Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Stacy Brown, Emily and the
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[Illustration: CAPE COD FOLKS.]
CAPE COD
FOLKS
BY
SARAH P. MCLEAN GREENE
(SALLY PRATT McLEAN)
_With Illustrations from the Play_
NEW YORK
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS
Copyrighted, 1881,
By A. WILLIAMS & Co.
Copyrighted, 1904,
BY DEWOLFE, FISKE & Co.
TO W.N.G.
CONTENTS.
I. ON A MISSION
II. I BLOW THE HORN
III. THE BEAUX OF WALLENCAMP PERFORM A GRAVE DUTY
IV. THE TURKEY MOGUL ARRIVES
V. GRANDMA KEELER GETS GRANDPA READY FOR SUNDAY SCHOOL
VI. BECKY AND THE CRADLEBOW
VII. LUTE CRADLEBOW KISSES THE TEACHER
VIII. FESTIVITIES AT THE ARK
IX. LOVELL BARLOW "POPS THE QUESTION."
X. A LETTER FROM THE FISHERMAN
XI. A WALLENCAMP FUNERAL
XII. BECKY'S CONFESSION
XIII. A MILD WINTER ON THE CAPE
XIV. RESCUED BY THE CRADLEBOW
XV. DAVID ROLLIN IN THE SCHOOL-ROOM
XVI. GEORGE OLVER'S LOVE FOR BECKY
XVII. TEACHER HAS THE FEVER.--DEATH OF LITTLE BESSIE
XVIII. LUTE CRADLEBOW GIVES THE TEACHER A NEW CHAIR
XIX. DEATH OF THE CRADLEBOW
XX. GEORGE OLVER'S ORATION
XXI. FAREWELL TO WALLENCAMP
[Illustration]
CHAPTER I.
ON A MISSION.
"Lo, on a narrer neck o' land,
'Twixt two unbounded seas, I stand!"
Aunt Sibylla was not sporting, now, in the airy realms of metaphor. Aunt
Sibylla stood upon Cape Cod, and her voice rang out with that peculiar
sweep and power which the presence of a dread reality alone can give.
Something of the precariousness of her situation, too, was expressed in
The wild, alarming, though graceful, gesture of her arms.
It was before the long-projected canal separating Cape Cod from the
mainland had been put under active process of preparation.
It was at an evening meeting in the Wallencamp school-house. A row of
dingy, smoking lanterns had been set against the wall and afforded the
only light cast upon the scene. Aunt Sibylla Cradlebow, the speaker, was
tall and dark-eyed, with an almost superhuman litheness of body, and a
weird, beautiful face.
"And, oh, my dear brothers and sisters and onconvarted friends!" she
continued; "how little do we realize the reskiness of our situwation
here on the Cape! Here we stand with them ar identical unbounded seas a
rollin' up on ary side of us! the world a pintin' at us as them that
should be always ready, with our lamps trimmed and burnin'! and, yit, oh
my dear brothers and sisters and onconvarted friends! as fur as I have
been inland--and I have been a consid'able ways inland, as you all know,
whar it would seem no more than nateral that folks should settle down
kind o' safe and easy on a dry land univarse--I say, as fur as I have
been inland, I never see sech keeryins on and carnal works, sech
keerlessness for the present and onconsarn for the futur', as I have
amongst the benighted critturs who stand before me this evenin', a
straddlin' this poor, old, Godforsaken Pot Hook!"
Clearer and louder grew Aunt Sibylla's tones; her eyes lightened with
terrible meaning; her words flowed with an unction that was unmistakable;
and, at length, "Oh, run for the Ark, ye poor, lost sinners," she
exclaimed. "Oh, run for the Ark, my onconvarted friends! Don't ye hear
the waves a comin' in? They're a rollin' swift and sure! They're a
rollin' in sure as death! Run for the Ark! Run for the Ark!"
