NEW YEAR’S EVE AT THE LIGHT
The Green Gables folk went home after Christmas, Marilla under solemn
covenant to return for a month in the spring. More snow came before
New Year’s, and the harbor froze over, but the gulf still was free,
beyond the white, imprisoned fields. The last day of the old year was
one of those bright, cold, dazzling winter days, which bombard us with
their brilliancy, and command our admiration but never our love. The
sky was sharp and blue; the snow diamonds sparkled insistently; the
stark trees were bare and shameless, with a kind of brazen beauty; the
hills shot assaulting lances of crystal. Even the shadows were sharp
and stiff and clear-cut, as no proper shadows should be. Everything
that was handsome seemed ten times handsomer and less attractive in the
glaring splendor; and everything that was ugly seemed ten times uglier,
and everything was either handsome or ugly. There was no soft
blending, or kind obscurity, or elusive mistiness in that searching
glitter. The only things that held their own individuality were the
firs--for the fir is the tree of mystery and shadow, and yields never
to the encroachments of crude radiance.
But finally the day began to realize that she was growing old. Then a
certain pensiveness fell over her beauty which dimmed yet intensified
it; sharp angles, glittering points, melted away into curves and
enticing gleams. The white harbor put on soft grays and pinks; the
far-away hills turned amethyst.
“The old year is going away beautifully,” said Anne.
She and Leslie and Gilbert were on their way to the Four Winds Point,
having plotted with Captain Jim to watch the New Year in at the light.
The sun had set and in the southwestern sky hung Venus, glorious and
golden, having drawn as near to her earth-sister as is possible for
her. For the first time Anne and Gilbert saw the shadow cast by that
brilliant star of evening, that faint, mysterious shadow, never seen
save when there is white snow to reveal it, and then only with averted
vision, vanishing when you gaze at it directly.
“It’s like the spirit of a shadow, isn’t it?” whispered Anne. “You can
see it so plainly haunting your side when you look ahead; but when you
turn and look at it--it’s gone.”
“I have heard that you can see the shadow of Venus only once in a
lifetime, and that within a year of seeing it your life’s most
wonderful gift will come to you,” said Leslie. But she spoke rather
hardly; perhaps she thought that even the shadow of Venus could bring
her no gift of life. Anne smiled in the soft twilight; she felt quite
sure what the mystic shadow promised her.
They found Marshall Elliott at the lighthouse. At first Anne felt
inclined to resent the intrusion of this long-haired, long-bearded
eccentric into the familiar little circle. But Marshall Elliott soon
proved his legitimate claim to membership in the household of Joseph.
He was a witty, intelligent, well-read man, rivalling Captain Jim
himself in the knack of telling a good story. They were all glad when
he agreed to watch the old year out with them.
Captain Jim’s small nephew Joe had come down to spend New Year’s with
his great-uncle, and had fallen asleep on the sofa with the First Mate
curled up in a huge golden ball at his feet.
“Ain’t he a dear little man?” said Captain Jim gloatingly. “I do love
to watch a little child asleep, Mistress Blythe. It’s the most
beautiful sight in the world, I reckon. Joe does love to get down here
for a night, because I have him sleep with me. At home he has to sleep
with the other two boys, and he doesn’t like it. Why can’t I sleep
with father, Uncle Jim?” says he. ‘Everybody in the Bible slept with
their fathers.’ As for the questions he asks, the minister himself
couldn’t answer them. They fair swamp me. ‘Uncle Jim, if I wasn’t ME
who’d I be?’ and, ‘Uncle Jim, what would happen if God died?’ He fired
them two off at me tonight, afore he went to sleep. As for his
imagination, it sails away from everything. He makes up the most
remarkable yarns--and then his mother shuts him up in the closet for
telling stories. And he sits down and makes up another one, and has it
ready to relate to her when she lets him out. He had one for me when
he come down tonight. ‘Uncle Jim,’ says he, solemn as a tombstone, ‘I
had a ’venture in the Glen today.’ ‘Yes, what was it?’ says I,
expecting something quite startling, but nowise prepared for what I
really got. ‘I met a wolf in the street,’ says he, ‘a ’normous wolf
with a big, red mouf and AWFUL long teeth, Uncle Jim.’ ‘I didn’t know
there was any wolves up at the Glen,’ says I. ‘Oh, he comed there from
far, far away,’ says Joe, ‘and I fought he was going to eat me up,
Uncle Jim.’ ‘Were you scared?’ says I. ‘No, ’cause I had a big gun,’
says Joe, ‘and I shot the wolf dead, Uncle Jim,--solid dead--and then
he went up to heaven and bit God,’ says he. Well, I was fair
staggered, Mistress Blythe.”
