BECKY AND THE CRADLEBOW.
"Teacher's got Beck's beau!"
"Teacher's got Beck's beau!" I heard it whispered among the school
children. Rebecca heard, too, and paled a little, but looked up at me and
smiled as frankly as ever.
Seeing her alone afterwards, I took occasion to remark, incidentally,
"how kind it was of her friend, Mr. Rollin, to bring me home from church.
Fanny was so slow! And I thought he was a very pleasant young man, but
even the most estimable people, you know," I added, laughing, with an
undertone of studied significance; "are not just fitted to enjoy each
other's society always."
Then I blushed under the girl's clear, trustful gaze.
"You don't think I mind what the children talk!" she said.
Every day Rebecca appealed more and more, unconsciously, to what was most
generous and grave and heedful in my nature. She seemed to be demanding
of me, with mute, gentle importunity, to make real my ideal of life, to
be what I knew she believed me to be. Her faith in my superior wisdom and
goodness, her slow, timid way of confiding in me, with tears and blushes
even; it was all very flattering, very captivating to one who had but so
lately risen to occupy the pedestal of a moral instructress, and "my
child," "my dear child," I said to her in many private discourses, with
more than the tranquil grace and dignity with which such terms had been
applied to me, only a year before, by the august principal of Mt. B----
Seminary.
Rebecca read my books, and I drew her out to talk with me about them. She
prepared her lessons, with me, out of school. She knew that she might
come whenever she chose to my little room at the Ark, which the chimney
kept comfortably warm, and often I heard her footsteps on the stairs and
her gentle knock at the door.
If I was troubled or perplexed on any account, Rebecca always seemed to
understand in that quiet, unobtrusive way of hers, and followed my
movements with a grave, restful sympathy in her eyes. On several
occasions I had asked her, playfully, to walk up the lane with me after
school. So it became a matter of course that she should wait for me.
Often we took longer walks, for it was an "open winter," with only one
or two light falls of snow.
Then I believed the "Tempter" came to me, in the form of another
invitation to drive, from Mr. Rollin.
Occupied with my duties in the school-room, one afternoon, I was startled
to observe these characters as suddenly and mysteriously raised as if by
the unseen hand of a modern sibyl on the blackboard:--
"teecher's Bo is a setting On the Fens."
Involuntarily raising my eyes to the window, I was unable to discover on
the fence opposite anything of the nature indicated in those words. I
concluded that the whole was to be taken as one of those deeply
allegorical expressions in which the Wallencamp tongue abounded.
Shortly afterward, a boy who had been playing truant and the Jews' harp
at the same time, in a subdued and melancholy way under the window, and
who had, doubtless, been bribed to undertake his present commission
through some extraordinary means, entered the school-room, and laid on my
desk a note from the auburn-haired fisherman. It was hastily scrawled in
lead pencil, on a leaf torn from a memorandum.
The fisherman confessed to all the meekness and long suffering, without
the cheerful intrepidity of Mary's little lamb! He would do all his
waiting outside. Mr. Levi was down from West Wallen to-day, and said that
he had heard somebody say that there were four letters came for the
teacher in last night's mail. Would I like to drive over to West Wallen
and get them. The fisherman did not believe that I had been in earnest in
the prudish and unreasonable notions I had propounded when he left me the
other evening.
"Prudish!" In my newly-acquired elevation of mind, I hugged the term with
a deep, intense, and mysterious delight. Oh, if my mother could only
know--if my elder sister could only know that I had actually been accused
of prudishness! It was in the glow and inspiration of this idea that I
indited the answer to Mr. Rollin's missive: "Why would he make it
unpleasant and disagreeable for me to do what seemed so plainly my
duty?"--and dispatched the same by the pensive and unpunished truant, who
was soon heard again revelling in the stolen sweets of his Jews' harp
beneath the window.
After this I had no further intercourse with the fisherman for some days.
If I chanced to meet him in the lane, Rebecca was always with me. He came
one evening to the Ark. The young people were there, singing.