Now, there was in Wallencamp a literal Ark, otherwise this exhortation
would have lacked its most convincing force and significance. But Aunt
Sibylla paused. Among the usually restless audience, there was a moment
of almost breathless suspense. Not half a mile away, behind a strip of
cedar woods, we could plainly hear the surf rolling in from the bay,
breaking hard against the shore with its awful, monotonous moan, moan,
moan.
My heart was already faint with home-sickness. The effect of that waiting
moment was as sombre as anything I had ever experienced. Much to my
distaste, I found myself sympathizing with the vague terror and unrest
around me. I can hear it still, the voice that then rose, singing,
through the sullen gloom of the school-room, a strangely sweet and
rapturous voice--Madeline's. I learned to know it well afterwards. I
listened with rapt surprise to the pathos with which it thrilled the
simple words of the song:--
"Shall we meet beyond the River,
Where the surges cease to roll,
Where, in all the bright forever,
Sorrow ne'er shall press the soul?"
A keenly responsive chord had been touched in the simple, agitated
breasts of the Wallencampers, and they joined in the chorus--those rough
people--not with their usual reckless exuberance of tone, but
plaintively, tremblingly even, as though, whatever the words, they would
make of them a prayer in which to hide some secret doubt or longing of
their souls.
"Shall we meet, shall we meet,
Shall we meet beyond the River?"
The strain was repeated with a most pathetic quaver in the rendering,
and then big Captain Sartell broke down, with a helpless gulp in his
voice, and I, who believed myself of too superior and refined a nature
to be moved by such tawdry sentiment, was further dismayed to feel the
tears gathering fast in my own eyes.
After the meeting, on the school-house steps, the big Captain, as if to
atone for any unmanly exhibition of feeling into which he might have
been betrayed inside, took little Bachelor Lot up by the shoulders, and
gently and playfully held him suspended in mid-air, while he put to him
the following riddle:--
"I'll wager a quarter, on a good, squar' guess, Bachelder. Why is--why
air Aunt Sibby's remarks like this 'ere peninshaler, eh, Bachelder?"
"Because--ahem!--because they're always a runnin' to a p'int, eh?"
inquired the keen little bachelor.
"No, by thunder!" exclaimed the discomfited Captain, setting the
magician down promptly. "As near as I calk'late," he continued,
endeavoring to resume his former air of cool and reckless raillery; "as
near as I calk'late, Bachelder,--yes, sir, as near as I
calk'late,--it's--it's--by thunder! it's because they're both liable to
squalls in fa'r weather!"
Amazed, and almost frightened at the unexpected brilliancy of his evil
success, the Captain yet kept a rueful and furtive eye on the little
bachelor.
Bachelor Lot coughed slightly and smiled. "Very true," he drawled,
cheerfully, in his small, thin voice; "I'm--ahem!--I'm not a married man
myself, you know, Captain. However," he added; "you should have given me
another try. I had the correct answer on my tongue's end."
During this brief exchange between the stars of the Wallencamp debate
ground, murmurs of appreciative applause arose from the group of
bystanders, and "Pretty tight pinch for you, Captain!" and "Three cheers
for Bachelder! ye can't git ahead of Bachelder!" sprang delightedly from
lip to lip.
Aunt Sibylla had scented from within this buoyant resumption of the
Wallencamp mirth, and now appeared on the scene, bearing a burning
lantern in her hand. She first turned the glare of its full orb on the
late sin-convicted Captain, who stood revealed with a guilty grin frozen
helplessly on his alarmed features, and next directed the beams of
disclosing justice towards the form of the little bachelor, who, with
too pronounced meekness, was engaged in readjusting the collar of his
coat.
"At it ag'in!" Aunt Sibylla exclaimed, with slow and cutting emphasis.
"At it ag'in! I do believe you're all possessed of the devil!"
Then, with one sweep of the lantern, she took a comprehensive survey of
the shivering group, and passed on without another word, while in the
breast of every guilty Wallencamper then present there rested a deep
sense of merited condemnation.
Aunt Sibylla was soon followed by the other lantern-bearers, who
dispersed homeward, along the four roads diverging from the school-house,
and, the night being starless, the children of the darkness followed
meekly in their wake.
