THE HOME COMING
Mrs. Pennel, too, had seen the white, dove-like cloud on the horizon,
and had hurried to make biscuits, and conduct other culinary
preparations which should welcome the wanderers home.
The sun was just dipping into the great blue sea--a round ball of
fire--and sending long, slanting tracks of light across the top of each
wave, when a boat was moored at the beach, and the minister sprang
out,--not in his suit of ceremony, but attired in fisherman's garb.
"Good afternoon, Mrs. Pennel," he said. "I was out fishing, and I
thought I saw your husband's schooner in the distance. I thought I'd
come and tell you."
"Thank you, Mr. Sewell. I thought I saw it, but I was not certain. Do
come in; the Captain would be delighted to see you here."
"We miss your husband in our meetings," said Mr. Sewell; "it will be
good news for us all when he comes home; he is one of those I depend on
to help me preach."
"I'm sure you don't preach to anybody who enjoys it more," said Mrs.
Pennel. "He often tells me that the greatest trouble about his voyages
to the Banks is that he loses so many sanctuary privileges; though he
always keeps Sunday on his ship, and reads and sings his psalms; but, he
says, after all, there's nothing like going to Mount Zion."
"And little Moses has gone on his first voyage?" said the minister.
"Yes, indeed; the child has been teasing to go for more than a year.
Finally the Cap'n told him if he'd be faithful in the ploughing and
planting, he should go. You see, he's rather unsteady, and apt to be off
after other things,--very different from Mara. Whatever you give her to
do, she always keeps at it till it's done."
"And pray, where is the little lady?" said the minister; "is she gone?"
"Well, Cap'n Kittridge came in this afternoon to take her down to see
Sally. The Cap'n's always so fond of Mara, and she has always taken to
him ever since she was a baby."
"The Captain is a curious creature," said the minister, smiling.
Mrs. Pennel smiled also; and it is to be remarked that nobody ever
mentioned the poor Captain's name without the same curious smile.
"The Cap'n is a good-hearted, obliging creature," said Mrs. Pennel, "and
a master-hand for telling stories to the children."
"Yes, a perfect 'Arabian Nights' Entertainment,'" said Mr. Sewell.
"Well, I really believe the Cap'n believes his own stories," said Mrs.
Pennel; "he always seems to, and certainly a more obliging man and a
kinder neighbor couldn't be. He has been in and out almost every day
since I've been alone, to see if I wanted anything. He would insist on
chopping wood and splitting kindlings for me, though I told him the
Cap'n and Moses had left a plenty to last till they came home."
At this moment the subject of their conversation appeared striding along
the beach, with a large, red lobster in one hand, while with the other
he held little Mara upon his shoulder, she the while clapping her hands
and singing merrily, as she saw the Brilliant out on the open blue sea,
its white sails looking of a rosy purple in the evening light, careering
gayly homeward.
"There is Captain Kittridge this very minute," said Mrs. Pennel, setting
down a tea-cup she had been wiping, and going to the door.
"Good evening, Mis' Pennel," said the Captain. "I s'pose you see your
folks are comin'. I brought down one of these 'ere ready b'iled, 'cause
I thought it might make out your supper."
"Thank you, Captain; you must stay and take some with us."
"Wal', me and the children have pooty much done our supper," said the
Captain. "We made a real fust-rate chowder down there to the cove; but
I'll jist stay and see what the Cap'n's luck is. Massy!" he added, as he
looked in at the door, "if you hain't got the minister there! Wal', now,
I come jist as I be," he added, with a glance down at his clothes.
"Never mind, Captain," said Mr. Sewell; "I'm in my fishing-clothes, so
we're even."
As to little Mara, she had run down to the beach, and stood so near the
sea, that every dash of the tide-wave forced her little feet to tread an
inch backward, stretching out her hands eagerly toward the schooner,
which was standing straight toward the small wharf, not far from their
door. Already she could see on deck figures moving about, and her sharp
little eyes made out a small personage in a red shirt that was among the
most active. Soon all the figures grew distinct, and she could see her
grandfather's gray head, and alert, active form, and could see, by the
signs he made, that he had perceived the little blowy figure that stood,
with hair streaming in the wind, like some flower bent seaward.
