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UNCLE TERRY
A Story of the Maine Coast
BY CHARLES CLARK MUNN
Author of "Pocket Island"
_ILLUSTRATED BY HELENA HIGGINBOTHAM_
BOSTON
LEE AND SHEPARD
M C M
COPYRIGHT, 1900, BY LEE AND SHEPARD
_All rights reserved_
Rockwell and Churchill Press
BOSTON, U.S.A.
To
THOSE WHO LOVE TO WANDER OVER GREEN MEADOWS,
ALONG MIRTHFUL BROOKS,
OR BENEATH FOREST TREES WHERE THE BIRDS
DWELL, OR FIND CONTENT ON LONELY
SHORES AND MUSIC IN THE
OCEAN'S VOICE,
This book is respectfully dedicated
BY THE AUTHOR
[Illustration: THE HOME OF UNCLE TERRY]
CONTENTS
I. A WAIF OF THE SEA
II. UNCLE TERRY
III. TWO ORPHANS
IV. A SPIDER IN HIS DEN
V. WAYS THAT ARE DARK
VI. A PUSH DOWNWARD
VII. A SERMON
VIII. A HELPING HAND
IX. SHARP PRACTICE
X. AMID THE GREEN MOUNTAINS
XI. BY THE FIRESIDE
XII. A COUNTRY SCHOOLMA'AM
XIII. SOUTHPORT ISLAND
XIV. A LEGALIZED PICKPOCKET
XV. THE VALUE OF GOOD EXAMPLE
XVI. SWEET ALICE
XVII. A BY-WAY SCHOOLHOUSE
XVIII. VILLAGE GOSSIP
XIX. PLOTS AND PLANS
XX. A PAIR OF BLUE EYES
XXI. A NEW CLIENT
XXII. UNCLE TERRY'S GUEST
XXIII. A STRANGE STORY
XXIV. A WHISPER OF THE OCEAN
XXV. THE "GYPSY" RETURNS
XXVI. THE MISER IN HIS DEN
XXVII. IN SHADY WOODS
XXVIII. WHERE THE LILIES GROW
XXIX. A FRIEND AT COURT
XXX. NEMESIS
XXXI. THE GLAD HAND
XXXII. THE DEMNITION GRIND
XXXIII. OLD AND YOUNG
XXXIV. FIRELIGHT FLASHES
XXXV. THE "WIDDER" LEACH
XXXVI. A NAMELESS COVE
XXXVII. AMID FALLING LEAVES
XXXVIII. THE OLD SONGS
XXXIX. SOCIETY
XL. "YES OR NO"
XLI. AN HEIRESS
XLII. THE PATHOS OF LIFE
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
THE HOME OF UNCLE TERRY
UNCLE TERRY AND TELLY
ALICE
THE OLD MILL
UNCLE TERRY
A STORY OF THE MAINE COAST
CHAPTER I
A WAIF OF THE SEA
"It's goin' to be a nasty night," said Uncle Terry, coming in from the
shed and dumping an armful of wood in the box behind the kitchen stove,
"an' the combers is just a-humpin' over White Hoss Ledge, an' the
spray's flyin' half way up the lighthouse."
"The Lord-a-massy help any poor soul that goes ashore to-night,"
responded a portly, white-haired woman beside the stove, as a monster
wave made the little dwelling tremble.
Uncle Terry took off his dripping sou'wester and coat, and, hanging them
over the wood box, went to the sink and began pumping a basin of water.
"Better have some warm, Silas," said the woman, taking the steaming
kettle from the stove and following him; "it's more comfortin'."
When he had washed, and combed his scanty gray locks and beard at a
small mirror, he stood for a moment beside the stove. His weather-beaten
face that evinced character, so pronounced were its features, wore a
smile, and his deep-set gray eyes emitted a twinkle.
"Supper 'most ready, Lissy?" he asked, eyeing a pot on the stove that
gave out an appetizing odor. "I'm hungry 'nough to eat a mule with the
harness on!"