Then I heard, from time to time, of his taking Rebecca to drive, and
congratulated myself that, through my composed wisdom and forethought,
the little world of Wallencamp was destined to move very smoothly, on the
whole.
"I wonder why Mr. Rollin don't go home," observed Grandma Keeler,
complacently, on one of those rare occasions when the Keeler family
circle held quiet possession of the Ark before the songful company had
arrived. "He didn't use to stay but a week or two at a time, and all the
rest o' the fishermen have been gone some time now; and he keeps them
horses down here, and goes loungin' around with no more object than a
butterfly in December."
"I tell ye he's a makin' up to Beck," said Grandpa Keeler, with the
knowing air of an old man accustomed to fathom mysteries of this peculiar
nature.
A spark shot out of Madeline's great, black eyes. Then she laughed
unpleasantly. "There's something in the wind besides Beck," said she.
"Why, I don't know," said Grandma; "he don't hang around there very much,
may be, but they say he takes her to ride, and I'm sure he don't wait on
nobody else. But I should think, if he was a going to speak out he'd
ought to do it, and not waste his time a keepin' a puttin' it off. Why,
my fust husband wasn't but a week makin' up his mind, and pa," she
continued, referring openly to Grandpa Keeler, "he wan't quite so
outspoken, to be sure; but he came around to it in the course of a month
or two, and kind o' beat around the bush then, and wanted to know what I
thought on't, and--wall, I told him 'yes,'--I didn't see no use in bein'
squeamish so long as I'd once made up my mind to it."
"I asked ye as soon as I could!" exclaimed Grandpa, bristling on the
defensive. "I wanted to be sure o' gittin' a house fust."
"There!" said Madeline briskly, putting down her foot, and tossing her
head as she addressed the old couple. "Be good, children! Be good!--and
now, do you mark my words, it isn't Becky Weir that Dave Rollin is
hanging around here for. There's some folks to be made up to, and there's
some folks, jest as good, to be stepped on. And Dave Rollin--what does he
think of Wallencamp folks, anyway? He wouldn't take the trouble to kick
'em out of his road; he'd jest step on 'em, and he's steppin' on Beck
Weir. He don't care enough about her to let her alone."
"Wall, I--don't--know!" said Grandma. "What's he stayin' for, then?"
"Staying! Lord, ma!" said Madeline sharply, with a strange cold glitter
in her eye. "How do I know what he's stayin' for? Oh," she added, in a
tone of lighter bitterness, "It's a mild winter and open roads. He's
sketching they say, and exploring the Cape. Let him explore from one end
to the other, he won't find such another fool as himself."
"We can't help nothin' by talkin' that way;" said Grandma Keeler, a
little pale, though calmly cognizant of Madeline's emotion.
"You know I had an experience of my own once, ma," said Madeline,
terribly white about the lips.
"I wouldn't rake up old wounds, daughter." There was nothing unfeeling in
Grandma Keeler's tone.
The daughter shut her lips together tightly, as though more than she had
intended to reveal had already escaped them, and applied herself
desperately to her sewing.
I fancied that I had detected a personally aggressive quality in
Madeline's indignant tone.
"I don't see why we should feel that way about Rebecca," I said. "The
more one gets acquainted with her, the more lovable and worthy of respect
she seems. I knew a great many girls, at school--girls with every
advantage of wealth and culture, too, who had not half of Rebecca's grace
and refinement, nor a tenth part of her beauty!"
Madeline said nothing, bending to her work with the same bitter
compression of the lips.
"It's right you should stand up for her, teacher," said Grandma Keeler,
pleasantly. "Miss Waite, she begun by makin' a kind o' pet o' her, but I
don't think Rebecca ever set her heart on her as she has on you, and it's
easy to see you've took lots o' pains with her. She's a gittin' them same
kind o' sorter interestin' high-flowed ways--why, she used to be just
like the rest of 'em--jest sich a rompin', roarin' thing as Drussilly
Weir is now."