The longest route lay before those who took the River Road leading to
the Indian Encampment. Bachelor Lot was the hindmost in this receding
column. Bachelor Lot, though too withered and brown of visage to afford
immediate enlightenment as to his species, was held to be of
unquestionable white descent. Yet he kept house, alone, at the Indian
Encampment.
Then there was the Stony Hill Road, up which a few pilgrims toiled; and
the Cross Lot Road to the beach--thither went the Barlows. Last of all,
there was the Lane, and it was somewhat in the rear of the lane
procession that I musingly wended my way, led by the beams of Grandma
Keeler's slowly swaying lantern.
I was the Wallencamp school-teacher. I had come to "this rock-bound
coast," imagining myself impelled by much the same necessity as that
which fired the bosoms of the earlier pilgrims. Not that I had been
restricted in respect to religious privileges, but I sought for a true
independence of life and aim; and furthermore, it should be said, I had
come to Wallencamp on a mission. "On a mission!" how the thought had
tickled my fancy and roused my warmest enthusiasm but a few short days
before! Indeed, I had not been yet a week in Wallencamp, and now, as I
walked up the lane in a mood quite the reverse of enthusiastic, I was
painfully trying to gather from my small and scattered sources of
information what the exact meaning of the phrase might be.
I had entered on the performance of my errand to Wallencamp under
circumstances not usual, perhaps, among propagandists; nevertheless, I
had been singularly free from misgivings.
A girl of nineteen years, I had a home endowed with every luxury; a
circle of family acquaintance, which, I admitted, did me great
credit; congenial companions; while as for my education, I was pleased
to call it completed. My career at boarding-schools had been of a
delightfully varied and elective nature, for I had not deigned to toil
with squalid studiousness, or even to sail with politic and inglorious
ease through the prescribed course of study at any institution. Any
misadventures necessarily following from this course my friends had
gilded over with the flattering insinuation that I was "too vivacious"
for this sort of discipline, or "too fragile" for that, though I am
bound to say that, in such cases, my "vivacity" had generally sealed my
fate before the delicacy of my constitution became too alarmingly
apparent.
I had, to be sure, a few commendable aspirations, but I had started out
fresh so many times with them only to see them meet the same end!
Though not by nature of a self-depreciatory turn of mind, I had
occasional flashes of inspiration, to the effect that, in spite of the
soft flattery of friends, I really was amounting to very little after
all. It was in a mood induced by one of these supernatural gleams that I
stood on one occasion, leaning a pair of very plump arms on the graveyard
wall, looking wistfully over into the place of tombs, and thinking how
nice it would be to have done forever with the fret and turmoil of life!
And it was at such a time, too, that I received from a school friend,
Mary Waite, the letter which was the moving cause of my mission to
Wallencamp.
Mary Waite, by the way, was one of those "prosy, ridiculous girls"--so I
had been compelled to classify her, although I was secretly troubled by
a sincere admiration of her virtues,--who had made it an absorbing
pursuit of her school-days to probe her text-books for useful
information, and was also accustomed to defer to her teachers as high
authority on matters of daily discipline. She was not in "our set." She
was poor, and studious, and obedient, yet a friendship had sprung up
between her and me, and I was moved to forgive her the, in many respects,
grovelling tendencies of her nature. I even ascended occasionally to her
room on the fourth floor to shock her with my sentiments, when there was
nothing livelier going on.
