THE END OF THE SEASON
Within a week most of the summer cottages were boarded up and closed
for the winter. Only a few lights still twinkled out at night along
shore. The crickets sang in the dry grass or under some still warm
hearthstone. The waxy cranberries had turned a rosier pink and down
in the marsh hardhack and roseberries disputed the sway of golden rod
and asters. Outside Ira Baldwin's barn was a row of newly hewn decoy
ducks, freshly painted and ready for use. The report of the hunters'
rifles was already heard in the early morning as the "honk! honk!" of
wild geese betokened a flight southward. Strange weirdly-moving fingers
of light played across the northern skies at night, rosy pulsings and
quivering gleams travelled from left to right and back again, growing
and fading and growing again mysteriously.
Still Miss Elliott and Gwen stayed on, and though from the cottage
by the cove the tenants had all gone, Kenneth remained, having
persuaded Cap'n Ben to take him in for the little time he should be on
the island. He had seen his sister, with her children and the maid,
safely on the steamer which should bear them to New York, and then he
had returned with a feeling of possessing the beauty of Fielding's
Island in a new sense, since now, in all its length and breadth were
no summer visitors remaining except himself and the dwellers at Wits'
End. Sheldon woods seemed a vast silence, the barrier of rocks along
the ocean front a fortress with but a solitary sentinel left to watch.
Jagged Island, afar off, appeared unapproachable. The Domhegan's single
trip a day served to give one the feeling of not being cut off entirely
from the outside world, though there was an ever present sense of
indifference to what might be going on in other places. The wizard's
most triumphant hour was near when his fetters would bind so tightly
that no one could set foot outside his realm.
Miss Phosie coddled her new boarder unremittingly, and, because of
their nearer association, Luther Williams and the young man became
closer friends than ever, and spent much time together. Frequently Gwen
made a third in long walks in the crisp air, and sometimes Kenneth
would go on a cruise to a near island with Luther Williams as skipper,
and it was seldom that they returned without a cargo of sketches.
To Daddy Lu Gwen had opened her heart and he had received her
confidences, as she knew he would, sympathetically and with grave
interest. "Of course we are not engaged," Gwen told him. "That wouldn't
do, but I suppose it is what people call an understanding, and we are
very happy. It will be years before we can think of marrying, perhaps
we shall never be able to, but it doesn't matter so long as we love
each other. So, dear Daddy Lu, you will probably see us mooning about
the island for many summers to come. So long as we shall not be living
in the same city we shall have to be separated in winter, but we hope
our summers can be spent here. I shall go on teaching while he is
working, and it will not seem hard to either of us."
"Do you like teaching?" asked Mr. Williams.
"I don't mind it. I love the dear babies, and I get interested when
I am fairly started. Now, with the beautiful summers up here to look
forward to, I shall mind less than ever. I should hate to think I must
do it always till I became a worn-out decrepit old hack. I often
wonder how I should feel to be going on without Aunt Cam, and the three
or four rooms we call home. Sometimes I think that day may come, for
now I don't believe I could ever go to China if occasion offered."
Mr. Williams looked startled. "Do you think it will ever come? Does she
speak of going back?"
"She hints at it sometimes. Perhaps I ought not to tell even you,
though I know you are not a gossip." She smiled, for anything further
from a gossip than Luther Williams could not be imagined. "There is
some one in China," she went on, "some one Aunt Cam met when she went
over there, a man who has been, and still is, devoting his life to the
people in a far-off district. He has been the one man to Aunt Cam, a
hero above all others. She would willingly have joined him in his work,
but he felt that it would be insupportable for a woman in the place
where he believed himself to be the most needed, and so they parted,
although each cared more for the other than for anyone else in the
world. If he should need her at any time, if his health should fail,
and he should go to a more comfortable place, leaving his work to a
younger man, I think she would not hesitate to devote the rest of her
life to him. She put the case before me once, and asked me if I would
be willing to go with her. She feels very responsible for me, dear Aunt
Cam, and I know it is mainly on my account that she stays here and does
not go back."
"There are few women who love like that," said Mr. Williams, after a
pause.
"There are a good many, I think," returned Gwen. "I used to believe I
could be easily persuaded to go with her, but now I know I could not
go, for there is some one as dear to me here as there is dear to me
there. It would tear out Aunt Cam's heart to leave me behind unless it
were in a home of my own, but so would it distress her to stay if she
were needed there."