"Goodness gracious, ma!" Madeline put in again, sharply. "What good is it
going to do Beck Weir to put on airs? Better stick to her own ways, and
her own folks--she'll find they'll stand by her best in the end, I
guess--than to be fillin' her head with notions to hurt her feelin's over
by and by. She's a fool, I think, for treatin' George Olver as she does.
He's worth a dozen Dave Rollins, if his coat don't set quite so fine, and
would work his fingers off to suit her if she'd only settle down to him
and be sensible."
"Wall," said Grandma Keeler, in a tone that was a curious contrast to
Madeline's, "our feelin's won't always go as we'd ought to have em',
daughter."
"No, they won't!" Madeline snapped out excitedly, "but, ma, you know I'm
in the right of it just as well as I do; and there's Lute Cradlebow's got
to dreamin' and moonin' around in the same way. Took it into his head
he wanted to get an education--well, what hasn't he took into his head!
So he must begin recitin' to teacher. Well, he had in his mind to study,
I don't doubt, to begin with, and used to come two or three times a
week, and rattle off a string, and now he's here every day of his life,
and, if there's any reciting going on, I don't hear it--not that I want
to meddle with other folks' business, but I've known those boys a good
many years, and I hate to see anybody hurt and run over, even if they be
young and ignorant, and making fools of themselves. Some folks are none
too good, I think, for all their airs, and had better look out to see
where they're going!"
"Why, thar', Madeline!" said Grandma, with a decided touch of
disapproval in her voice. "R'a'ly, seems to me you're kind o' out. I'm
sure Luther Larkin seems to be a gittin' along finely with his Latin and
Algibbery--I'm sure I've heard a lot of it, when I've been goin' through
the room, if you ain't; and if he's took it into his head to git book
larnin', and maybe scratch enough together to go away somewheres to
school, why, I'm sure, there's older boys than him, and not so bright,
have ketched up if they set there minds to it, and as for our
teacher--Madeline!"
"Oh, I've no doubt but what Miss Hungerford meant kindly," said Madeline,
with the lightness she could so suddenly assume. "It's a mighty queer
world, that's all!" she added presently, rising and putting on her
bonnet; "and managed very queerly, for I suppose it is managed. I'm going
out, ma. Those children have split my head with their noise to-day, and I
promised Patty I'd come in and sit awhile. Now, if I've been cross and
crazy, don't you and teacher talk me over," she said, looking back and
trying hard to smile--and she did look very tired and white, as though
she had been suffering--"and if those children wake up and begin to
squall"--with a glance towards the little bedroom--"let 'em squall. If
I've wished it once to-day, I have a hundred times, that they was the
other side of sunset!"
"I wish you'd step into Lihu's--such a poor, sufferin' creetur as he
is--with these," said Grandma, appearing from the pantry with some eggs
in her apron. "I wish you could take the consolations of religion with
you, Madeline," she continued gravely, as Mrs. Philander was closing the
door.
"Lord, ma! my pocket's full now!" exclaimed Madeline. "Besides, they
might break the eggs!" And the latch fell down with a click.
"I wish Madeline was a believer," Grandma sighed, purposely rattling
about the cover of the stove to wake up Grandpa, who had fallen asleep in
his chair.
Grandpa looked at me, and smiled feebly, then roused himself to meet this
supposed challenge like a man.
"Believer, ma?" said he; "why ain't I a believer? As old Cap'n Gates
said to me on his last voyage"--Grandpa yawned alarmingly (poor old man!
he was but half awake), as this unlucky reminiscence of his sea-faring
life flitted through his brain--"says he, 'I read my almanick and my
Bible, both, Bijonah;' says he, 'I read 'em both, and I believe there's a
great deal o' truth in both on 'em.'"
"Thar, pa!" said Grandma, solemnly, "you'd _better_ go to sleep! you'd
_better_ close your eyes, Bijonah Keeler! What if you should never open
'em again on earthly scenes, and them words on your lips,--and you a
perfessor!"
Grandpa scratched his head in drowsy bewilderment, passed his hand once
or twice over the coarse stubble on his face, and again committed himself
helplessly to the sweet obliviousness of slumber.
