FOR SOME DAYS after this, Mrs. Todd's customers came and went past my
windows, and, haying-time being nearly over, strangers began to arrive
from the inland country, such was her widespread reputation. Sometimes
I saw a pale young creature like a white windflower left over into
midsummer, upon whose face consumption had set its bright and wistful
mark; but oftener two stout, hard-worked women from the farms came
together, and detailed their symptoms to Mrs. Todd in loud and cheerful
voices, combining the satisfactions of a friendly gossip with the
medical opportunity. They seemed to give much from their own store of
therapeutic learning. I became aware of the school in which my landlady
had strengthened her natural gift; but hers was always the governing
mind, and the final command, “Take of hy'sop one handful” (or whatever
herb it was), was received in respectful silence. One afternoon, when
I had listened,--it was impossible not to listen, with cottonless
ears,--and then laughed and listened again, with an idle pen in my hand,
during a particularly spirited and personal conversation, I reached for
my hat, and, taking blotting-book and all under my arm, I resolutely
fled further temptation, and walked out past the fragrant green garden
and up the dusty road. The way went straight uphill, and presently I
stopped and turned to look back.
The tide was in, the wide harbor was surrounded by its dark woods, and
the small wooden houses stood as near as they could get to the landing.
Mrs. Todd's was the last house on the way inland. The gray ledges of the
rocky shore were well covered with sod in most places, and the pasture
bayberry and wild roses grew thick among them. I could see the higher
inland country and the scattered farms. On the brink of the hill stood a
little white schoolhouse, much wind-blown and weather-beaten, which was
a landmark to seagoing folk; from its door there was a most beautiful
view of sea and shore. The summer vacation now prevailed, and after
finding the door unfastened, and taking a long look through one of the
seaward windows, and reflecting afterward for some time in a shady place
near by among the bayberry bushes, I returned to the chief place of
business in the village, and, to the amusement of two of the selectmen,
brothers and autocrats of Dunnet Landing, I hired the schoolhouse for
the rest of the vacation for fifty cents a week.
Selfish as it may appear, the retired situation seemed to possess great
advantages, and I spent many days there quite undisturbed, with the
sea-breeze blowing through the small, high windows and swaying the heavy
outside shutters to and fro. I hung my hat and luncheon-basket on an
entry nail as if I were a small scholar, but I sat at the teacher's desk
as if I were that great authority, with all the timid empty benches in
rows before me. Now and then an idle sheep came and stood for a long
time looking in at the door. At sundown I went back, feeling most
businesslike, down toward the village again, and usually met the flavor,
not of the herb garden, but of Mrs. Todd's hot supper, halfway up the
hill. On the nights when there were evening meetings or other public
exercises that demanded her presence we had tea very early, and I was
welcomed back as if from a long absence.
Once or twice I feigned excuses for staying at home, while Mrs. Todd
made distant excursions, and came home late, with both hands full and
a heavily laden apron. This was in pennyroyal time, and when the rare
lobelia was in its prime and the elecampane was coming on. One day she
appeared at the schoolhouse itself, partly out of amused curiosity
about my industries; but she explained that there was no tansy in
the neighborhood with such snap to it as some that grew about the
schoolhouse lot. Being scuffed down all the spring made it grow so much
the better, like some folks that had it hard in their youth, and were
bound to make the most of themselves before they died.