And now they are come nearer, and Moses shouts and dances on the deck,
and the Captain and Mrs. Pennel come running from the house down to the
shore, and a few minutes more, and all are landed safe and sound, and
little Mara is carried up to the house in her grandfather's arms, while
Captain Kittridge stops to have a few moments' gossip with Ben Halliday
and Tom Scranton before they go to their own resting-places.
Meanwhile Moses loses not a moment in boasting of his heroic exploits to
Mara.
"Oh, Mara! you've no idea what times we've had! I can fish equal to any
of 'em, and I can take in sail and tend the helm like anything, and I
know all the names of everything; and you ought to have seen us catch
fish! Why, they bit just as fast as we could throw; and it was just
throw and bite,--throw and bite,--throw and bite; and my hands got
blistered pulling in, but I didn't mind it,--I was determined no one
should beat me."
"Oh! did you blister your hands?" said Mara, pitifully.
"Oh, to be sure! Now, you girls think that's a dreadful thing, but we
men don't mind it. My hands are getting so hard, you've no idea. And,
Mara, we caught a great shark."
"A shark!--oh, how dreadful! Isn't he dangerous?"
"Dangerous! I guess not. We served him out, I tell you. He'll never eat
any more people, I tell you, the old wretch!"
"But, poor shark, it isn't his fault that he eats people. He was made
so," said Mara, unconsciously touching a deep theological mystery.
"Well, I don't know but he was," said Moses; "but sharks that we catch
never eat any more, I'll bet you."
"Oh, Moses, did you see any icebergs?"
"Icebergs! yes; we passed right by one,--a real grand one."
"Were there any bears on it?"
"Bears! No; we didn't see any."
"Captain Kittridge says there are white bears live on 'em."
"Oh, Captain Kittridge," said Moses, with a toss of superb contempt; "if
you're going to believe all _he_ says, you've got your hands full."
"Why, Moses, you don't think he tells lies?" said Mara, the tears
actually starting in her eyes. "I think he is _real_ good, and tells
nothing but the truth."
"Well, well, you are young yet," said Moses, turning away with an air of
easy grandeur, "and only a girl besides," he added.
Mara was nettled at this speech. First, it pained her to have her
child's faith shaken in anything, and particularly in her good old
friend, the Captain; and next, she felt, with more force than ever she
did before, the continual disparaging tone in which Moses spoke of her
girlhood.
"I'm sure," she said to herself, "he oughtn't to feel so about girls and
women. There was Deborah was a prophetess, and judged Israel; and there
was Egeria,--she taught Numa Pompilius all his wisdom."
But it was not the little maiden's way to speak when anything thwarted
or hurt her, but rather to fold all her feelings and thoughts inward, as
some insects, with fine gauzy wings, draw them under a coat of horny
concealment. Somehow, there was a shivering sense of disappointment in
all this meeting with Moses. She had dwelt upon it, and fancied so much,
and had so many things to say to him; and he had come home so
self-absorbed and glorious, and seemed to have had so little need of or
thought for her, that she felt a cold, sad sinking at her heart; and
walking away very still and white, sat down demurely by her
grandfather's knee.
"Well, so my little girl is glad grandfather's come," he said, lifting
her fondly in his arms, and putting her golden head under his coat, as
he had been wont to do from infancy; "grandpa thought a great deal about
his little Mara."