I drew my chair up confidentially close to Grandma Keeler's, and rested
my arms on the table as I looked into her face.
"Grandma!" I said, for I knew that she was better pleased to have me call
her that; "I begin to think that I ought never to have come to Wallencamp
on a mission, that perhaps it would be just as well if I had never come
to Wallencamp at all, I mean. I didn't think. At first, it seemed more
than anything else, like something very new to entertain myself with. I
didn't think enough of the responsibility. Then, perhaps, I thought too
much of it. I don't know. I wish I were out of it all. Grandma, I never
tried to do the right thing so hard before in my life. I never worked so
hard before--and I don't mind that; but I meant it all for the best, and
it's no use, it's just like all the rest. I'm tired. I wish I were out of
it."
"Wall, thar' now, darlin'," said Grandma, employing to the full her tone
of infinite consolation. "You ain't the first one as mistook a stump for
livin' creetur in the night, and don't you talk about givin' up nor
nothin' like it, darlin', for we couldn't do without you noways--nor you
without us, for yet a while, I'm thinkin', though it does seem
strange--and never you mind one straw for what Madeline said, for she was
kind o' out to-night, anyway, not having got no letter from Philander, I
suppose. But then she ought not to feel so. Why, there was time and time
agin that I didn't git no letter from Bijonah Keeler when he was
voyagin', and to be sure, they wasn't much better than nothin' when they
did come; for pa"--Grandma cast a calmly comprehensive glance at her
unconscious mate--"pa was a man that had a great many idees in general,
but, when he set down to write a letter, somehow he seemed to consider
that it wasn't no place for idees, a letter wasn't--seemed as though he
managed a'most a purpose not to get none in."
"Grandma," I said, leaning forward, laughing, and folding my hands in her
lap, "you're the best comforter I know of."
"Wall, thar'," said she; "it's a good deal in feelin's, and Madeline
ain't r'al well, so she kind o' allows 'em to overcome her sometimes."
"And what did she mean by saying that about Rebecca?" I asked.
"Oh, she just meant girls will be girls, that's all!" replied Grandma;
"why, mercy! I know all about that. I don't feel like nothin' much more
than a girl myself, half the time; and we all have to have our
experiences, to be sure. They ain't nobody else can wear 'em for us, but,
dear me! the Lord ain't going to let our experiences hurt us; they're for
our betterin'."
"And Lute Cradlebow, Grandma?" I said; "what did she mean about him?"
"Oh, she just meant boys will be boys, that's all--especially big
ones--but thar'! I've known 'em to get over it a hundred times and not
hurt 'em none. If you're always lookin' at human natur' on the dark side,
it seems kind o' desp'rit. My first husband, he wasn't a fretful man, but
he was always viewin' the dark side o' things. I suppose one reason was
he didn't have no father nor mother, and so he kind o' begun life as a
took-in boy, but Pollos Slocum, he done very well by him, for he hadn't
no children of his own, but his brother--that was Daniel Slocum--he had
six. There was two boys and four girls. Mary, she came fust. She was born
February nineteenth"----
I was sorry that Grandma's thoughts had drifted into this hopeless and
interminable channel.
I had considered carefully what Madeline had said, and determined on a
little new advice for my friend, Rebecca. So, the next time we were alone
in my room together, I directed the conversation with a view to this
end.
"And I wouldn't trust any one, my dear," I said with cheerful
earnestness; "then if people prove true, why, it's all the more
delightful; and if not, one isn't disappointed; so you can hold the
scales quite indifferently in your own hand, and are always master of the
situation. Oh, I wouldn't trust people! It would be very nice if
this were the sort of world that you could do it in, but it isn't. It's a
very deceitful world."
"But I can trust you, can't I?" Rebecca held me with her gravely
questioning eyes.
"Well, I don't know;" I began with the determination to be severely true
to my text, but the look in Rebecca's eyes hurt me.
