'Tumm,' says she, 'I 'low I'll wed that man. I wanth t' get away from
here,' says she, lookin' over the hills. 'I wanth t' get t' the
Thouthern outporth, where there'th life. They ithn't no life here. An'
I'm tho wonderful tired o' all thith! Tumm,' says she, 'no man ever
afore athked me t' marry un, an' I 'low I better take thith one. He'th
on'y a fool,' says she, 'but not even a fool ever come courtin' me, an'
I 'low nobody but a fool would. On'y a fool, Tumm!' says she. 'But _I_
ithn't got nothin' t' boatht of. God made me,' says she, 'an' I ithn't
mad that He done it. I 'low He meant me t' take the firth man that come,
an' be content. I 'low _I_ ithn't got no right t' thtick up my nothe at
a fool. For, Tumm,' says she, 'God made that fool, too. An', Tumm,' says
she, 'I wanth thomethin' elthe. Oh, I wanth thomethin' elthe! I hateth
t' tell you, Tumm,' says she, 'what it ith. But all the other maidth
hath un, Tumm, an' I wanth one, too. I 'low they ithn't no woman happy
without one, Tumm. An' I ithn't never had no chanth afore. No chanth,
Tumm, though God knowth they ithn't nothin' I wouldn't do,' says she,
't' get what I wanth! I'll wed the fool,' says she. 'It ithn't a man I
wanth tho much; no, it ithn't a man. Ith--'
“'What you wantin', Liz?' says I.
“'It ithn't a man, Tumm,' says she.
“'No?' says I. 'What is it, Liz?'
“'Ith a baby,' says she.
“God! I felt bad when she told me that....”
Tumm stopped, sighed, picked at a knot in the table. There was silence
in the forecastle. The _Good Samaritan_ was still nodding to the
swell--lying safe at anchor in Heart's Ease Cove. We heard the gusts
scamper over the deck and shake the rigging; we caught, in the
intervals, the deep-throated roar of breakers, far off--all the noises
of the gale. And Tumm picked at the knot with his clasp-knife; and we
sat watching, silent, all.... And I felt bad, too, because of the maid
at Whooping Harbor--a rolling waste of rock, with the moonlight lying on
it, stretching from the whispering mystery of the sea to the greater
desolation beyond; and an uncomely maid, wishing, without hope, for that
which the hearts of women must ever desire....
“Ay,” Tumm drawled, “it made me feel bad t' think o' what she'd been
wantin' all them years; an' then I wished I'd been kinder t' Liz....
An', 'Tumm,' thinks I, 'you went an' come ashore t' stop this here
thing; but you better let the skipper have his little joke, for t'will
on'y s'prise him, an' it won't do nobody else no hurt. Here's this
fool,' thinks I, 'wantin' a wife; an' he won't never have another
chance. An' here's this maid,' thinks I, 'wantin' a baby; an' _she_
won't never have another chance. 'Tis plain t' see,' thinks I, 'that God
A'mighty, who made un, crossed their courses; an' I 'low, ecod!' thinks
I, 'that 'twasn't a bad idea He had. If He's got to get out of it
somehow,' thinks I, 'why, _I_ don't know no better way. Tumm,' thinks I,
'you sheer off. Let Nature,' thinks I, 'have doo course an' be
glorified.' So I looks Liz in the eye--an' says nothin'.
“'Tumm,' says she, 'doth you think he--'
“'Don't you be scared o' nothin',' says I. 'He's a lad o' good
feelin's,' says I, 'an' he'll treat you the best he knows how. Is you
goin' t' take un?'
“'I wathn't thinkin' o' that,' says she. 'I wathn't thinkin' o' _not_. I
wath jutht,' says she, 'wonderin'.'
“'They isn't no sense in that, Liz,' says I. 'You just wait an' find
out.'
“'What'th hith name?' says she.
“'Shoos,' says I. 'Moses Shoos.'
“With that she up with her pinny an' begun t' cry like a young swile.
“'What you cryin' for, Liz?' says I.