The small heart swelled against his. Kind, faithful old grandpa! how
much more he thought about her than Moses; and yet she had thought so
much of Moses. And there he sat, this same ungrateful Moses, bright-eyed
and rosy-cheeked, full of talk and gayety, full of energy and vigor, as
ignorant as possible of the wound he had given to the little loving
heart that was silently brooding under her grandfather's
butternut-colored sea-coat. Not only was he ignorant, but he had not
even those conditions within himself which made knowledge possible. All
that there was developed of him, at present, was a fund of energy,
self-esteem, hope, courage, and daring, the love of action, life, and
adventure; his life was in the outward and present, not in the inward
and reflective; he was a true ten-year old boy, in its healthiest and
most animal perfection. What she was, the small pearl with the golden
hair, with her frail and high-strung organization, her sensitive nerves,
her half-spiritual fibres, her ponderings, and marvels, and dreams, her
power of love, and yearning for self-devotion, our readers may, perhaps,
have seen. But if ever two children, or two grown people, thus
organized, are thrown into intimate relations, it follows, from the very
laws of their being, that one must hurt the other, simply by being
itself; one must always hunger for what the other has not to give.
It was a merry meal, however, when they all sat down to the tea-table
once more, and Mara by her grandfather's side, who often stopped what he
was saying to stroke her head fondly. Moses bore a more prominent part
in the conversation than he had been wont to do before this voyage, and
all seemed to listen to him with a kind of indulgence elders often
accord to a handsome, manly boy, in the first flush of some successful
enterprise. That ignorant confidence in one's self and one's future,
which comes in life's first dawn, has a sort of mournful charm in
experienced eyes, who know how much it all amounts to.
Gradually, little Mara quieted herself with listening to and admiring
him. It is not comfortable to have any heart-quarrel with one's
cherished idol, and everything of the feminine nature, therefore, can
speedily find fifty good reasons for seeing one's self in the wrong and
one's graven image in the right; and little Mara soon had said to
herself, without words, that, of course, Moses couldn't be expected to
think as much of her as she of him. He was handsomer, cleverer, and had
a thousand other things to do and to think of--he was a boy, in short,
and going to be a glorious man and sail all over the world, while she
could only hem handkerchiefs and knit stockings, and sit at home and
wait for him to come back. This was about the _resume_ of life as it
appeared to the little one, who went on from the moment worshiping her
image with more undivided idolatry than ever, hoping that by and by he
would think more of her.
Mr. Sewell appeared to study Moses carefully and thoughtfully, and
encouraged the wild, gleeful frankness which he had brought home from
his first voyage, as a knowing jockey tries the paces of a high-mettled
colt.
"Did you get any time to read?" he interposed once, when the boy stopped
in his account of their adventures.
"No, sir," said Moses; "at least," he added, blushing very deeply, "I
didn't feel like reading. I had so much to do, and there was so much to
see."
"It's all new to him now," said Captain Pennel; "but when he comes to
being, as I've been, day after day, with nothing but sea and sky, he'll
be glad of a book, just to break the sameness."
"Laws, yes," said Captain Kittridge; "sailor's life ain't all
apple-pie, as it seems when a boy first goes on a summer trip with his
daddy--not by no manner o' means."
"But," said Mara, blushing and looking very eagerly at Mr. Sewell,
"Moses has read a great deal. He read the Roman and the Grecian history
through before he went away, and knows all about them."
"Indeed!" said Mr. Sewell, turning with an amused look towards the tiny
little champion; "do you read them, too, my little maid?"
"Yes, indeed," said Mara, her eyes kindling; "I have read them a great
deal since Moses went away--them and the Bible."
Mara did not dare to name her new-found treasure--there was something so
mysterious about that, that she could not venture to produce it, except
on the score of extreme intimacy.
"Come, sit by me, little Mara," said the minister, putting out his hand;
"you and I must be friends, I see."
Mr. Sewell had a certain something of mesmeric power in his eyes which
children seldom resisted; and with a shrinking movement, as if both
attracted and repelled, the little girl got upon his knee.
"So you like the Bible and Roman history?" he said to her, making a
little aside for her, while a brisk conversation was going on between
Captain Kittridge and Captain Pennel on the fishing bounty for the year.
"Yes, sir," said Mara, blushing in a very guilty way.
"And which do you like the best?"
"I don't know, sir; I sometimes think it is the one, and sometimes the
other."
"Well, what pleases you in the Roman history?"
"Oh, I like that about Quintus Curtius."
"Quintus Curtius?" said Mr. Sewell, pretending not to remember.