"Oh, yes! little girl," I continued, falling into the half-tender,
half-playful tone that it was always easiest to assume with her; "of
course, you must trust me I Haven't I been a good teacher to you, so
far?" And I sought by smiling in the girl's face, to chase the grieved
expression away from it. "What I meant was that I wouldn't trust people
generally, because it's a selfish world, and such is the depravity of the
human mind that if it appears at all convenient, we are apt, you know, to
sacrifice other people to our own interests; so, with all the little
kindnesses and politenesses which are current in society, it is still the
common practice--and if is best that it should be so--to keep, in the
main, a sharp look out for 'Number One!'"
Having proceeded so far, it occurred to me that the occasion was
favorable for the discharge of another duty which I had been meditating
in regard to Rebecca.
"You are what Grandma Keeler calls a believer, are you not, dear?" I
said, with the same composedly dictatorial manner: "in distinction from a
professor, I mean."
Rebecca gave a little gasp, and turned her head away, for an instant.
When she looked back, there were tears of distress in her eyes.
I felt a vague wonder and regret.
"No," she said; "I thought, once--I wanted--I hoped----"
"Why, child!" I hastened to exclaim. "I didn't ask you because I had any
reason to doubt that you were one--quite the contrary--but simply for
this. It seems to me it would be such a desirable thing for you, situated
as you are, here, with so few surroundings of a refining and elevating
nature, if you could attach yourself, if it were merely for a feeling of
fellowship and sympathy--for of course, you could not attend, often--to
some simple Orthodox body of believers--like the Methodist church at West
Wallen, for instance. It seems to me, that, in your case, believing
simply and unquestionably, as I have no doubt you do, it would be a sort
of assurance, a sort of continual rest and support to you. It would be a
great relief to me if I felt that you were so guarded. Not that I
consider it essential at all; to some people, indeed, of a deeply
thoughtful and inquisitive mind, such a course would appear impossible.
You have never troubled yourself, Becky," I continued, in a tone of
reassuring lightness; "you have never troubled yourself with doubts and
speculations on religious subjects?"
"I don't know," Becky replied, the look of perplexity and distress
deepening in her eyes.
"Why should you?" I murmured, softly stroking her hair; "He carries the
lambs in His bosom." I had been little in the habit of quoting
Scripture--the words, coming to my mind, struck me as particularly
Beautiful and applicable on this occasion. "And so what I have suggested,
would be the easiest and most natural thing in the world for you to do. I
suppose it might be necessary for you to have come to some conclusion in
regard to the first principles of Theology; but probably you have already
satisfied yourself as to these in your own mind."
Rebecca looked little like one who had arrived at the calm plane of
philosophical conclusion of any sort.
"I don't know," she gasped.
"Well, take the Trinity, for instance," I continued, in a tone highly
suggestive of calm and supreme forbearance with helpless ignorance.
"Probably you believe in the Trinity?"
"Oh, I don't know," said Rebecca. "I don't know what it means. Nobody
ever told me; nobody ever talked to me about those things before."
"It's simply," I said; "a term implying the existence of three persons in
the Godhead. So the Trinitarians are distinguished from the Unitarians
who believe that it consists of one. I'm not particularly informed as to
the Methodist credentials of faith. You will always hear that they
believe that salvation is free to all who will accept of it. Some people
believe that man is a free agent, and may accept or refuse the means of
grace, and if he refuses, is eternally lost. And then, again, there are
the Universalists, who believe that all will be eventually saved. There
is the Calvinistic element--those who believe in predestination--that
is----"
Becky had laid her head down on the bed, and was quietly sobbing.
"My poor child," I exclaimed, with swift compassion, "don't think
anything more about what I have said to you. Let it go. It isn't vital."
"You don't hate me for not knowing anything?" sobbed Becky. "Nobody ever
tried to have me understand, before."
"You know enough; quite enough, dear!" I remarked hastily, producing from
my trunk a quantity of illustrated magazines. These we looked over
together, and when Becky went away, the tears were dried in her eyes, and
she was laughing as merrily as ever.
With the severely implied reproach of Madeline's words still in my mind,
I took pains to assume toward Luther Larkin a more elder-sisterly air
even than before.
