MONA HUTTON
Mona Hutton was, as Winn instinctively felt that Sunday when he first
glanced into her well-like eyes, a girl but little akin to her
surroundings--a child of the island, full of strange moods and fancies,
sombre as the thickets of spruce that grew dense and dark between the
ledges of granite, and solemn as the unceasing boom of ocean billows
below its cliffs. Even as a barefoot schoolgirl she had found the sea an
enticing playmate, and to watch its white-crested waves lifting the
rockweed and brown kelpie, as they swept over the rocks and into the
gorges and fissures, was of more interest than her schoolmates. She
would hide between the ledges and watch the sea-gulls sailing over them
for hours, build playhouses in out-of-the-way spots with lone
contentment, filling them with shells, starfish, and crabs, dig wells in
the sandy margin of the harbor, and catch minnows to put in them. She
loved to watch the fishing boats sailing away, the coasters pass the
island, the current sweeping in and out beneath the old tide mill, and
as she grew up and gained in courage roamed over the entire island at
will. The Devil's Oven, out of sight and sound of everybody, became a
charming spot for her; and here she would sit for hours watching the
waves leap into the gorge and wondering why they never sounded twice
alike. And so on, as she developed, she absorbed the mood of the ocean,
its grandeur shaped her thoughts, its mystery tinged her emotion, and
its solemnity, like the voice of eternity, gave expression to her eyes.
Companions of her own age she had none, leaving them to play as they
chose while she sought solitude, and found contentment on the lonely
shores. Uncle Jess only was akin to her, and if she could lead him away
as playmate, then was she happy.
And so she grew up.
With only a limited education, such as the island schools afforded, a
scant knowledge of books, since but few ever reached Rockhaven, a love
of music that amounted to a passion, no knowledge of the world except
that gleaned from Uncle Jess, a deep religious feeling, partially shaped
by the "Hardshell" Baptist teachings of the Rev. Jason Bush, and more by
the ocean billows that forever thundered against the island shores, she
was at twenty a girl to be pitied by those capable of understanding her
nature or realizing how incompatible to it was her environment. Of music
she knew but little, and that taught her by the genial old soul who,
since her babyhood, had been father, uncle, and companion. His constant
assistance had been hers through her pinafore days at school; his genial
philosophy and keen insight into human impulse had done more to develop
her mind afterward than the three R's she mastered there. His gentle
hand had taught her the scales on his old brown fiddle, and now that she
had reached that mystic line where girlhood ends and womanhood begins,
her future was of more concern to him than all else in his life. That
she must and would, in the course of human nature, love and marry, he
fully expected; that it was like to be a mateship with some of the
simple and hard-working fishermen's sons, he expected; and yet, with
dread for her far more than any one else, even her mother, he realized
that such an alliance would be but a lifelong slavery for Mona. To mate
a poetic soul like hers, that heard the voice of eternity in the
white-crested billows, the footsteps of angels in the music he drew from
his violin, and the whisper of God in the sea winds that murmured
through the spruce thickets they visited, as he knew she did, seemed as
unnatural as confining one of the white gulls that circled about the
island in a coop with the barnyard fowls.
To Mona herself no thought of this had come. Though the young men with
whom as schoolmates she had studied, and who now as fishermen, with
ill-smelling garb and sea-tanned hands and faces, often sought her, to
none did she give encouragement, and with none found agreeable
companionship. What her future might be, and with whom spent, gave her
no concern. Each day she lived as it came, helping her mother in the
simple home life and the making of their raiment, stealing away
occasionally to spend a few hours with Uncle Jess, or in summer to hide
herself in the Devil's Oven, and play on the violin he had given her, or
practise with him as a teacher. This violin and its playing, it must be
stated, had been and was the only bone of contention between Mona and
her mother, and just why that mother found it hard to explain, except
that it was a man's instrument and not a woman's. Their humble parlor
boasted a small cottage organ. "Let Mona learn to play on that," she had
said when Jess first began to teach Mona the art of the bowstrings,
"it's more graceful for a girl to do that than sawing across a fiddle
stuck under her chin." And this matter of grace, so vital to that
mother's peace of mind, was the only point of dispute between them. But
Uncle Jess sided with Mona, and the mother gave in, for with her, for
many potent reasons, the will and wishes of Uncle Jess must not be
thwarted, even if wrong. However, the dispute drove Mona and the fiddle
out of the house, and when she had finally mastered it (at least in a
measure), it stayed out.
