WITS' END
BY AMY E. BLANCHARD
_Author of "Two Girls," "Three Pretty Maids," "A Girl of 76,"
"Janet's College Career," "A Journey of Joy," etc._
_Illustrated by
L. J. BRIDGMAN_
_BOSTON
DANA ESTES & COMPANY
PUBLISHERS_
_Copyright, 1909_
BY DANA ESTES & COMPANY
_All rights reserved_
_Electrotyped and Printed by
THE COLONIAL PRESS
C. H. Simonds & Co., Boston, U.S.A._
CONTENTS
I. THE ISLAND
II. THE COTTAGE
III. A HELPER
IV. A TEMPEST AND A TEAPOT
V. THE SINGING WAVES
VI. PEBBLY BEACH
VII. WHITE HORSES
VIII. SUSPICIONS
IX. IF IT WERE YOUR DAUGHTER
X. OVER THE CHAFING-DISH
XI. DADDY LU
XII. A BUNDLE OF LETTERS
XIII. "THREE FISHERS WENT SAILING"
XIV. "THE CLOUDS YE SO MUCH DREAD"
XV. ON THE DECK OF THE DOMHEGAN
XVI. "'TWIXT TIDE AND TIDE'S RETURNING"
XVII. THE END OF THE SEASON
XVIII. ON HASKINS' ISLAND
XIX. A TALE THAT IS TOLD
XX. IN ANOTHER YEAR
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
"HE STOPPED SHORT AT THE SIGHT OF THE GIRL"
"HE BENT DOWN TO OBSERVE HER MORE CLOSELY"
"'UNFORTUNATELY, I AM NOT A MINIATURE PAINTER'"
"'THAT LAZY MANNY SETTIN' OUTSIDE ON THE BACK PORCH'"
"'IF YOU DON'T MIND IT, I'LL CALL YOU DADDY LU'"
"'GOOD EVENING, MR. HILARY'"
"HE CAUGHT HER HAND AND KISSED THE BLUE-VEINED WRIST"
WITS' END
CHAPTER I
THE ISLAND
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.