"'Twill be in a minit," was the reply. "Better go into t'other room
where Telly's settin' the table."
Uncle Terry obeyed, and, finding a bright fire burning there, stood back
to it, smiling affectionately at a young girl busy beside the table. She
had an oval face, a rather thin and delicate nose, small sweet mouth,
and eyes that were big, blue, and appealing. A wealth of light hair was
coiled on the back of her head, and her form was full and rounded.
"It's blowing hard to-night, father, isn't it?" she observed. "I can
feel the waves shake the house." Then, not waiting for an answer, she
stepped to a closet, and bringing a short gray coat and felt slippers,
pushed an arm-chair to the fire, and placing the slippers beside it,
held the coat ready for him to put it on.
"You might as well be comfortable," she added; "you haven't got to go
out again, have you?"
The man seated himself, and drawing off his wet boots and putting on his
slippers, opened his hands toward the blaze and observed: "You and
Lissy's bound to cosset me, so bimeby I won't stir out 'cept the sun
shines."
Silas Terry, or Uncle Terry, as everybody on Southport Island called
him, was, and for thirty years had been, the keeper of "The Cape" light,
situated on the outermost point of the island. To this he added the
daily duty of mail carrier to the head of the island, eight miles
distant, and there connecting with a small steamer plying between the
Maine coast islands and a shore port. He also, in common with other of
the islanders, tilled a little land and kept a few traps set for
lobsters. He was an honest, kind-hearted, and fairly well-read man,
whose odd sayings and quaint phrases were proverbial. With his wife,
whom everybody called Aunt Lissy, and adopted daughter Telly, he lived
in a neat white house close to the Cape light and, as he put it, "his
latch-string was allus out."
Uncle Terry had a history, and not the least interesting episode in it
was the entrance into his life of this same fair and blue-eyed girl.
Perhaps his own graphic description will best tell the tale:
"It was 'bout the last o' March, nigh onto eighteen year ago, and
durin' one o' the worst blows I ever rec'clect since I kep' the light,
that one mornin' I spied a vessel hard an' fast on White Hoss Ledge,
'bout half a mile off the pint. It had been snowin' some an' froze on
the windows o' the light, so mebbe she didn't see it 'fore she fetched
up all standin'. The seas was poundin' her like great guns, an' in her
riggin' I could see the poor devils half hid in snow an' ice. Thar
wa'n't no hope for 'em, for no dory could 'a' lived a moment in that
awful gale, and thar wa'n't no lifeboat here. Lissy an' me made haste to
build a fire on the pint, to show the poor critturs we had feelin' for
'em, an' then we just stood an' waited an' watched for 'em to go down.
It might 'a' been an hour, there's no tellin', when I saw a big bundle
tossin' light, an' comin' ashore. I ran over to the cove where I keep my
boats, and grabbed a piece o' rope an' boat hook, and made ready. The
Lord must 'a' steered that bundle, for it kept workin' along, headin'
for a bit o' beach just by the pint. I had a rope round my waist, an'
Lissy held onto the end, an' when the bundle struck I made fast with the
boat hook and the next comber tumbled me end over, bundle an' all, up
onto the sand. I grabbed at it, an' 'fore the next one come, had it high
an' dry out o' the way.
"It's allus been a puzzle to me just why I did it, for I was wet
through an' most froze, an' what I'd pulled out looked like a feather
bed tied round with a cord, but I out with my knife an' cut the cords,
an' thar in the middle o' two feather beds was a box, an' in the box a
baby alive an' squallin'!