In this connection, it may be said, there was also a difference in
opinion between Mrs. Hutton and Jess regarding the future of Mona, and
though never discussed before her, for obvious reasons, it existed. With
Mrs. Hutton the measure of her own life, or what it had been, as well as
that of her neighbors, was broad enough for Mona.
"It's going to spoil her," she asserted on one of these occasions, "this
getting the idea into her head that those she has been brought up with
are not good enough for her. They may not be, but we are here and likely
to stay here, and once a girl gets her head full o' high notions and
that she's better than the rest, it's all day with her."
"Thar ain't no use interferin'," Jess responded, "whatever notions
Mona's got, she's got, an' ye can't change 'em. If she likes the smell
o' wild roses better'n fishin' togs, she does; and if she turns up her
nose at them as don't think 'nough o' pleasin' her ter change togs when
they come round, I 'gree with her. Wimmin, an' young wimmin 'specially,
air notional, an' though most on 'em 'round here has ter work purty
hard, it ain't no sign their notions shouldn't be considered. I've
stayed in houses whar wimmin wa'n't 'lowed to lift a finger an' had
sarvants ter fan 'em when 'twas hot, an' though that ain't no sign
Mona'll git it done for her, I hope I'll never live ter see her drudgin'
like some on 'em here."
"If you'd had the bringing o' Mona up," Mrs. Hutton had responded rather
sharply, "you would a-made a doll baby out o' her, an' only fit to have
servants to fan her." At which parting shot, Jess had usually taken to
his heels, muttering, "It's a waste o' time argufyin' with a woman."
But Mrs. Hutton was far from being as "sot" in her way as might be
inferred, as she always had, and still desired, to rear her only child
in the way she considered best, and in accordance with her surroundings.
To be a fine lady on Rockhaven, as Mrs. Hutton would put it, was
impossible; and unless Mona was likely to be transplanted to another
world, as it were, it seemed wisest to keep her from exalted ideas and
high-bred tastes. But back of that, and deep in the mother's love, lay
the hope of better things for her child than she had known, though how
they were to come, and in what way, she could not see.
Mere pebbles of chance shape our destiny, and so it was in the life of
Winn Hardy, and the trifle, light as air, that turned his footsteps, was
the sound of church bells that Sunday morning in Rockhaven.
Had they not recalled his boyhood, he would have spent the day in
roaming over the island as he had planned, instead of accepting Mrs.
Moore's invitation to accompany her to church, with the sequence of
events that followed. And the one most potent was the accent of
cordiality in Mrs. Hutton's neighborly invitation to call. It may be
supposed, and naturally, that the expressive eyes of her daughter were
the real magnets; but in this case they were not. Instead it was the
mother with whom he desired to visit, and when he called that first
evening it was with her he held most converse. Out of the medley of
subjects they chatted about, and what was said by either, so little is
pertinent to this narrative, it need not be quoted. Winn gave a brief
account of his early life and more of the latter part, since he had been
a resident of the city, together with a full explanation of how the
Rockhaven Granite Company was likely to affect the island, and his
mission there. This latter recital, he felt, would be a wise stroke of
policy, as apt to be repeated by Mrs. Hutton, as in truth it was, later
on. While she was not inquisitive, he found she was keenly interested in
the new industry he had established there, and discerning enough to see
that, if successful, it would be a great benefit to the island. Winn
discovered also that in addition to being a most excellent and devoted
mother, she was fairly well posted in current events, had visited
relatives on the mainland many times, and in the city once, and was far
from being narrow-minded. With Mona, who sat a quiet listener, he
exchanged but a few words, and those in connection with the church and
social life of the village. In truth, he found her disinclined to say
much and apparently afraid of him. His call was brief and not
particularly interesting, except that it made him feel a little more at
home on the island, and when he rose to go, he received the expected
invitation to call again; and when he had reached his room, the only
features of the call that remained in his mind were that Mrs. Hutton
seemed interested in his mission there, and her daughter had eyes that
haunted him.