She wrote:--
"MY DEAR S----: Are you still perfectly happy, as you used to try to
have me think you were always--the old restlessness, the better
longings unsatisfied, do they never come up again? [That was Mary's
insidious way of stating a difficulty.] Don't you believe you would
be happier to _do_ something in real earnest? Something for people
_outside_, I mean. [I flushed a little at that. An insinuation of
that sort can't be put too delicately.] I have tried to imagine how
the proposal I am going to make will strike you--but never mind. I
am teaching, you know, in Kedarville. I leave here, at the close of
the term, for another field of labor, and now I want you to apply
for the Kedarville school. Yes, it is a remote, poverty-stricken
place. It contains no society, no church, no library, not even a
little country store! It would seem to you, I dare say, like going
back to the half-barbarous conditions of life. The people are simple
and kind-hearted; but they need training--oh, how much!--physically,
mentally, and morally. I can assure you, here is scope for the most
daring missionary enterprise, and you,--I believe that you could do
it if you would. Consider the matter seriously; consult with your
friends about it, and if you do decide to try the experiment, write
as legibly as you possibly can to the Superintendent of Schools,
Farmouth, Mass., stating your qualifications, etc."
The idea struck me with such strange and immediate favor that I quite
forbore to consult with my friends in regard to it. I resolved to go on
the instant, and wrote my friend Mary to that effect, congratulating
her, with an undercurrent of mischievous intention, on having been the
happy means of setting my powers drifting in the right direction at
last; and reproached her gently with having seemed to imply, once, in
her letter, some occult reason why I had not been regarded, heretofore
as specially designed to work in the cause of missions, whereas I had
always felt myself drifting inevitably towards that end.
I wrote to the Superintendent of the Farmouth schools. But here I had an
earnest purpose to serve, and a real desire to succeed, and here met
with a difficulty. I had not the art of presenting my earnest purposes
in the most assuring and credible manner. They _would_ wear, in spite of
me, an uneasy air of novelty; yet I aimed nobly. I dilated largely on
some of the evils existing in the present system of education, and hinted
at reforms not yet meditated by the world at large; but skilfully forgot
to mention my own qualifications.
On reading the letter over, I was astonished at the flattering nature of
the result, and, with the buoyant pride of one who believes he has
suddenly discovered a new resource in himself, I sent a copy of my
application to Mary Waite. She answered in the language of sorrowful
reproach:--
"Oh, S., how could you?"
I was forced to conclude that, as usual, I had somehow made a misstep,
and sought to conceal my mortification as best I might, by persuading
myself and my friend that I had only regarded the matter as a joke all
through. Nevertheless, I was bitterly disappointed.
What was my surprise, then, a few days afterwards, to receive this
communication from the Superintendent of Schools:--
"You are accepted to fill the position of teacher in the Kedarville
school." Then followed terse directions as to the best way of reaching
Kedarville, and, finally: "Mrs. Philander Keeler will board you for two
Dollars and fifty cents per week."
As I read this last clause everything that had made a sudden tumult in
my mind before was lulled into a mysterious calm.
It was not the low value set upon the means of subsistence in Kedarville.
Mercenary motives were, with me, as yet out of the question. It was not
the oppressive charm of Mrs. Philander Keeler's name that affected me so
strangely. It was the expressive combination of the whole, at once so
clear cut and unique. I murmured it softly to myself on my way home from
the Post-office.
"Han," said I, quite gravely, to my elder sister on entering the house;
"Mrs. Philander Keeler will board me for two dollars and fifty cents per
week:" and handed her the letter in pensive, though triumphant,
confirmation of my words.
"When did you do this?" she gasped, and, before I could answer, "how are
you going to get out of it?" she faintly demanded.
"Simply by getting into it, my dear," I answered, with that unyielding
sweetness of demeanor for which I fancied I had ever been distinguished
in the family circle.
I began to make my preparations for departure without delay.
Tender remonstrances, studied expostulations, were alike of no avail, and
they helped me to pack, finally--those dear good people at home--putting
as brave a face as they could upon it, and hoping for the best. My father
assured my mother, though with trembling lip and tearful eye, that "God
would temper the wind to the shorn lamb." I smiled at the part I was
meant to play in this cheerful allegory, though it seemed to me rather
inappropriate, as I had a new sealskin cloak that very winter.
At the last I gathered from the new and sprightlier form which the family
submissiveness assumed, as well as from certain inadvertent disclosures
of Bridget's, that I was confidently expected home again "in the course
of a week or two." And I thereupon doubly confirmed myself in the resolve
to see this thing through or die in the attempt.
