A GRAY-HAIRED ROMANCE
There had been a time in the long ago of Rockhaven's history when Jess,
then a bashful young man, had loved pretty Letty Carver, now the Widow
Hutton. It had started in her school days, when they romped barefoot
along the sandy shore of the harbor, played about the old tide mill,
whose wheels then rumbled with each ebb and flow, or gathered shells on
the bits of beach between the island cliffs. When the epoch of spelling
school and walk home from Thursday evening prayer meetings came, it was
Letty whom Jess always singled out, and though she now wore shoes, he
was not always so fortunate. But the little bond of feeling was none the
less entrancing; and when later Jess sailed away to the Banks on his
first fishing trip, he carried a lock of Letty's jet-black hair as a
token, and her sweet face was ever present in his thoughts. When he
returned, browned but successful, her welcome seemed to grow in warmth;
and after two or three voyages, and he could now afford a Sunday suit
when he visited her, gossip whispered they were likely to make a match.
By this time he had begun to build the usual air-castles of youth, and
though his took the shape of a humble dwelling, nestling amid the
abutting cliffs in front of which Rockhaven stood, it was none the less
a palace to him, with Letty to be its future queen.
And then the war came on and Jess, partly from patriotism, a little from
love of adventure, and more to earn the liberal bounty his country
offered, enlisted in the navy. Had he been a trifle less bashful and
secured the promise which Letty was then willing to give, this history
might never have been written; but Jess, a splendid young fellow, in
spite of his surroundings, lacked assurance, and all the bond that
joined them, when he sailed away, was the hope on his part of what might
be if he ever came back.
He did in four years, covered with glory, but with a leg maimed by a bit
of shell when under Farragut, and before Vicksburg he forgot even Letty
amid the inferno of war.
In the meantime, his younger brother, Jethro, had discovered Letty, and
she, practical as always, was not long in deciding that a suitor with
good legs and a cottage already achieved was preferable to a hero with a
lame leg and no cottage.
Jess bore his discomfiture philosophically, as was his nature, not even
reproaching Letty by word or look; and though disposed to see a silver
lining back of all clouds, this one he thought best to avoid, and so
took himself away. He remained away, a rolling stone for fifteen years,
and though he gathered some moss, it failed to efface--Letty.
And then a change came; for one day the smart new fishing schooner his
brother had just built with his aid sailed away on her second voyage and
never came back, and practical Letty was left a widow with one child, a
modest home on Rockhaven, and naught else. As might be expected, she
sent at once for Jess, and to him only imparted the facts of the
situation.
Whether it was the smouldering embers of his boyhood illusion or the
winsome ways of the child Mona, now four years old, that influenced him,
no one ever knew, but he at once announced that he had decided to abide
in Rockhaven for the future and open a store. There was one already
there, but the slow growth of the village allowed a fair excuse for
another, and Jess established it. Once more the gossips, who take
cognizance of all matters, recalled the youthful attentions of Jess to
Letty, and asserted that she would, in suitable time, discard her
widow's weeds and become another Mrs. Hutton. She did put on more
cheerful habiliments in due time, but remained a widow still; and though
Jess was a frequent caller, usually walking to church with her and Mona
on Sundays, he continued, as he had started, to live by himself over his
store.
Neither were the gossips enlightened as to the financial standing of the
widow, or how much had been laid away by her husband, or her means of a
livelihood.
Jess knew, however, and Jess only; but he was the last person to impart
such data to a curious public. What they did see was that he at once
assumed a fatherly protectorship over his little niece, and she became
his sole charge and care in life. Though she ate and slept at home,
tripped alone to school, and to church each Sunday hand in hand with
Uncle Jess, his store was her playhouse and his love her happiness until
girlhood was reached. Often on summer days he left the store, utterly
disregarding trade, and with her took long rambles over the island,
hunting gulls' eggs and gathering shells, flowers, or berries. He built
her a boat and taught her to row it in the little harbor, talked to her
for hours of the great world and its people, of the planets and their
motions, of right and wrong, of religion and God. He aided her in her
lessons, teaching her more and faster than she learned at school; and
when her fingers could reach across the strings of his old brown violin,
he taught her the lore of its wondrous voice.
And so the happy years of her girlhood passed, until now, a woman grown,
she had learned the lesson of loving, and had come to him with her
unspoken plea for help. Never had she appealed to him in vain, and never
would, so long as his keen mind was active and heart normal. For weeks
he pondered over this most difficult of all problems, and then he acted.
"I've got a leetle matter to talk over with yer mother to-night, Mona,"
he said, "an' if ye don't mind ye might go an' make a call on one of the
neighbors. It's a sorter peculiar business 'n' it's better we're 'lone
till it's settled."
And it was "peculiar," and so much so that Jess talked for one hour with
Mrs. Hutton in an absent-minded way, while he studied the cheerful open
fire, cogitating, meanwhile, how best to utter what he had to say, while
she sat sewing diligently, on the opposite side of the sitting-room
table.
"Letty," he said at last, "hev ye noticed Mona hain't been overcheerful
the last three months, an' seems to be sorter broodin' over suthin'?"