The hours bloomed into mirth around the driftwood fire. Captain Jim
told tales, and Marshall Elliott sang old Scotch ballads in a fine
tenor voice; finally Captain Jim took down his old brown fiddle from
the wall and began to play. He had a tolerable knack of fiddling,
which all appreciated save the First Mate, who sprang from the sofa as
if he had been shot, emitted a shriek of protest, and fled wildly up
the stairs.
“Can’t cultivate an ear for music in that cat nohow,” said Captain Jim.
“He won’t stay long enough to learn to like it. When we got the organ
up at the Glen church old Elder Richards bounced up from his seat the
minute the organist began to play and scuttled down the aisle and out
of the church at the rate of no-man’s-business. It reminded me so
strong of the First Mate tearing loose as soon as I begin to fiddle
that I come nearer to laughing out loud in church than I ever did
before or since.”
There was something so infectious in the rollicking tunes which Captain
Jim played that very soon Marshall Elliott’s feet began to twitch. He
had been a noted dancer in his youth. Presently he started up and held
out his hands to Leslie. Instantly she responded. Round and round the
firelit room they circled with a rhythmic grace that was wonderful.
Leslie danced like one inspired; the wild, sweet abandon of the music
seemed to have entered into and possessed her. Anne watched her in
fascinated admiration. She had never seen her like this. All the
innate richness and color and charm of her nature seemed to have broken
loose and overflowed in crimson cheek and glowing eye and grace of
motion. Even the aspect of Marshall Elliott, with his long beard and
hair, could not spoil the picture. On the contrary, it seemed to
enhance it. Marshall Elliott looked like a Viking of elder days,
dancing with one of the blue-eyed, golden-haired daughters of the
Northland.
“The purtiest dancing I ever saw, and I’ve seen some in my time,”
declared Captain Jim, when at last the bow fell from his tired hand.
Leslie dropped into her chair, laughing, breathless.
“I love dancing,” she said apart to Anne. “I haven’t danced since I
was sixteen--but I love it. The music seems to run through my veins
like quicksilver and I forget everything--everything--except the
delight of keeping time to it. There isn’t any floor beneath me, or
walls about me, or roof over me--I’m floating amid the stars.”
Captain Jim hung his fiddle up in its place, beside a large frame
enclosing several banknotes.
“Is there anybody else of your acquaintance who can afford to hang his
walls with banknotes for pictures?” he asked. “There’s twenty
ten-dollar notes there, not worth the glass over them. They’re old
Bank of P. E. Island notes. Had them by me when the bank failed, and
I had ’em framed and hung up, partly as a reminder not to put your
trust in banks, and partly to give me a real luxurious, millionairy
feeling. Hullo, Matey, don’t be scared. You can come back now. The
music and revelry is over for tonight. The old year has just another
hour to stay with us. I’ve seen seventy-six New Years come in over
that gulf yonder, Mistress Blythe.”
“You’ll see a hundred,” said Marshall Elliott.
Captain Jim shook his head.
“No; and I don’t want to--at least, I think I don’t. Death grows
friendlier as we grow older. Not that one of us really wants to die
though, Marshall. Tennyson spoke truth when he said that. There’s old
Mrs. Wallace up at the Glen. She’s had heaps of trouble all her life,
poor soul, and she’s lost almost everyone she cared about. She’s
always saying that she’ll be glad when her time comes, and she doesn’t
want to sojourn any longer in this vale of tears. But when she takes a
sick spell there’s a fuss! Doctors from town, and a trained nurse, and
enough medicine to kill a dog. Life may be a vale of tears, all right,
but there are some folks who enjoy weeping, I reckon.”
They spent the old year’s last hour quietly around the fire. A few
minutes before twelve Captain Jim rose and opened the door.
“We must let the New Year in,” he said.
Outside was a fine blue night. A sparkling ribbon of moonlight
garlanded the gulf. Inside the bar the harbor shone like a pavement of
pearl. They stood before the door and waited--Captain Jim with his
ripe, full experience, Marshall Elliott in his vigorous but empty
middle life, Gilbert and Anne with their precious memories and
exquisite hopes, Leslie with her record of starved years and her
hopeless future. The clock on the little shelf above the fireplace
struck twelve.
“Welcome, New Year,” said Captain Jim, bowing low as the last stroke
died away. “I wish you all the best year of your lives, mates. I
reckon that whatever the New Year brings us will be the best the Great
Captain has for us--and somehow or other we’ll all make port in a good
harbor.”