I cannot define the motives which actuated me at this time. They do not
appear to have flowed in a clear and pellucid stream. I discover a thirst
for the surprising and experimental, for situations, dilemmas, and
emergencies, sustained by the most sublime recklessness as to
consequences. Then I see a dread of sinking into humdrum--the impulse
never to be at rest; deeper than all this, I find a secret
dissatisfaction with myself, a vague longing to use the best that is in
me to some true purpose; a desire to leave the tangled skein, and "begin
all over again."
It was early in January when I set out on my mission to the distant
shores of Cape Cod. It was also, I remember, very early in the morning,
and John Cable occupied a seat in the car. I had reason to know that John
shared in the family disapproval of my sublime conduct. He sat, looking
very glum behind his paper, and appeared not to notice me when I came in.
Having finished reading his paper, he gnawed his moustache and gazed,
still with glaring unconsciousness of my presence, out of the window. But
as we neared Hartford, where I was to take the train for Boston, he came
over to where I sat.
"I hope you'll enjoy yourself at Sandy Creek this winter," he said.
Now, I knew that John had designed this as sarcasm the most scathing, but
he was himself conscious of failure, and the thought filled him with
deeper gloom. He sought to reveal his baffled intentions in a scowl,
which lent to his manly and intelligent features the darkness of
spiritual night. And I replied, that "the recollection of his face, as it
then appeared to me, would be in itself an inspiration through all the
days to come."
There was silence for a space, and then John continued:--
"Have you found it on the map, yet?"
"What, please?"
"Kedarville!" with bitter emphasis.
"Oh! certainly not."
"It may be a little island out there somewhere, you know," delivered with
the effect of a masterpiece.
"Yes; or a lighthouse, possibly."
I saw that John wished he had thought of that himself. He became dejected
again. Then, presently, he threw oil the cloak of bitterness which sat so
ill on him, and, resuming his usual kindliness and benignity of manner,
succeeded in making himself unconsciously tantalizing.
"If you do find it," he said; "and if you--if you conclude to stay for
any length of time, I think I will go down some time this winter and hunt
you up."
"If you do, John Cable," I answered, with unaccountable warmth; "I'll
never forgive you as long as I live--never."
At Hartford, John took the train for Boston, too. We were very old
friends. Latterly, we had read Shakespeare together at the Newtown
Literary Club. We concluded not to quarrel for the rest of the way. I
had an influx of gay spirits, and John was almost without exception
"nice."
There were several hours to wait in Boston before the train on the Old
Colony road would go out. We had dinner (I little realized how long it
would be before I should eat again), and John tamely suggested driving
about to look at some of the places of interest. I assured him that
there was nothing so dispiriting as looking at places of interest, and
he answered, cheerfully, after some moments of thought, that we could
"shut our eyes when we went by them, then."
I had reason to dread a decline of spirits. Mine were rapidly on the
wane. By the time we stopped at the Old Colony _dépôt_ they were low,
indeed. And the hardest of all was, that I would not, for my life, let
my companion know. It was four o'clock in the afternoon, and already
quite dark. The atmosphere was heavy and chill; the sky ominous with
clouds. I had an unknown journey yet to take in search of an unknown
destination. The car into which I got on the Cape-bound train was dismal
and weird-seeming enough.
"I wish, if you must go, you would let me see you to the end of this,"
said John.
I answered, laughing, with an unnecessary tinge of defiance in my tone.
It would have been so much easier to cry. I thought, "If John would only
try to look cross again!" as he did in the morning--anything but that
expression of grieved and compassionate disapproval with which he sat,
talking so earnestly to me, for the last few moments in that dark car. I
thought he was cruel. He was trying to make me _think_ and I was trying
so hard _not_ to think! I felt a childish desire to scream out. Then,
when the signal for starting rang, and John took my hand an instant, in
parting, looking down at me with his kind, familiar eyes, the impulse
swept up strong within me to beg him to take me out of that dreadful car
and take me back home, and I would be good, oh, so good, and "prosy,"
yes, and "humdrum," and never ask to go on any more missions to forlorn
pieces of land sticking out into the water.