“I 'low I couldn't tell what 'twas all about. But she was like all the
women. Lord! 'tis the little things that makes un weep when it comes t'
the weddin'.
“'Come, Liz,' says I, 'what you cryin' about?'
“'I lithp,' says she.
“'I knows you does, Liz,' says I; 'but it ain't nothin' t' cry about.'
“'I can't thay Joneth,' says she.
“'No,' says I; 'but you'll be changin' your name,' says I, 'an' it won't
matter no more.'
“'An' if I can't say Joneth,' says she, 'I can't thay--'
“'Can't say what?' says I.
“'Can't thay Thooth!' says she.
“Lord! No more she could. An' t' say Moses Shoos! An' t' say M'issus
Moses Shoos! Lord! It give me a pain in the tongue, t' think of it.
“'Jutht my luck,' says she; 'but I'll do my betht.'
“So we went back an' told the cook that he didn't have t' worry no more
about gettin' a wife; an' he said he was more glad than sorry, an', says
he, she'd better get her bonnet, t' go aboard an' get married right
away. An' she 'lowed she didn't want no bonnet, but _would_ like to
change her pinny. So we said we'd as lief wait a spell, though a clean
pinny wasn't _needed_. An' when she got back, the cook said he 'lowed
the skipper could marry un well enough 'til we over-hauled a real
parson; an' she thought so, too, for, says she, 'twouldn't be longer
than fall, an' any sort of a weddin', says she, would do 'til then. An'
aboard we went, the cook an' me pullin' the punt, an' she steerin'; an'
the cook he crowed an' cackled all the way, like a half-witted rooster;
but the maid didn't even cluck, for she was too wonderful solemn t' do
anything but look at the moon.
“'Skipper,' said the cook, when we got in the fo'c's'le, 'here she is.
_I_ isn't afeared,' says he, 'and _she_ isn't afeared; an' now I 'low
we'll have you marry us.'
“Up jumps the skipper; but he was too much s'prised t' say a word.
“'An' I'm thinkin',' says the cook, with a nasty little wink, 'that they
isn't a man in this here fo'c's'le,' says he, 'will _say_ I'm afeared.'
“'Cook,' says the skipper, takin' the cook's hand, 'shake! I never
knowed a man like you afore,' says he. 'T' my knowledge, you're the on'y
man in the Labrador fleet would do it. I'm proud,' says he, 't' take the
hand o' the man with nerve enough t' marry Walrus Liz o' Whoopin'
Harbor.'
“The devil got in the eyes o' the cook--a jumpin' little brimstone
devil, ecod!
“'Ay, lad,' says the skipper, 'I'm proud t' know the man that isn't
afeared o' Walrus--'
“'Don't you call her that!' says the cook. 'Don't you do it, skipper!'
“I was lookin' at Liz. She was grinnin' in a holy sort o' way. Never
seed nothin' like that afore--no, lads, not in all my life.
“'An' why not, cook?' says the skipper.
“'It ain't her name,' says the cook.
“'It ain't?' says the skipper. 'But I been sailin' the Labrador for
twenty year,' says he, 'an' I ain't never heared her called nothin' but
Walrus--'
“The devil got into the cook's hands then. I seed his fingers clawin'
the air in a hungry sort o' way. An' it looked t' me like squally
weather for the skipper.
“'Don't you do it no more, skipper,' says the cook. 'I isn't got no
wits,' says he, 'an' I'm feelin' wonderful queer!'
“The skipper took a look ahead into the cook's eyes. 'Well, cook,' says
he, I 'low,' says he, 'I won't.'
“Liz laughed--an' got close t' the fool from Thunder Arm. An' I seed her
touch his coat-tail, like as if she loved it, but didn't dast do no
more.
“'What you two goin' t' do?' says the skipper.
“'We 'lowed you'd marry us,' says the cook, ''til we come across a
parson.'
“'I will,' says the skipper. 'Stand up here,' says he. 'All hands stand
up!' says he. 'Tumm,' says he, 'get me the first Book you comes across.'
“I got un a Book.
“'Now, Liz,' says he, 'can you cook?'