"Perhaps the question will never arise," said Mr. Williams, "but it
ought to be provided for if it does." He spoke half to himself.
"Perhaps I could find some nice quiet people to board with," Gwen went
on. "At all events I can take care of myself. I don't know why all this
has come up to-day, unless it is because there was a letter from China
in yesterday's mail and Aunt Cam has had a far-off look ever since. She
is splendid, that dear aunt of mine, and I should feel pretty forlorn
and desolate without her. I should pity myself for being an orphan if
it were not for her. As it is, I suppose my lack of relatives has been
a bond of sympathy between Ethel Fuller and myself, for she has no
parents, either, though I don't think her aunt is half so dear as mine."
"If you could marry, you and the boy," said Mr. Williams after a
silence, "it would settle it all, wouldn't it? You could have the home
and the protection without the necessary parents. It would have to come
some day. You would leave your parents, if you had them, for the boy."
He always spoke thus of Kenneth.
"Oh yes, no doubt, for it is what girls do every day."
"That is what I mean. Well, my dear, when the time comes it is probable
there will be a way provided."
"If it hadn't been for you," said Gwen softly, "I might never have come
to my own. I think you scared me, dear Daddy Lu, into giving up any
thought of marrying for money."
"I'm glad of that, very glad," he answered smiling. "I've done
something then to be thankful for."
"I'm the one to be thankful. To think of my losing the 'boy' through
any such hallucination as the idea that I could be happy with anyone
else. I realize that more and more every day in proportion as I know
him better and he grows dearer to me. You've saved me, Daddy Lu. You've
saved my life."
He laid his hand gently on hers. "That's a big thing to say, but I
think maybe you're right. What shall it profit a man if he gain the
whole world and lose--"
"His own soul," Gwen finished the text. "It amounts to that when one
forfeits his best self to a craving for luxury and ease. Aunt Cam says
our best development always comes through sacrifice of some kind."
"She's right."
"So you have helped me to my best development, by showing me how the
life can be more than meat and the body than raiment. I was thinking
more of the meat and the raiment, I am afraid. Dear me, what a serious
talk we are having, full of texts and such things. I feel as if I were
actually preparing for the missionary field. However I am glad to have
had the talk, and shall think of it many times when I am far away."
"That's a time I don't like to think about."
"Then you'd better come, too."
He shook his head. "I'm like a barnacle, glued to the rock by my own
inner forces. I couldn't leave now."
He went to Portland the next day. Kenneth met him as he was coming
home from the boat. "We missed you, old man," said Kenneth. "Gwen and
I thought maybe you'd like a trip to Birch Island or somewhere. It's
pretty sharp, but we shouldn't mind that. We were both saying that it
would be harder to leave you than anybody or anything else." He put
his hand affectionately on the older man's shoulder. "I am thinking
of spending part of my winters in Washington where Gwen will be. Life
is too short for us to waste it apart, if it can be avoided. Say, old
man, why don't you come too? It would do you good to get into the world
again. Why not come down and see the White House?"
Mr. Williams shook his head. "I've been here too long in my shell. I
shouldn't know how to stand a city, now. You would be ashamed of your
old fisherman."
"Not a bit of it. You'd soon fall into the old ways, for I know well
enough you've been a city man."
"Yes," answered Mr. Williams slowly, "I've been a city man." Then,
after a pause, "Do you expect to settle in Washington eventually?
Perhaps, if you do, you'd be willing some time to take in an old fellow
who'd be ready to bear up his end of the householder's burden. It might
make that studio apartment come a little sooner."
"New York is the only place where I could make my bread and butter,
I'm afraid," returned Kenneth. "My mother will be living there, and
I shall put my pride in my pocket--who wouldn't for such a girl as
Gwen?--and shall hope for a mad rush for my pictures from the moneyed
friends of my new papa. Wouldn't New York suit you as well?"
"Never New York, never--" said Mr. Williams with intensity.
"Too bustling and noisy after this beautiful silence, isn't it? Still
it is about the best place for an artist. What city would you suggest,
if we didn't take New York into consideration?"
"Paris maybe, or somewhere abroad would suit me."