So there must have been a wild extravagance in the airy recklessness of
tone with which I bade John "good-bye." A sense of utter helplessness
came over me as he turned and went out.
I observed, particularly, but two passengers in the car. One was a man,
very much bandaged as to his head, who sat gazing into the coal-stove,
which occupied the centre of the car, with weakly meditative, burnt-out
eyes. The other was a girl, occupying the seat directly in front of me.
She might have been nine years old, but she had a singularly faded and
mature countenance. As the train started, she turned to me with some
excitement:--
"There!" said she, pointing towards the window; "your beau's walking
off! He's walking fast! He ain't looking back!"
"Thank you," said I, in a low, expressionless tone, not intended as an
inducement to further conversation.
This girl had a parcel of confectionery, the contents of which she
occasionally took out, and ranged in a row on the window ledge, selecting
therefrom the smallest and least inviting fragment, and having eaten it
with the hasty air of one who treats herself under protest to the
luscious prerogatives of childhood, put the rest back in the paper-bag,
carefully replacing the string every time. She selected and handed to me
the very largest specimen in her collection, which I had the
gracelessness to refuse, though without show of disgust. Afterwards she
asked if she might come and sit in the seat with me. I thought she was
very disagreeable. Besides, I was so miserable I wanted to commune apart
with my own loneliness. However, I made room for her.
She proceeded to confide to me all of her past history. She was returning
home from a visit to her aunt. Her mother had died a good many years ago,
"when Johnnie was a mere baby." She "kept house for father, and took care
of Johnnie." She "tried hard not to have father feel his loss. It was
very hard," she added, gravely, "for a man to be left alone so." She had
bought a little book for Johnnie, but she never had much time to read;
besides she wasn't quick to learn. She could pick the words out, to be
sure, but, somehow, it didn't make good sense, and would I read the book
to her?
Oh, to take counsel of my own despair! How dark and wild it was growing
outside! Where was I going? whom should I meet there?
And so I read, at the foot of gorgeously-illuminated pages, how--
"Henny Penny and Ducky Lucky got started for the fair,
When Goosie Poosie and Turkey Lurkey went out to view the air," etc.,
the range of characters swiftly widening as the narrative increased in
power. To my surprise, the mature child listened to this nonsense with
the utmost gravity and interest. No shadow of derision played on her
attentive features. When I had finished--it was soon finished--she
said:--
"Oh, that sounded so good; it made such good sense," and sighed, very
wistfully.
"Do you want me to read it again?" I exclaimed, in despair.
_Would_ I read it again? she asked.
I read it again.
After that she was silent and thoughtful for some time. Then she said,
looking gravely into my face:--
"Do you love Jesus?"
"No, my dear," said I, surprised into much gentleness.
The faded blue eyes filled with tears. She had no notion of harassing me
on the subject, but spoke quietly and at length of her own religious
convictions.
The east wind crept in through the window, and once my little companion
shivered. I noticed that she was rather thinly clad. I unstrapped my
shawl and wrapped it around her. She let her head fall at my side, and
went to sleep. Slowly, I was constrained to draw her up closer and put
my arm around her as support. In so doing, I received from some source
an unaccountable strength and calm of spirit.
At Braintree, which the child had told me was her home, I woke her up,
and she got off.
I was to stop at West Wallen, the railway station least remote from
Kedarville, and expected there to meet Mrs. Philander Keeler, or some
member of that mysterious family, to convey me to Wallencamp.
It seemed as though the train had had time to travel the whole
interminable length of the Cape, and plunge off into the ocean beyond,
when, in fact, we were just entering upon that peculiar body of land at
West Wallen.
There was no one there to meet me. The little _dépôt_ was held by a
strange night brigade of boys and girls, playing "blind-man's buff."