“'Fair t' middlin',' says she. 'I won't lie.'
“''Twill do,' says he. 'An' does you want t' get married t' this here
dam' fool?'
“'An it pleathe you,' says she.
“'Shoos,' says the skipper, 'will you let this woman do the cookin'?'
“'Well, skipper,' says the cook, 'I will; for I don't want nobody t' die
o' my cookin' on this here v'y'ge.'
“'An' will you keep out o' the galley?' “'I 'low I'll _have_ to.'
“'An', look you! cook, is you sure--is you _sure_,' says the skipper,
with a shudder, lookin' at the roof, 'that you wants t' marry this
here--'
“'Don't you do it, skipper!' says the cook. 'Don't you say that no more!
By God!' says he, 'I'll kill you if you does!'
“'Is you sure,' says the skipper, 'that you wants t' marry this
here--woman?'
“'I will.'
“'Well,' says the skipper, kissin' the Book, 'I'low me an' the crew
don't care; an' we can't help it, anyhow.'
“'What about mother's ring?' says the cook. 'She might's well have
that,' says he, 'if she's careful about the wear an' tear. For joolery,'
says he t' Liz, 'don't stand it.'
“'It can't do no harm,' says the skipper.
“'Ith we married, thkipper?' says Liz, when she got the ring on.
“'Well,' says the skipper, 'I 'low that knot 'll hold 'til fall. For,'
says he, 'I got a rope's end an' a belayin'-pin t' make it hold,' says
he, 'til we gets long-side of a parson that knows more about matrimonial
knots 'n me. We'll pick up your goods. Liz,' says he, 'on the s'uthard
v'y'ge. An' I hopes, ol girl,' says he, 'that you'll be able t' boil the
water 'ithout burnin' it.'
“'Ay, Liz. I been makin' a awful fist o' b'ilin' the water o' late.'
“She gave him one look--an' put her clean pinny to her eyes.
“'What you cryin' about?' says the cook.
“'I don't know,' says she; 'but I 'low 'tith becauthe now I knowth you
_ith_ a fool!'
“'She's right, Tumm,' says the cook. 'She's got it right! Bein' born on
Hollow eve,' says he, 'I couldn't be nothin' else. But, Liz,' says he,
'I'm glad I got you, fool or no fool.'
“So she wiped her eyes, an' blowed her nose, an' give a little sniff,
an' looked up, an' smiled.
“'I isn't good enough for you,' says the poor cook. 'But, Liz,' says he,
'if you kissed me,' says he, 'I wouldn't mind a bit. An' they isn't a
man in this here fo'c's'le,' says he, lookin' around, 'that'll _say_ I'd
mind. Not one,' says he, with the little devil jumpin' in his eyes.
“Then she stopped cryin' for good.
“'Go ahead, Liz!' says he. 'I ain't afeared. Come on! Give us a kiss!'
“'Motheth Thooth,' says she, 'you're the firtht man ever athked me t'
give un a kith!'
“She kissed un. 'Twas like a pistol-shot. An', Lord! her poor face was
shinin'....”
In the forecastle of the _Good Samaritan_ we listened to the wind as it
scampered over the deck; and we watched Tumm pick at the knot in the
table.
“Was she happy?” I asked, at last.
“Well,” he answered, with a laugh, “she sort o' got what she was
wantin'. More'n she was lookin' for, I 'low. Seven o' them. An' all
straight an' hearty. Ecod! sir, you never _seed_ such a likely litter o'
young uns. Spick an' span, ecod! from stem t' stern. Smellin' clean an'
sweet; decks as white as snow; an' every nail an' knob polished 'til it
made you blink t' see it. An' when I was down Thunder Arm way, last
season, they was some talk _o' one o' them bein' raised for a parson!_”
I went on deck. The night was still black; but beyond--high over the
open sea, hung in the depths of the mystery of night and space--there
was a star.