It was true, I felt that I had been unjustly stung, having, amid the
press of other duties, undertaken the advancement of that bright youth,
from motives, I believed, of an ideal and disinterested nature. It was
also true, that, after the first enthusiasm with respect to his lessons
had passed away, as well as the natural diffidence he had at first felt
in my presence, Luther Larkin, though punctual to the hour of recitation,
had gradually fallen into a habit of more lively and discursive inquiry
than that furnished within the dull range of his text-books. He had a
singularly fearless manner of challenging the inexplicable in thought and
life, with a light conversational flow of much brilliancy. Moreover,
he was a delightful dreamer.
We had our recitation, for quiet, in one of Grandma's gloomy and
mysterious keepin'-rooms. The only object inviting to sedentary posture
in this room was Grandpa's huge "chist," which occupied a position
"along side" the East window. Those sacred window curtains, of green
paper, flowered with crimson roses, were never rolled up; but as the
light strayed in at one side, and fell on the Cradlebow's fine head,
often I reflected that under certain other conditions of life, meaning
conditions more favorable to Luther Larkin, I might have regarded him
very tenderly, and invested the strength and beauty of his young manhood
with heroic meaning.
As it was, I assumed that I was years beyond him in the gravest respects.
And if there was any truth in what Madeline had intimated, possibly I had
been at fault for not impressing this fact more deeply on his mind.
"So you are getting sadly behindhand with your lessons, Luther," I said.
"I wish you would make a brave effort to catch up. There is no true
attainment to be reached without a corresponding degree of effort--of
perseverance."
I spoke with a serious and gracious air, as though this sentiment,
gleaned from a profound experience, had occurred to me as an idea
peculiarly my own.
"Never mind the lessons!" replied my audacious pupil, brightly.
"Teacher," he added presently, having fallen into a gently musing
attitude; "how shiny those crimples in your hair look, with that streak
of sun lighting on 'em!"
"Luther," said I, very gravely: "you ought not to talk to me about my
hair. Suppose we give our attention to these books. Now you were getting
along so fast, I'm very sorry----"
"Do you think I'm to blame, teacher?" exclaimed Luther, earnestly, "There
wasn't a stick of wood to be had in our house this morning! And I've had
to be off, all day, chopping, with Scudder--you ought to have seen the
black snake we killed this morning. It was six feet long. If you don't
believe it, Scudder's got the carcass. It was lying all curled up in the
bushes with its head up so--'you watch him, Lute,' says Scudder, 'and
I'll run and get the axe!' I couldn't help laughing. The axe was over the
other side of the bog, and the snake began to stretch himself out and
slide along. I brought my boot-heel down once or twice on his head, about
as quick and strong as I could make it. I killed him. It's a good sign to
kill a snake, teacher. It's a good sign to dream of killing one; but you
come across one so, accidentally, and kill it, and it's sure to bring
good luck, Granny says."
"That's more significant than a great many of your signs and symbols," I
said. "That means that you will slay the tempter in your path, and be
successful in overcoming difficulties. In short, it means that whatever
there has been to divert you, you are coming back to the resolve to study
and improve yourself; to be all the stronger for having a few chance
obstacles to dispose of."
Luther's head began to droop a little. I thought it was time that the
melancholy atmosphere of the room should have begun to exercise its usual
depressive effect on his spirits.
"You think I don't like the books, teacher," he said. "I do, but there's
most always something else to be doing. Father's lame. He can't do any
work, and there's the rest to take care of. First, I sat up nights to
study, then I got so sleepy I couldn't. But I'd got so in the habit of
coming in to talk a little while after you got home from school, teacher,
that I--I forgot to forget it. Have I been a great bother to you? You've
been real good. I don't want you to think I forget that. And if I'd had a
chance at the books early, or to push right along with 'em now, I might
make out something in that line."
Luther did not speak complainingly, nor even with hopeless regret. He
rose and stretched himself, with solemn satisfaction, to the extent of
his goodly proportions.
