MRS. TODD HAD taken the onion out of her basket and laid it down upon
the kitchen table. “There's Johnny Bowden come with us, you know,” she
reminded her mother. “He'll be hungry enough to eat his size.”
“I've got new doughnuts, dear,” said the little old lady. “You don't
often catch William 'n' me out o' provisions. I expect you might have
chose a somewhat larger fish, but I'll try an' make it do. I shall have
to have a few extra potatoes, but there's a field full out there,
an' the hoe's leanin' against the well-house, in 'mongst the
climbin'-beans.” She smiled and gave her daughter a commanding nod.
“Land sakes alive! Le's blow the horn for William,” insisted Mrs. Todd,
with some excitement. “He needn't break his spirit so far's to come in.
He'll know you need him for something particular, an' then we can call
to him as he comes up the path. I won't put him to no pain.”
Mrs. Blackett's old face, for the first time, wore a look of trouble,
and I found it necessary to counteract the teasing spirit of Almira.
It was too pleasant to stay indoors altogether, even in such rewarding
companionship; besides, I might meet William; and, straying out
presently, I found the hoe by the well-house and an old splint basket at
the woodshed door, and also found my way down to the field where there
was a great square patch of rough, weedy potato-tops and tall ragweed.
One corner was already dug, and I chose a fat-looking hill where the
tops were well withered. There is all the pleasure that one can have in
gold-digging in finding one's hopes satisfied in the riches of a good
hill of potatoes. I longed to go on; but it did not seem frugal to dig
any longer after my basket was full, and at last I took my hoe by the
middle and lifted the basket to go back up the hill. I was sure that
Mrs. Blackett must be waiting impatiently to slice the potatoes into the
chowder, layer after layer, with the fish.
“You let me take holt o' that basket, ma'am,” said the pleasant, anxious
voice behind me.
I turned, startled in the silence of the wide field, and saw an elderly
man, bent in the shoulders as fishermen often are, gray-headed and
clean-shaven, and with a timid air. It was William. He looked just like
his mother, and I had been imagining that he was large and stout like
his sister, Almira Todd; and, strange to say, my fancy had led me to
picture him not far from thirty and a little loutish. It was necessary
instead to pay William the respect due to age.
I accustomed myself to plain facts on the instant, and we said
good-morning like old friends. The basket was really heavy, and I put
the hoe through its handle and offered him one end; then we moved easily
toward the house together, speaking of the fine weather and of mackerel
which were reported to be striking in all about the bay. William had
been out since three o'clock, and had taken an extra fare of fish.
I could feel that Mrs. Todd's eyes were upon us as we approached the
house, and although I fell behind in the narrow path, and let William
take the basket alone and precede me at some little distance the rest of
the way, I could plainly hear her greet him.
“Got round to comin' in, didn't you?” she inquired, with amusement.
“Well, now, that's clever. Didn't know's I should see you to-day,
William, an' I wanted to settle an account.”
I felt somewhat disturbed and responsible, but when I joined them they
were on most simple and friendly terms. It became evident that, with
William, it was the first step that cost, and that, having once joined
in social interests, he was able to pursue them with more or less
pleasure. He was about sixty, and not young-looking for his years, yet
so undying is the spirit of youth, and bashfulness has such a power
of survival, that I felt all the time as if one must try to make the
occasion easy for some one who was young and new to the affairs of
social life. He asked politely if I would like to go up to the great
ledge while dinner was getting ready; so, not without a deep sense of
pleasure, and a delighted look of surprise from the two hostesses,
we started, William and I, as if both of us felt much younger than we
looked. Such was the innocence and simplicity of the moment that when
I heard Mrs. Todd laughing behind us in the kitchen I laughed too, but
William did not even blush. I think he was a little deaf, and he stepped
along before me most businesslike and intent upon his errand.
We went from the upper edge of the field above the house into a smooth,
brown path among the dark spruces. The hot sun brought out the fragrance
of the pitchy bark, and the shade was pleasant as we climbed the hill.
William stopped once or twice to show me a great wasps'-nest close by,
or some fishhawks'-nests below in a bit of swamp. He picked a few sprigs
of late-blooming linnaea as we came out upon an open bit of pasture at
the top of the island, and gave them to me without speaking, but he
knew as well as I that one could not say half he wished about linnaea.
Through this piece of rough pasture ran a huge shape of stone like the
great backbone of an enormous creature. At the end, near the woods, we
could climb up on it and walk along to the highest point; there above
the circle of pointed firs we could look down over all the island, and
could see the ocean that circled this and a hundred other bits of island
ground, the mainland shore and all the far horizons. It gave a sudden
sense of space, for nothing stopped the eye or hedged one in,--that
sense of liberty in space and time which great prospects always give.
“There ain't no such view in the world, I expect,” said William
proudly, and I hastened to speak my heartfelt tribute of praise; it was
impossible not to feel as if an untraveled boy had spoken, and yet one
loved to have him value his native heath.