HYACINTHUS
BY MARY E. WILKINS FREEMAN
The group was seated on the flat door-stone and the gravel walk in front
of it, which crossed the green square of the Lynn front yard. On the
wide flat stone, in two chairs, sat Mrs. Rufus Lynn and her opposite
neighbor, Mrs. Wilford Biggs. On a chair on the gravel walk sat Mr. John
Mangam, Mrs. Biggs's brother--an elderly unmarried man who lived in the
village. On the step itself sat Mrs. Samson, an old lady of eighty-five,
as straight as if she were sixteen, and by her side, her long body bent
gracefully, her elbows resting on her knees, her chin resting in the cup
of her two hands, Sarah Lynn, her great-granddaughter. Sarah Lynn was
often spoken of as “pretty if she wasn't so slouchy,” in Adams, the
village in which she had been born and bred. Adams people were not,
generally speaking, of the kind who understand the grace which may exist
in utter freedom of attitude and motion.
It was a very hot evening of one of the hottest days of July, and Mrs.
Rufus Lynn wore in deference to the climate a gown of white cambric with
a little black sprig thereon, but nothing could excel the smoothly boned
fit of it. And she did not lean back in her chair, but was as erect as
the very old lady on the door-step, who was her grandmother, and who was
also stiffly gowned, in a black cashmere as straightly made as if it had
been armor. The influence of heredity showed strongly in the two, but in
Sarah showed the intervening generation.
Sarah was a great beauty with no honor in her own country. Her long
softly curved figure was surmounted by a head wound with braids of the
purest flax color, and a face like a cameo. She was very fair, with the
fairness of alabaster. Her mother's face had a hard blondness, pink and
white, but fixed, and her great-grandmother had the same.
Mrs. Samson often glanced disapprovingly at her great-granddaughter,
seated by her side in her utterly lax attitude. “Don't set so hunched
up,” she whispered to her in a sharp hiss. She did not want Mr. John
Mangam, whom she regarded as a suitor of Sarah's, to have his attention
called to the girl's defects.
But Sarah had laughed softly, and replied, quite aloud, in a languid,
sweet voice, “Oh, it is so hot, grandma!”
“What if it is hot?” said the old woman. “You ain't no hotter settin' up
than you be slouchin'.” She still spoke in a whisper, and Sarah had only
laughed and said nothing more.
As for Mrs. Wilford Biggs and her brother, Mr. John Mangam, they
maintained, as always, silence. Neither of the two ever spoke, as a
rule, unless spoken to. John was called a very rich man in Adams. He had
gone to the far West in his youth and made money in cattle.
“And how in creation he ever made any money in cattle, a man that don't
talk no more than he does, beats me,” Mrs. Samson often said to her
granddaughter, Mrs. Lynn. She was quite out-spoken to her about John
Mangam, although never to Sarah. “It does seem as if a man would have to
say somethin', to manage critters,” said the old woman.
Mr. John Mangam and Mrs. Wilford Biggs grated on her nerves. She
privately considered it an outrage for Mrs. Biggs to come over nearly
every evening and sit and rock and say nothing, and often fall asleep,
and for Mr. Mangam to do the same. It was not so much the silence as the
attitude of almost injured expectancy which irritated. Both gave the
effect of waiting for other people to talk to them, to tell them
interesting bits of news, to ask them questions--to set them going, as
it were.
Mrs. Lynn and her grandmother tried to fulfil their duty in this
direction, but Sarah did not trouble herself in the least. She continued
to sit bent over like a lily limp with the heat, and she stared with her
two great blue eyes in her cameo face forth at the wonders of the summer
night, and she had apparently very little consciousness of the people
around her. Her loose white gown fell loosely around her; her white
elbows were quite visible from the position in which she held her arms.
Her lovely hair hung in soft loops over her ears. She was the only one
who paid the slightest attention to the beauty of the night. She was
filling her whole soul with it.
It was a wonderful night, and Adams was a village in which to see a
wonderful night. It was flanked by a river, upon the opposite bank of
which rose a gentle mountain. Above the mountain the moon was appearing
with the beauty of revelation, and the tall trees made superb shadow
effects. The night also was not without its voices and its fragrances.