"Paris sounds seductive. We'll have to talk this scheme over, we three.
It's good of you to think of it, dear old man. I know what you have in
mind, and that is only the happiness of us two. You're the best friend
I ever had. By the way, you told me once you had been married, that
your wife died years ago. Were there any children?"
"There was a boy--a little fellow. He lived only a week. I think of
him sometimes when I am talking to you. He would have been about your
age. I can't tell you what I felt at losing him. The parental feeling
is pretty strong in me, and I grieved terribly for that little week old
baby. I grieve yet. Things might have been different if he had lived.
He would have been an anchor I could not have cut loose from. As it
was--well, it's a long time ago. One cannot alter the past."
"He can make his future, though," said Kenneth with the hope of youth
strong within him.
"He can in a great measure, if there's much future left him, though it
does appear sometimes as if there must be such a thing as inexorable
fate."
"It was a happy fate that sent us your way," said Kenneth
affectionately. "I think I must adopt you, too, as Gwen has done. You
stand for a good deal more than the pork-packer who has recently become
my step-father."
They went into the house together. Miss Phosie was watching for them,
and had a table spread. The odor of fish and coffee, fresh gingerbread
and baked apples filled the air. The room was piping hot. Under the
stove lay Tinker snoring comfortably. Cap'n Ben was poring over his
paper--now-a-days the mail was soon distributed. Miss Phenie in the
most comfortable chair was knitting a pink "sweaterette" while she
exchanged gossip with Zerviah Hackett. Ground was soon to be broken for
two new cottages which would be ready for the next year, this was one
item of news. Miss Elliott's well was to be started in a few days.
Effie Jackson was going to teach school over on the Neck, and was
keeping company with a young man of that neighborhood who was no one
less than Ora's former lover, Al Daly,--and so it went.
Miss Phenie had lately arisen to the glory of a pompadour, thus
emulating Mrs. Dow. "Who's ten years older than I am, if she's a day,"
said Miss Phenie to Zerviah. The pompadour, very heavy, very black,
overhung Miss Phenie's forehead like a beetling crag. She was very
conscious of it and bore it stiffly, as if she expected it momentarily
to topple over and crush her. Cap'n Ben never tired of poking fun
at it. He looked up now and said, "Why don't you take off your hat,
Phenie, and stay with us awhile?"
Miss Phenie ignored the question and went on with her talk. "As I was
saying, Zerviah, Ora's duty was just as much to me as to Almira, and
her going leaves me pretty much cramped for time."
"She comes over every day and helps a lot," put in Miss Phosie, who
more than Miss Phenie, missed her helper.
"I cal'late you wouldn't be so cramped for time, if you wasn't so
everlastingly particular about that new hair contrivance of yours,"
spoke up Cap'n Ben. "Phenie cal'lates she'll prepare for cold weather
in season," he said with a grin and a nod, as he turned to Miss
Zerviah. "I guess I'll get myself one o' them warm pillows for the top
o' my head," he went on. "Hair's getting kinder thin." He passed his
hand over his bald pate and chuckled. "Keeps the sun out of your eyes
pretty good, too, don't it, Phenie? I never thought your eyes was weak,
but maybe it'll prevent you from having to get glasses. I had to put
'em on before I was your age."
Miss Phenie arose majestically, gathering up her knitting and saying,
"Suppose we go to the settin'-room, Zerviah."
"I saw Obadiah Foster yist'day," shouted out Cap'n Ben, after her.
"He'd just shot a coot. Wanted to know if you wouldn't like a wing to
stick in that new cap he saw you was wearing." Obadiah Foster was a
widower of some months standing. He had already buried three wives, and
it was reported that he was looking out for the fourth, and therefore
Cap'n Ben's witticism was not without point. Every available spinster
or widow on the island had been mentioned by Miss Zerviah as "settin'
her cap" for Obadiah, as Cap'n Ben well knew. He followed the departing
pair to the door and continued his pleasantries by calling, "I say,
Zerviah, why don't you git one of them caps like Phenie's? Obadiah
might shoot another coot." This was too much, as the slamming of the
sitting-room door proclaimed, and Cap'n Ben having had his joke,
returned chuckling, to his paper.
"Now, father, you hadn't ought to be such a tease," said Miss Phosie,
pouring out a cup of coffee for Mr. Williams.