"Oh, don't you remember him? why, there was a great gulf opened in the
Forum, and the Augurs said that the country would not be saved unless
some one would offer himself up for it, and so he jumped right in, all
on horseback. I think that was grand. I should like to have done that,"
said little Mara, her eyes blazing out with a kind of starry light which
they had when she was excited.
"And how would you have liked it, if you had been a Roman girl, and
Moses were Quintus Curtius? would you like to have him give himself up
for the good of the country?"
"Oh, no, no!" said Mara, instinctively shuddering.
"Don't you think it would be very grand of him?"
"Oh, yes, sir."
"And shouldn't we wish our friends to do what is brave and grand?"
"Yes, sir; but then," she added, "it would be so dreadful _never_ to see
him any more," and a large tear rolled from the great soft eyes and fell
on the minister's hand.
"Come, come," thought Mr. Sewell, "this sort of experimenting is too
bad--too much nerve here, too much solitude, too much pine-whispering
and sea-dashing are going to the making up of this little piece of
workmanship."
"Tell me," he said, motioning Moses to sit by him, "how _you_ like the
Roman history."
"I like it first-rate," said Moses. "The Romans were such smashers, and
beat everybody; nobody could stand against them; and I like Alexander,
too--I think he was splendid."
"True boy," said Mr. Sewell to himself, "unreflecting brother of the
wind and the sea, and all that is vigorous and active--no precocious
development of the moral here."
"Now you have come," said Mr. Sewell, "I will lend you another book."
"Thank you, sir; I love to read them when I'm at home--it's so still
here. I should be dull if I didn't."
Mara's eyes looked eagerly attentive. Mr. Sewell noticed their hungry
look when a book was spoken of.
"And you must read it, too, my little girl," he said.
"Thank you, sir," said Mara; "I always want to read everything Moses
does."
"What book is it?" said Moses.
"It is called Plutarch's 'Lives,'" said the minister; "it has more
particular accounts of the men you read about in history."
"Are there any lives of women?" said Mara.
"No, my dear," said Mr. Sewell; "in the old times, women did not get
their lives written, though I don't doubt many of them were much better
worth writing than the men's."
"I should like to be a great general," said Moses, with a toss of his
head.
"The way to be great lies through books, now, and not through battles,"
said the minister; "there is more done with pens than swords; so, if you
want to do anything, you must read and study."
"Do you think of giving this boy a liberal education?" said Mr. Sewell
some time later in the evening, after Moses and Mara were gone to bed.
"Depends on the boy," said Zephaniah. "I've been up to Brunswick, and
seen the fellows there in the college. With a good many of 'em, going to
college seems to be just nothing but a sort of ceremony; they go because
they're sent, and don't learn anything more'n they can help. That's what
I call waste of time and money."
"But don't you think Moses shows some taste for reading and study?"
"Pretty well, pretty well!" said Zephaniah; "jist keep him a little
hungry; not let him get all he wants, you see, and he'll bite the
sharper. If I want to catch cod, I don't begin with flingin' over a
barrel o' bait. So with the boys, jist bait 'em with a book here and a
book there, and kind o' let 'em feel their own way, and then, if nothin'
will do but a fellow must go to college, give in to him--that'd be _my_
way."
"And a very good one, too!" said Mr. Sewell. "I'll see if I can't bait
my hook, so as to make Moses take after Latin this winter. I shall have
plenty of time to teach him."
"Now, there's Mara!" said the Captain, his face becoming phosphorescent
with a sort of mild radiance of pleasure as it usually was when he spoke
of her; "she's real sharp set after books; she's ready to fly out of her
little skin at the sight of one."
"That child thinks too much, and feels too much, and knows too much for
her years!" said Mr. Sewell. "If she were a boy, and you would take her
away cod-fishing, as you have Moses, the sea-winds would blow away some
of the thinking, and her little body would grow stout, and her mind less
delicate and sensitive. But she's a woman," he said, with a sigh, "and
they are all alike. We can't do much for them, but let them come up as
they will and make the best of it."