"But I'm a man now, teacher," he said. "I shall be twenty in June, and
life is short. A man hasn't got time for everything. He'd be a fool to
waste it crying for what he didn't happen to have. He'd better push
along and work for the best. I meant to tell you. I'm going to sea,
teacher! I'm going trading. I was down to New Bedford, to see Captain
Sparhauk yesterday, for I was out with him once before, and got a good
deal of the hang of the business then; and he offered me a place on his
ship next time he sails."
Luther stood with flushed face, regarding me with a bright restless look
of inquiry in his eyes.
"Are you going away, really, Luther? I'm very sorry!" I said.
"You don't care! what do you care?" he exclaimed almost rudely, with an
unnatural touch of hardness in his laugh. "It's the way you talk to all
the rest. A fellow might get to thinking too much about it. A fellow
might get to caring--if he believed it--I don't."
"What makes you think I shouldn't care if you were going away?" I
continued, with the dispassionately gentle and reproving tone I
considered it wisest to assume on the occasion. "I should care, I should
be very sorry. Come and sit down here, please, and tell me all about it,
when you are going, and where, and what you are going for?"
Luther came slowly back to the light. He seemed verily to have grown
older and handsomer in a moment. I experienced a deeper feeling of regret
than ever before, that the circumstances of his life could not have been
conducive to heroism.
"The captain couldn't tell me just when he should sail," said he; "and
I'm going to get money. I know a good deal of the Spanish and Portugal, I
learned to talk them before--and I shall go to a great many places, I may
not come back when the ship does. Say, what strange eyes you've got,
teacher; now they're brown--and now, they're black, and now, they're a
sort of--a--purplish gray."
"Oh, my dear boy," I exclaimed, with a sudden accession of wisdom,
sighing deeply; "you ought not to talk to me about the color of my eyes."
At the same time to deepen the effect of this condescending tenderness, I
pushed back lightly from his forehead a stray lock of hair that was
hanging there.
"Don't do that!" the boy cried with startling impetuosity. "Don't call me
that again! I mean, teacher," he went on in a gentler tone, though none
the less excitedly;--"if you should know somebody, that had set his heart
on something, very much, and didn't want anything else if he couldn't
have that, and if he should know that he hadn't any right to ask for it
now, but go off and work for it real hard, and, maybe come back lucky in
a few years, with a right to ask for it then;--do you think, teacher,
that there'd be any chance of his finding--of his getting what he wanted
most? If you were in anybody's place, now, teacher, would you give him a
word of encouragement to try?"
"I think that the person you speak of would be much more likely to
succeed in a practical undertaking, without any hallucination of that
sort before his eyes--and if, as you say, it isn't right that he should
ask for it now, can we predict that it would be any more reasonable and
expedient in the future? These idle fancies of ours soon pass away,
Luther, and will look laughable and grotesque enough to us by and by.
Life is so full of changes, and people change, oh, so much!"
In spite of the vanity of my soul, I comforted myself with the reflection
that Luther would not care long. I did not really believe that he would
go to sea. I stood with him a moment in the door of Grandma's kitchen.
He looked over to the woods, behind which the water lay, and the fire and
impatience had all gone out of his manner. His gentleness touched me
deeply, yet I was determined not to feel his hurt, nor--"if only the
circumstances of his life had been different"--what might have been mine
also!
"Hark! It's high tide. It's making quite a fuss over there," he said. "I
think a man feels more quiet somehow, when he's out there, teacher.
Father says I'm a wild chap and uneasy. I guess that's so. I can take
care of them just as well too if I go, and better. Only if I should
die--" there was nothing affected or forlorn in the Cradlebow's tone--"I
should like to be buried on the hill, with father's folks. You've been
across there. You look one way and there's the river, oftenest still--and
the other way, you hear the old Bay scooting along the sand. I like it,
being used to hearing it go always. Granny says it makes a difference
then, where you lie, about the resting easy. I don't know. Sometimes it
seems as though I should rest easier there."
"A dissertation on the graveyard," I began in a tone of affected
lightness, and then paused, convicted of untruth by the solemn light in
the Cradlebow's strange, grand eyes.