"I didn't stop to take the rope off my waist, but grabbed the box an'
ran for the house with Lissy after me. We had a fire in the stove, an'
Lissy warmed a blanket and wrapped the poor thing up an' held it over
the stove an' kissed it and took on just as wimmin will. When I see it
was safe I cut for the pint, thinkin' to wave my hat an' show 'em we had
saved the baby, but a squall o' snow had struck in an' when it let up
the vessel was gone. Thar was bits o' wreck cum ashore, pieces o' spars,
a boat all stove in, an' the like, an' a wooden shoe. In the box the
baby was in was two little blankets, an', tied in a bit o' cloth, two
rings an' a locket with two picters in it, an' a paper was pinned to the
baby's clothes with furrin writin' on it. It said the baby's name was
Etelka Peterson, an' 'To God I commend my child,' an' signed, 'A
despairin' mother.' From bits o' the wreck we learned the vessel was
from Stockholm, an' named 'Peterson.'
"The paper was sech a heart-techin' appeal, an' as we'd just buried our
only child, a six-year-old gal, we was glad to adopt this 'un an' bring
her up. In due course o' time I made a report o' the wreck to the
Lighthouse Board, an' that we had saved one life, a gal baby, an' give
all the facts. Nothin' ever came on't, though, an' we was glad thar
didn't. We kep' the little gal, an' she wa'n't long in growin' into our
feelin's, an' the older she growed, the more we thought o' her."
Of course the history of Uncle Terry's protegée was known to every
resident of the island, and as she grew into girlhood and attended
school at the Cape--as the little village a quarter mile back of the
point was called--until she matured into a young lady, every one came to
feel that, in a way, she belonged to the kindly lighthouse keeper and
his wife Melissa.
To them she was all that a devoted daughter could be, and when school
days were over she became Uncle Terry's almost constant companion. On
pleasant days she went with him to attend his traps, and on his daily
drive to the head of the island. She was welcome in every house and well
beloved by all those simple, kindly people, who felt an unusual interest
in her existence. Of tender heart and timid nature, her appealing eyes
won the love of young and old. On Sunday evenings she was always one of
the small congregation that gathered to hold simple services in the
little church at the Cape--a square one-story building that never knew
paint or shutters.
[Illustration: UNCLE TERRY AND TELLY]
Of beaux she hardly knew the meaning, and it must be said the few young
men who remained on the island after reaching the age of courtship were
neither in garb nor manners such as would attract a girl like Telly.
One special talent she was gifted with and that the ability to draw and
paint well. Even as a child at school she would draw pictures on a slate
that were surprising, and when older, and she obtained materials, she
worked until she became, in a way, quite an artist. As Uncle Terry put
it, "Makin' picters comes nat'rl to the gal."
She had never received even the first lessons in that charming art, but
for all that every room in the house had dozens of her efforts, large
and small, hanging on the walls, and in the oddest frames. Some were of
strips of thin board covered with little shells or dried moss, and
others of rustic handiwork and mounted with fir cones.
There was but one shadow in her life and that the fact that no one of
the relatives she imagined she must have in far-off Sweden ever made any
effort to learn the fate of her parents, who she knew had gone down so
near her home. The story of her rescue with all its pitiful details was
familiar to her and in her room were treasured all the odd bits of
wreckage: the locket that contained her parents' pictures; the two
rings; the last message of her mother; and even the wooden shoe that had
floated ashore. How many times she had looked at those two pictured
faces, one a reflection of her own, how many tears she had shed in
secret over them, and how, year after year, she wondered if ever in her
life some relative would be known to her, no one, not even her
foster-parents, ever knew. Neither did they know how many times she had
tried to imagine the moment when her despairing mother, with death near,
and with prayers and tears, had cast her adrift, hoping that the one
little life most dear to that mother might be saved. The fatal reef
where those parents had gone down also held for her a weird fascination,
and at times the voice of the ocean seemed like the despairing cries of
mortals. One picture, and it was her best, was a view of the wreck, as
near as Uncle Terry could describe it, with human forms clinging to the
ice-clad rigging and tempestuous seas leaping over them. The subject
held an uncanny influence over her, and she had spent months on the
picture. But this shadow of her life she kept carefully guarded from
all.