Katydids were shrilling from every thicket, and over somewhere near the
river a whippoorwill was persistently calling. As for the fragrances,
they were those of the dark, damp skirts and wings of the night, the
evidences as loud as voices of green shrubs and flowers blooming in low
wet places; but dominant above all was the scent of the lilies. One
breathed in lilies to that extent that one's thought seemed fairly
scented with them. It was easy enough, by looking toward the left, to
see where the fragrance came from. There was evident, on the other side
of a low hedge, a pale florescence of the flowers. Beyond them rose,
pale likewise, the great Ware house, the largest in the village, and the
oldest. Hyacinthus Ware was the sole representative of the old family
known to be living. Presently the group on the Lynn door-step began to
talk about him, leading up to the subject from the fragrance of the
lilies.
“Them lilies is so sweet they are sickish,” said the old grandmother.
“Yes, they be dreadful sickish,” said Mrs. Lynn. Mrs. Wilford Biggs and
Mr. Mangam, as usual, said nothing.
“Hyacinthus is home, I see,” said Mrs. Lynn.
“Yes, I see him on the street t'other day,” said the old woman, in her
thick dialect. She sat straighter than ever as she gazed across at the
garden of lilies and the great Ware house, and the cold step-stone
seemed to pierce her old spinal column like a rod of steel; but she
never flinched.
Mrs. Wilford Biggs and Mr. John Mangam said nothing.
“He is the handsomest man I ever saw,” said Sarah Lynn, unexpectedly, in
an odd, shamed, almost awed voice, as if she were speaking of a
divinity.
Then for the first time Mr. John Mangam gave evidence of life. He did
not speak, but he made an inarticulate noise between a grunt and a
sniff.
“Well, if you call that man good-lookin',” said Mrs. Lynn, “you don't
see the way I do, that's all.” She looked straight at Mr. John Mangam as
she spoke.
“I don't call him good-looking at all,” said the old woman; “dreadful
white-livered.”
Sarah said nothing at all, but the face of the man, Hyacinthus Ware, was
before her eyes still, as beautiful and grand as the face of a god.
“Never heerd such a name, either,” said the old woman. “His mother was
dreadful flowery. She had some outlandish blood. I don't know whether
she was Eyetalian or Dutch.”
“Her mother was Greek, I always heard,” said Mrs. Lynn. “I dun'no' as I
ever heard of any other Greek round these parts. I guess they don't
emigrate much.”
“I guess it was Greek, now you speak of it,” said the old woman. “I knew
she was outlandish on one side, anyhow. An' as fur callin' him
good-lookin'--” She looked aggressively at her great-granddaughter,
whose beautiful face was turned toward the moonlit night.
It was a long time that they sat there. It had been a very hot day, and
the cool was grateful. Hardly a remark was made, except one from Mrs.
Lynn that it was a blessing there were so few mosquitoes and they could
sit outdoors such a night.
“I ain't heerd but one all the time I've been settin' here,” said the
old woman, “and I ketched him.”
Sarah, the girl, continued to drink, to eat, to imbibe, to assimilate,
toward her spiritual growth, the beauty of the night, the gentle slope
of the mountain, the wavering wings of the shadows, the song of the
river, the calls of the whippoorwill and the katydids, the perfume of
the unseen green things in the wet places, and the overmastering
sweetness of the lilies.
At last Mrs. Wilford Biggs arose to go, and also John Mangam. Both said
they must be goin', they guessed, and that was the first remark that had
been made by either of them. Mrs. Biggs moved with loose flops down the
front walk, and John Mangam walked stiffly behind her. She had merely to
cross the road; he had half a mile to walk to his bachelor abode.
“I should think he must be lonesome, poor man, with only that no-account
housekeeper to home,” said the old woman, as she also rose, with pain,
of which she resolutely gave no evidence. Her poor old joints seemed to
stab her, but she fought off the pain angrily. Instead she pitied with
meaning John Mangam.
“It must be pretty hard for him,” assented Mrs. Lynn. She also thought
it would be a very good thing for her daughter to marry John Mangam.
