I.

Early one morning at Dunnet Landing, as if it were still night, I

waked, suddenly startled by a spirited conversation beneath my window.

It was not one of Mrs. Todd's morning soliloquies; she was not

addressing her plants and flowers in words of either praise or blame.

Her voice was declamatory though perfectly good-humored, while the

second voice, a man's, was of lower pitch and somewhat deprecating.

The sun was just above the sea, and struck straight across my room

through a crack in the blind. It was a strange hour for the arrival of

a guest, and still too soon for the general run of business, even in

that tiny eastern haven where daybreak fisheries and early tides must

often rule the day.

The man's voice suddenly declared itself to my sleepy ears. It was Mr.

William Blackett's.

"Why, sister Almiry," he protested gently, "I don't need none o' your

nostrums!"

"Pick me a small han'ful," she commanded. "No, no, a _small_ han'ful,

I said,--o' them large pennyr'yal sprigs! I go to all the trouble an'

cossetin' of 'em just so as to have you ready to meet such occasions,

an' last year, you may remember, you never stopped here at all the day

you went up country. An' the frost come at last an' blacked it. I

never saw any herb that so objected to gardin ground; might as well try

to flourish mayflowers in a common front yard. There, you can come in

now, an' set and eat what breakfast you 've got patience for. I 've

found everything I want, an' I 'll mash 'em up an' be all ready to put

'em on."

I heard such a pleading note of appeal as the speakers went round the

corner of the house, and my curiosity was so demanding, that I dressed

in haste, and joined my friends a little later, with two unnoticed

excuses of the beauty of the morning, and the early mail boat.

William's breakfast had been slighted; he had taken his cup of tea and

merely pushed back the rest on the kitchen table. He was now sitting

in a helpless condition by the side window, with one of his sister's

purple calico aprons pinned close about his neck. Poor William was

meekly submitting to being smeared, as to his countenance, with a most

pungent and unattractive lotion of pennyroyal and other green herbs

which had been hastily pounded and mixed with cream in the little white

stone mortar.

I had to cast two or three straightforward looks at William to reassure

myself that he really looked happy and expectant in spite of his

melancholy circumstances, and was not being overtaken by retribution.

The brother and sister seemed to be on delightful terms with each other

for once, and there was something of cheerful anticipation in their

morning talk. I was reminded of Medea's anointing Jason before the

great episode of the iron bulls, but to-day William really could not be

going up country to see a railroad for the first time. I knew this to

be one of his great schemes, but he was not fitted to appear in public,

or to front an observing world of strangers. As I appeared he essayed

to rise, but Mrs. Todd pushed him back into the chair.

"Set where you be till it dries on," she insisted. "Land sakes, you'd

think he'd get over bein' a boy some time or 'nother, gettin' along in

years as he is. An' you 'd think he 'd seen full enough o' fish, but

once a year he has to break loose like this, an' travel off way up back

o' the Bowden place--far out o' my beat, 'tis--an' go a trout fishin'!"

Her tone of amused scorn was so full of challenge that William changed

color even under the green streaks.

"I want some change," he said, looking at me and not at her. "'T is

the prettiest little shady brook you ever saw."

"If he ever fetched home more 'n a couple o' minnies, 't would seem

worth while," Mrs. Todd concluded, putting a last dab of the mysterious

compound so perilously near her brother's mouth that William flushed

again and was silent.

A little later I witnessed his escape, when Mrs. Todd had taken the

foolish risk of going down cellar. There was a horse and wagon outside

the garden fence, and presently we stood where we could see him driving

up the hill with thoughtless speed. Mrs. Todd said nothing, but

watched him affectionately out of sight.

"It serves to keep the mosquitoes off," she said, and a moment later it

occurred to my slow mind that she spoke of the penny-royal lotion. "I

don't know sometimes but William's kind of poetical," she continued, in

her gentlest voice. "You 'd think if anything could cure him of it, 't

would be the fish business."

It was only twenty minutes past six on a summer morning, but we both

sat down to rest as if the activities of the day were over. Mrs. Todd

rocked gently for a time, and seemed to be lost, though not poorly,

like Macbeth, in her thoughts. At last she resumed relations with her

actual surroundings. "I shall now put my lobsters on. They'll make us

a good supper," she announced. "Then I can let the fire out for all

day; give it a holiday, same's William. You can have a little one now,

nice an' hot, if you ain't got all the breakfast you want. Yes, I 'll

put the lobsters on. William was very thoughtful to bring 'em over;

William is thoughtful; if he only had a spark o' ambition, there be few

could match him."

This unusual concession was afforded a sympathetic listener from the

depths of the kitchen closet. Mrs. Todd was getting out her old iron

lobster pot, and began to speak of prosaic affairs. I hoped that I

should hear something more about her brother and their island life, and

sat idly by the kitchen window looking at the morning glories that

shaded it, believing that some flaw of wind might set Mrs. Todd's mind

on its former course. Then it occurred to me that she had spoken about

our supper rather than our dinner, and I guessed that she might have

some great scheme before her for the day.

When I had loitered for some time and there was no further word about

William, and at last I was conscious of receiving no attention

whatever, I went away. It was something of a disappointment to find

that she put no hindrance in the way of my usual morning affairs, of

going up to the empty little white schoolhouse on the hill where I did

my task of writing. I had been almost sure of a holiday when I

discovered that Mrs. Todd was likely to take one herself; we had not

been far afield to gather herbs and pleasures for many days now, but a

little later she had silently vanished. I found my luncheon ready on

the table in the little entry, wrapped in its shining old homespun

napkin, and as if by way of special consolation, there was a stone

bottle of Mrs. Todd's best spruce beer, with a long piece of cod line

wound round it by which it could be lowered for coolness into the deep

schoolhouse well.

I walked away with a dull supply of writing-paper and these provisions,

feeling like a reluctant child who hopes to be called back at every

step. There was no relenting voice to be heard, and when I reached the

schoolhouse, I found that I had left an open window and a swinging

shutter the day before, and the sea wind that blew at evening had

fluttered my poor sheaf of papers all about the room.

So the day did not begin very well, and I began to recognize that it

was one of the days when nothing could be done without company. The

truth was that my heart had gone trouting with William, but it would

have been too selfish to say a word even to one's self about spoiling

his day. If there is one way above another of getting so close to

nature that one simply is a piece of nature, following a primeval

instinct with perfect self-forgetfulness and forgetting everything

except the dreamy consciousness of pleasant freedom, it is to take the

course of a shady trout brook. The dark pools and the sunny shallows

beckon one on; the wedge of sky between the trees on either bank, the

speaking, companioning noise of the water, the amazing importance of

what one is doing, and the constant sense of life and beauty make a

strange transformation of the quick hours. I had a sudden memory of

all this, and another, and another. I could not get myself free from

"fishing and wishing."

At that moment I heard the unusual sound of wheels, and I looked past

the high-growing thicket of wild-roses and straggling sumach to see the

white nose and meagre shape of the Caplin horse; then I saw William

sitting in the open wagon, with a small expectant smile upon his face.

"I 've got two lines," he said. "I was quite a piece up the road. I

thought perhaps 't was so you 'd feel like going."

There was enough excitement for most occasions in hearing William speak

three sentences at once. Words seemed but vain to me at that bright

moment. I stepped back from the schoolhouse window with a beating

heart. The spruce-beer bottle was not yet in the well, and with that

and my luncheon, and Pleasure at the helm, I went out into the happy

world. The land breeze was blowing, and, as we turned away, I saw a

flutter of white go past the window as I left the schoolhouse and my

morning's work to their neglected fate.