"Phenie hadn't ought to be such an everlasting fool, then," answered
her father. "You'd think she hadn't a namable thing to do, but dress
up her head like a Guinea nigger's. She behaves like a year old colt,
instead of a settled down old mare. Makes me sick." Cap'n Ben gave a
mighty yawn, readjusted his spectacles, and betook himself again to his
paper.
Miss Phosie, having finished serving her boarders, began to clear the
table. Her eyes followed the two men wistfully as they left the room
together. She did not wish Kenneth to go, but she would be pleased
when, for lack of other company, Luther Williams would tarry longer
in the kitchen, to talk to her while her father was absorbed in his
paper. She wondered what had been the errand to town, for it was rarely
that Mr. Williams went. Perhaps he thought he needed winter flannels;
she could tell him that those he had, well mended, would last quite a
while yet. She soon finished washing the few dishes, and sat down to
her knitting. She was making wristlets for her father, and for Luther
Williams. She kept both pairs going, and when Zerviah was present she
always worked on Cap'n Ben's, which were red. Just now she preferred
to work on the others, which were gray. Cap'n Ben liked lively colors,
Luther Williams always chose quiet ones.
Presently the door opened and Ora came in. The pretty color was coming
back to her cheeks, but she looked older, and her blue eyes had an
expression in them which only a woman who has suffered, may know. "Just
a little too late, ain't I, Aunt Phosie?" she said. "I see you have
everything done up. I heard Mr. Williams went to town this morning, and
I knew you'd be later'n usual getting through. You had two dinners to
get, didn't you?"
"Oh, it wasn't a mite of trouble just to set his things on the table,"
returned Miss Phosie.
"Nothing is a trouble to you," said Ora. She had grown much gentler,
and liked to be with her younger aunt more than formerly. "There
doesn't seem to be much to do at our house," she went on. "We clear up
and there's nobody to put things out of order. It's harder work having
men-folks around, but I'd rather have 'em." She sighed a little.
"It must be dull for a young thing like her to spend her days with just
one quiet woman," thought Miss Phosie. "Zerviah and Phenie are in the
other room," she remarked to Ora. "Go in and hear the news. Zerviah's
fetched quite a budget to-day."
Ora shook her head. "I don't want to, Aunt Phosie. She speaks so loud
and says such things about--our needing a man about the house, and
about its being wrong to hug our sorrow and waste our lives in useless
repining, and all that--as if--as if I could ever forget Manny."
"She means well," responded Miss Phosie, "but she's so fond of managing
other folks she can't see beyond her own ideas for 'em. Don't you mind
her, Ora. You ain't wasting your life, not a mite. You've had what a
good many would be thankful for, and that's the love of the man you
cared for. There wasn't ever any clouds between you, and you was free
to love each other all you wanted. It's a good thing to be free to do
that; some never are. They have to hide their feelings from all eyes,
and if the time comes that's come to you they wouldn't be free even to
mourn, except in secret."
"That's true, Aunt Phosie," replied Ora. "And now that the worst has
come I'm glad we did really belong to each other, and were husband and
wife; that's a great comfort to me.
"I'm sure it must be," returned her aunt. "I'm glad, too, Ora."
"Aunt Phenie isn't. She talks about my throwing myself away, and all
that--even now she does."
"Never you mind what folks say. You ain't wasting your life, and it
ain't likely you ever will. I guess as time goes on your duties will be
marked out pretty plain for you, and nobody'll gainsay that they're not
duties. How's Almira?"
"She's pretty smart. She eats better. That reminds me. I thought I'd
get you to let me have some of grandpap's nice good apples, if you have
any to spare. She's real fond of apples."
"Of course you shall have some," Miss Phosie responded cordially. "We
gathered some to-day from the trees down by the potato patch; they're
proper good, too." She went through to the pantry, and saw, passing the
window, Luther Williams and Kenneth pacing slowly. She gave a quick
sigh. "Yes," she murmured, "it's a great thing to have the right to
speak out your feelings. Ora hasn't lived very long, but she's had more
than I've had." Then because it seemed too bold a thought, she thrust
it from her, and diving down into the bag of apples, selected the
finest for Almira who, too, had loved and lost, but had mourned openly.