They shouted like cannibals, and bore down on all opposing objects with
resistless force. I did not attempt an entrance. A rough, good-natured
looking man stood on the platform outside.
I put on my glasses (I was sadly and unaffectedly near-sighted), and
having further assured myself of his seeming honesty, inquired if there
was such a place as Kedarville in the vicinity.
"Waal, no, miss, thar' ain't," said he, with a noonday smile, which
informed me that there was yet something to hope for. "Thar's no
_Kedarville_ that I know on. Thar's a Wallencamp some miles up yender.
We don't often tackle no Sunday go-to-meeting names on to it, but I
reckon, maybe, it's the same you're a-lookin' for."
He had spoken with such startling indefiniteness of the distance that I
asked him how far it was to Wallencamp.
"Waal, thar' you've got me," said he, beaming on me in a broadly
complimentary way, as though I had actually circumvented him in some
skilful play at words. "Fact is, thar' ain't never been no survey run
down in that direction that I know on. We call it four miles, more or
less. That's Cape Cod measure--means most anythin' lineal measure.
Talkin' 'bout Cape Cod miles," he continued, with an irresistible air of
raillery; "little Bachelder Lot lives up thar' to Wallencamp, and they
don't have no church nor nothin' thar', so Bachelder and some on 'em they
come up here, once in a while, ter Sunday-school. Deacon Lancy, he'd
rather see the Old Boy comin' into Sunday-school class any time than
Bachelder; for he's quiet, the little bachelder is, but dry as a herrin'.
So the Deacon thought he'd stick him on distances. The Deacon is a great
stickler on distances.
"'How fur, Bachelder,' says he, 'did Adam and Eve go when they was turned
out of the garden of Eden?' says he.
"'Waal,' says Bachelder, coughing a little, so--that's Bachelder's way
o' talking--'we have sufficient reason to eenfer, Deacon, that, in all
probabeelity, they went a _Ceape Cod mile_.'"
My informant's delight at this reminiscence was huge. It yielded to a
more subdued sense of the ludicrous when I asked him if there was any
public conveyance to Wallencamp. He made a polite effort to restrain his
mirth, but the muscles of his face twitched violently.
"Waal, no, miss," said he; "we don't run no reg'lar express up to
Wallencamp; might be a very healthy oc'pation, but not as lukertive as
some, I reckon--not as lukertive as pickin' 'tater-bugs: that's what they
do, mostly, down thar'. Fact is, miss," he concluded, with considerable
gravity; "we don't vary often go down to Wallencamp unless we're obliged
to."
On my proposing to make it lucrative, he immediately called, in a loud
voice, to one of the playful occupants of the _dépôt_:
"Hi, thar!' 'Rasmus! 'Rasmus! Here's a lady wants to be conveyed down to
Wallencamp; you run home and tackle, now! You be lively, now!"
'Rasmus was lively. In a very few moments something of an unusual and
ghostly appearance--so much only I could discover of what afterwards
became a very familiar sort of vehicle--was waiting for me alongside the
platform. The only means of getting into it was through an opening
directly in front. Towards this I was encouraged to climb over the
thills, but met with an obstacle, in the form of my trunk, which seemed
effectually to block up the entrance.
"Thar', now! I told ye so," exclaimed one of the bystanders, a large
number of whom had mysteriously gathered about the scene. "You'd orter
got _her_ in first."
A disconsolate silence prevailed. The trunk had been elevated to its
present position through the most painful exertions.
"Perhaps I can climb over it," I said, and bravely made the attempt.
No one knew, in the voiceless darkness, of the suddenly helpless and
collapsed condition in which I landed on the other side. I groped about
for a seat, and finally succeeded in finding one at the extreme rear of
the vehicle.
'Rasmus drove. He was situated somewhere, somehow--I could not tell where
nor how--in the realm of vacancy on the other side of the trunk; I only
know that he seemed a long way off. Under these circumstances
conversation was rendered extremely difficult. I learned that Mr.