Sarah said nothing. The old woman, after saying, like the others, that
she guessed she must be goin', crept off alone across the field to her
little house. She would have resented any offer to accompany her, and
Mrs. Lynn arose to enter the house.
“Well, be you goin' to set there all night?” she asked, rather sharply,
of Sarah. It had seemed to her that Sarah might have made a little
effort to entertain Mr. John Mangam.
“No. I am coming in, mother,” Sarah said. Sarah spoke differently from
the others. She had had, as they expressed it in Adams, “advantages.”
She had, in fact, graduated from a girls' school of considerable repute.
Her father had insisted upon it. Mrs. Lynn had rather rebelled against
the outlay on Sarah's education. She had John Mangam in mind, and she
thought that a course at the high school in Adams would fit her
admirably for her life. However, she deferred to Rufus Lynn, and Sarah
had her education.
The Lynn house was a large story-and-a-half cottage, the prevalent type
of house in Adams. Mrs. Lynn slept in the room she had always occupied
on the second floor. In hot weather Sarah slept in the bedroom opening
out of the best parlor, because the other second-floor room was hot.
Mrs. Lynn went up-stairs with her lamp and left Sarah to go to bed in
the bedroom out of the parlor. Sarah went in there with her own little
lamp, but even that room seemed stuffy. The heat of the day seemed to
have become confined in the house. Sarah stood irresolute for a moment.
She looked at the high mound of feather bed, at the small window at the
foot, whence came scarcely a whiff of the blessed night air. Them she
went back out on the door-step and again seated herself. As she sat
there the scent of the lilies came more strongly than ever, and now with
a curious effect. It was to the girl as if the fragrance were twining
and winding about her and impelling her like leashes. All at once an
impulse of yielding which was really freedom came to her. Why in the
world should she not cross the little north yard, step over the low
hedge, and go into that lily-garden? She knew that it would be beautiful
there. She looked forth into the crystalline light and the soft plumy
shade,--she would go over into the Ware garden. With all this, there was
no ulterior motive. She had seen the man who lived in the house, and she
admired him as one from afar, but she was a girl innocent not only in
fact, but in dreams. Of course she had thought of a possible lover and
husband, and that some day he might come, and she resented the
supposition that John Mangam might be he, but she held even her
imagination in a curious respect. While she dreamed of love, she
worshipped at the same time.
When she had stepped lightly over the hedge and was moving among the
lilies in the strange garden where she had no right, she was beautiful
as any nymph. Now that she was in the midst of the lilies, it was as if
their fragrance were a chorus sung with a violence of sweet breath in
her very face. She felt exhilarated, even intoxicated, by it. She felt
as if she were drawing the lilies so into herself that her own
personality waned. She seemed to realize what it would be to bloom with
that pale glory and exhale such sweetness for a few days. There were
other flowers than lilies in the garden, but the lilies were very
plentiful. There were white day-lilies, and tiger-lilies which were not
sweet at all, and marvellous pink freckled ones which glistened as with
drops of silver and were very fragrant. There were also low-growing
spider-lilies, but those were not evident at this time of night, and the
lilies-of-the-valley, of course, were all gone. There were, however,
many other flowers of the old-fashioned varieties--verbenas
sweet-williams, phlox, hollyhocks, mignonette, and the like. There was
also a quantity of box. The garden was divided into rooms by the box,
and in each room bloomed the flowers.
Sarah moved along at her will through the garden. Moving from enclosure
to enclosure of box, she came, before she knew it, to the house itself.
It loomed up before her a pale massiveness, with no lights in any of the
windows, but on the back porch sat the owner. He sat in a high-back
chair, with his head tilted back, and his eyes were closed and he seemed
to be asleep, but Sarah was not quite sure. She stopped short. She
became all at once horribly ashamed and shocked at what she was doing.
What would he think of a girl roaming around his garden so late at
night--a girl to whom he had never spoken? She was standing against a
background of blooming hollyhocks. Her slender height shrank delicately
away; she was like a nymph poised for flight, but she dared not even fly
lest she wake the man on the porch if he were asleep, or arouse his
attention were he awake.