and turned with an eager smile to say
farewell. But the old people and little Lydia were speechless with
grief; they could not bear to part with the pride and hope and boyish
strength, that were all their slender joy. The worn-out old man, the
anxious woman who had been beaten and buffeted by the waves of poverty
and sorrow, the little sister with her dreaming heart, stood at the
bars and hungrily watched him go away. They feared success for him
almost as much as failure. The world was before him now, with its
treasures and pleasures, but with those inevitable disappointments and
losses which old people know and fear; those sorrows of incapacity and
lack of judgment which young hearts go out to meet without foreboding.
It was a world of love and favor to which little Lydia's brother had
gone; but who would know her fairy prince, in that disguise of a
country boy's bashfulness and humble raiment from the cheap counter of
a country store? The household stood rapt and silent until the farm
wagon had made its last rise on the hilly road and disappeared.
"Well, he's left us now," said the sorrowful, hopeful old grandfather.
"I expect I've got to turn to an' be a boy again myself. I feel to
hope 'Lisha'll do as well as we covet for him. I seem to take it in,
all my father felt when he let me go off to sea. He stood where I'm
standin' now, an' I was just as triflin' as pore 'Lisha, and felt full
as big as a man. But Lord! how I give up when it come night, an' I
took it in I was gone from home!"
"There, don't ye, father," said the pale mother gently. She was, after
all, the stronger of the two. "'Lisha's good an' honest-hearted.
You'll feel real proud a year from now, when he gits back. I'm so glad
he's got his watch to carry,--he did feel so grand. I expect them poor
hens is sufferin'; nobody's thought on 'em this livin' mornin'. You'd
better step an' feed 'em right away, sir." She could hardly speak for
sorrow and excitement, but the old man was diverted at once, and
hobbled away with cheerful importance on his two canes. Then she
looked round at the poor, stony little farm almost angrily. "He'd no
natural turn for the sea, 'Lisha hadn't; but I might have kept him
with me if the land was good for anything."
Elisha felt as if lie were in a dream, now that his great adventure
was begun. He answered John Sykes's questions mechanically, and his
head was a little dull and dazed. Then he began to fear that the slow
plodding of the farm horses would make him too late for the steamboat,
and with sudden satisfaction pulled out the great watch to see if
there were still time enough to get to the landing. He was filled with
remorse because it was impossible to remember whether he had thanked
Ma'am Stover for her gift. It seemed like a thing of life and
consciousness as he pushed it back into his tight pocket. John Sykes
looked at him curiously. "Why, that's old Ma'am Stover's timepiece,
ain't it? Lend it to ye, did she?"
"Gave it to me," answered Elisha proudly.
"You be careful of that watch," said the driver soberly; and Elisha
nodded.
"Well, good-day to ye; be a stiddy lad," advised John Sykes, a few
minutes afterward. "Don't start in too smart an' scare 'm up to
Boston. Pride an' ambition was the downfall o' old Cole's dog. There,
sonny, the bo't ain't nowheres in sight, for all your fidgetin'!"
They both smiled broadly at the humorous warning, and as the old wagon
rattled away, Elisha stood a moment looking after it; then he went
down to the wharf by winding ways among piles of decayed timber and
disused lobster-pots. A small group of travelers and spectators had
already assembled, and they stared at him in a way that made him feel
separated from his kind, though some of them had come to see him
depart. One unenlightened acquaintance inquired if Elisha were
expecting friends by that morning's boat; and when he explained that
he was going away himself, asked kindly whether it was to be as far as
Bath. Elisha mentioned the word "Boston" with scorn and compassion,
but he did not feel like discussing his brilliant prospects now, as he
had been more than ready to do the week before. Just then a deaf old
woman asked for the time of day. She sat next him on the battered
bench.
"Be you going up to Bath, dear?" she demanded suddenly; and he said
yes. "Guess I'll stick to you, then, fur's you go; 't is kind o' blind
in them big places." Elisha faintly nodded a meek but grudging assent;
then, after a few moments, he boldly rose, tall umbrella in hand, and
joined the talkative company of old and young men at the other side of
the wharf. They proceeded to make very light of a person's going to
Boston to enter upon his business career; but, after all, their
thoughts were those of mingled respect and envy. Most of them had seen
Boston, but no one save Elisha was going there that day to stay for a
whole year. It made him feel like a city man.
The steamer whistled loud and hoarse before she came in sight, but
presently the gay flags showed close by above the pointed spruces.
Then she came jarring against the wharf, and the instant bustle and
hurry, the strange faces of the passengers, and the loud rattle of
freight going on board, were as confusing and exciting as if a small
piece of Boston itself had been dropped into that quiet cove.
The people on the wharf shouted cheerful good-byes, to which the young
traveler responded; then he seated himself well astern to enjoy the
views, and felt as if he had made a thousand journeys. He bought a
newspaper, and began to read it with much pride and a beating heart.
The little old woman came and sat beside him, and talked straight on
whether he listened or not, until he was afraid of what the other
passengers might think, but nobody looked that way, and he could not
find anything in the paper that he cared to read. Alone, but
unfettered and aflame with courage; to himself he was not the boy who
went away, but the proud man who one day would be coming home.
"Goin' to Boston, be ye?" asked the old lady for the third time; and
it was still a pleasure to say yes, when the boat swung round, and
there, far away on its gray and green pasture slope, with the dark
evergreens standing back, were the low gray house, and the little
square barn, and the lines of fence that shut in his home. He strained
his eyes to see if any one were watching from the door. He had almost
forgotten that they could see him still. He sprang to the boat's side:
yes, his mother remembered; there was something white waving from the
doorway. The whole landscape faded from his eyes except that faraway
gray house; his heart leaped back with love and longing; he gazed and
gazed, until a height of green forest came between and shut the
picture out. Then the country boy went on alone to make his way in the
wide world.
IN DARK NEW ENGLAND DAYS.
I.
The last of the neighbors was going home; officious Mrs. Peter Downs
had lingered late and sought for additional housework with which to
prolong her stay. She had talked incessantly, and buzzed like a busy
bee as she helped to put away the best crockery after the funeral
supper, while the sisters Betsey and Hannah Knowles grew every moment
more forbidding and unwilling to speak. They lighted a solitary small
oil lamp at last, as if for Sunday evening idleness, and put it on the
side table in the kitchen.
"We ain't intending to make a late evening of it," announced Betsey,
the elder, standing before Mrs. Downs in an expectant, final way,
making an irresistible opportunity for saying good-night. "I'm sure
we're more than obleeged to ye,--ain't we, Hannah?--but I don't feel's
if we ought to keep ye longer. We ain't going to do no more to-night,
but set down a spell and kind of collect ourselves, and then make for
bed."
Susan Downs offered one more plea. "I'd stop all night with ye an'
welcome; 't is gettin' late--an' dark," she added plaintively; but the
sisters shook their heads quickly, while Hannah said that they might
as well get used to staying alone, since they would have to do it
first or last. In spite of herself Mrs. Downs was obliged to put on
her funeral best bonnet and shawl and start on her homeward way.