"I have, Jess," replied Mrs. Hutton, looking up; "and it's all due to
notions that Mr. Hardy's put into her head 'bout her playin' an'
praisin' her so much. I've knowed all 'long her wastin' time fiddlin'
wouldn't serve no good purpose in the long run."
It wasn't an auspicious opening to the subject uppermost in the mind of
Jess, but he paid no heed to it. "Letty," he continued calmly, "fiddlin'
hain't nothin' to do with the state o' Mona's mind, 'n' if ye'd watched
her as clus as I hev, ye'd know it. Do ye 'member when ye was a gal how
Hitty Baker, ez used ter live up to the north village, got crossed in
love 'n' kept broodin' on't until one day she was missin', an' 'bout a
week arter they found her hangin' in the old mill? Thar's no tellin'
what a gal'll do an' when she'll do it, if she gits to broodin' over
sich matters."
"I hope you don't think Mona, brought up as she has been, will be such a
fool as Hitty Baker was," rejoined Mrs. Hutton, sharply. "Mona's got
more sense."
"'Tain't a matter o' sense," Jess retorted quickly, "it's a matter o'
nater 'n' 'magination, 'n' the more o' them peculiarities a gal's got,
the more onsartin she is apt to be, 'n' ez I said, Mona ain't herself
these days, 'n' unless suthin's done to change the current o' her mind,
fust thing you'll find, some day, she's a missin'."
"That's all your notion, Jess," answered Mrs. Hutton, now more aroused
than she was willing to admit; "an' if Mona'd listen to Dave Moore, as I
want her to, he'd soon cure such whims."
"Did yer mother ever make ye take catnip tea when ye was a gal, Letty,"
responded Jess, laconically, "an' how did ye injie the dose?" Then, not
waiting for an answer, he continued, "Dave's catnip tea to Mona, 'n' I
tell ye it's better ye quit dosin' her with Dave, 'n' purty soon, too.
She's nobody to go to but me, an' I know how she feels, 'n' I don't
think ye do."
"Have you any better medicine to advise?" came the query, as Mrs. Hutton
laid aside her sewing and looked at Jess.
"I hev," replied Jess, firmly, "only it'll take both on us to give it,
'n' that's what I come here for, Letty. Ye know how I feel 'bout Mona,
an' one o' these days she'll come into all I've laid by. But that's no
savin' grace jist now."
"An' what'll savin' grace jist now be, I'd like to know," queried the
mother. "Ain't helping me and having company when she likes, all that's
needful to take up her mind? She's whimsical, an' that young feller
Hardy's put notions into her head she'd be better off without."
Jess was making scant progress toward his ultimate object, and realized
it--also that sentiment was a matter quite beyond Mrs. Hutton's ken.
"Letty," he said at last, almost in desperation, "I've stood by ye 'n'
Mona purty middlin' well fer quite a spell now, hain't I? an' ye'll 'low
I kin see a hole in a grinstun if thar is one, 'n' what I've sot my mind
on doin' for Mona'll be the best fer her in the long run, an' that is,
we take her away from here 'n' give her a chance in the world."
Mrs. Hutton looked at him in amazement, realizing not at all what he had
in mind.
"How can we do that?" she questioned.
"Thar's only one way," he answered hastily, with a now-or-never
determination; "I know I'm gittin' 'long in years 'n' one o' my legs
ain't workin' well, an' the only thing ye kin bank on, Letty, is my
heart's in the right place 'n' my feelin's toward ye hain't changed a
mite in forty year, an'--an' if ye're willin' to chance it, Letty, I'll
do all I kin to make ye happy."
A woman is seldom surprised by a proposal, but Mrs. Hutton was. For
fifteen years now, since she had been a widow, Jess had seemed like a
good brother, which in truth he had been in all ways, and never once
had she surmised he cared for a nearer kinship. Then, as she looked at
him, his kindly face aglow with earnest feeling, his keen eyes beneath
their shaggy eyebrows questioning her, for one instant her heart
quivered. Then backward over the flight of time her memory leaped, until
she saw herself a laughing, care-free girl once more, with life opening
before her, and this same good friend and brother, grateful for her
every word and smile of favor. Then, too, came a little nagging of
conscience at the way she had ignored him on his return, a limping hero,
and how he had never once reproached her for it. And following that, the
heaping of coals upon her head when he, coming to her rescue in the hour
of poverty and bereavement, had been the only friend she had to lean
upon. All the years of his tender thought and care, all his wise
counsel, all his unselfish giving, all his countless deeds of love and
forethought came back now in an instant, like a mighty wave of feeling,
sweeping all her pride and will before it. And as she bowed her face,
covering her eyes with one hand to hide the tears she could not control,
once more he spoke.
"Letty," he said, "ye needn't mind answerin' jist now. Think on't, an'
to-morrow or next day tell me. Thar ain't no need o' hurry. I've waited
quite a spell now, an' a day or two more won't matter."
"It's absurd," she said at last, when the tide of feeling ebbed, "and
everybody will say so."
"'Tain't their funeral or weddin' either, is it?" he answered. "An' mark
my words, Letty, thar's more on 'em here ez'll wish us well than ye
think."
But when he came to go she said, "Why didn't you ask me forty years ago,
Jess?"
"'Cause I was a durned fool 'n' dassent," he answered, "but I've
outgrowed it now."