Philander Keeler was away at sea; that Mrs. Philander Keeler lived at the
_Ark_, with Cap'n and Grandma Keeler, and the two little Keelers.
'Rasmus was the unmistakable son of his father.
"And it ain't no _got-up_ ark, neither!" he yelled at me, in a tone which
pierced through the distance and the darkness, and every intervening
obstacle. "It's the reg'lar old _Ark_! It's what Noer, and the elephant,
and them fellows come over in!"
I did not wonder, as we journeyed on, that my informant of the _dépôt_
platform had used his "ups" and "downs" indiscriminately in indicating
the direction of Wallencamp. In the inky blackness by which I was
surrounded I was conscious, clearly, of but one sensation--that of going
_up_ and _down_. The rumbling of the wheels reached me as something far
off and indefinably dreadful.
Then we stopped, and I crawled out like one in a dream. There was no
light at the Ark to make it a distinguishable feature of the gloom.
'Rasmus found the door and knocked loudly. I became dimly conscious of
the knocking, and followed 'Rasmus.
"I reckon they're to bed," said he, and knocked louder.
Pretty soon a clear, feminine voice, startled into musical sharpness,
issued from a room quite near, with--"Who's there?" and was followed by
two small, squealing voices, in unison,--"Who's there?"
Then other sounds arose--sounds from some quarter mysterious and
remote--low, mumbling, comfortable refrain, and ominous snatches of an
uneasy grumble; then a roar that shook the Ark to its foundations:--
"Who the devil's making such a rumpus out there at this time in the
mornin'?" (It was nine o'clock P.M.) 'Rasmus sent back an intrepid
yell:--
"It's the _tea-cher_! It's pretty late," he said, aside, to me. "I guess
I won't go in. I reckon they won't have much style on. I seen ye pay
father; that's all right. I'll tip yer trunk up under the shed, and the
old Cap'n 'll see to gettin' it in in the mornin'. Here's a letter the
postmaster sent down to the Cap'n's folks. Good night."
'Rasmus, my only hope! I made a convulsive grasp for him in the darkness,
but he was gone.
It was she of the soothing, comfortable voice who took me in; and Grandma
Keeler's _taking in_ I understand always in the divinest and fullest
sense of the term.
Further than that, I was conscious that there were white-robed and
nightcapped figures moving about the room. So unearthly was their
appearance that I had, at last, a confused notion of having become
disengaged from the entanglements of the flesh, and fallen in with a
small planetary system in the course of my wanderings through space. The
centre of attraction seemed to be a table, to which the figures were
constantly bringing more _pies_.
The letter which 'Rasmus had directed me to hand to the "folks" was read
with interest, being the one I had dispatched from Newtown, a week or two
before, informing them as to the time of my arrival.
Madeline rendered the brief and business-like epistle with the full
effect of her peculiarly thrilling intonation, and Grandma listened with
rapt attention; but, meanwhile, Grandpa Keeler and the two little Keelers
found time surreptitiously to dispose of nearly a whole pie, with the
serious aspect of those who will not allow a mere fleeting diversion to
hinder them in the improvement of a rare opportunity.
Having declined to partake of pie, through Grandma Keeler's kind
interposition, I was not further urged.
"Thar', poor darlin'," said she; "fix her up a good cup o' your golden
seal, pa, and she shall go to bed right in the parlor to-night, seem' as
we didn't get the letter, and hain't got her room fixed upstairs. It's
all nice and warm, and thar', darlin', thar', we're r'al good for nussin'
folks up."
In the parlor, I saw only one great, delicious object--a bed. My weary
brain hardly exaggerated its dimensions, which could not have failed to
strike with astonishment even the most indifferent observer. It was long;
it was broad; it was deep; and, alas! it was high, I disrobed as best I
might, and stood before it, gazing despairingly up at its snowy summit.
Then, remembering my experience with the trunk, I approached at one
extreme, scaled the headboard, fell over into an absorbing sea of
feathers, and, at that very instant it seemed, the perplexing nature of
mortal affairs ceased to burden my mind.