"But mother," he added, quickly, in self-defence, "always 'lowed a man
_ought_ t' see the world. So," says he, "I'm shipped along o' Tumm,
for better or for worse, an' I'm bound down north in the _Quick as
Wink_ with the spring supplies."
'Twas a far journey for that sensitive soul.
"Dannie," he asked, in quick alarm, a fear so sudden and unexpected
that I was persuaded of the propriety of my premonition, "what you
thinkin' about? Eh, Dannie?" he cried. "What you lookin' that way
for?"
I would not tell him that I knew the skipper of the _Quick as Wink_,
whose butt the fool must be.
"You isn't 'lowin'," Moses began, "that mother--"
"Not at all, Moses!" says I.
'Twas instant and complete relief he got from this denial. "We sails,"
says he, with all a traveller's importance, "at dawn o' to-morrow.
I'll be gone from Twist Tickle by break o' day. I'll be gone t' new
places--t' harbors I've heared tell of but never seed with my own
eyes. I'm not quite knowin'," says he, doubtfully, "how I'll get along
with the cookin'. Mother always 'lowed," he continued, with a greater
measure of hope, "that I was more'n fair on cookin' a cup o' tea.
'Moses,' says she, 'you can brew a cup o' tea so well as any fool I
ever knowed.' But that was on'y mother," he added, in modest
self-deprecation. "Jus' mother."
I wished again that the fool had not fallen into the mercilessly
facetious company of Skipper Saucy Bill North of the schooner _Quick
as Wink_.
"An', Dannie," says Moses, "I'm scared I'll fail with all but the
tea."
'Twas come near the evening of that mellow Sunday. On the Whisper Cove
road and the greening hills of Twin Islands, where Moses and I had
walked in simple companionship, the birds had been mating and nesting
in the thick sunshine of the afternoon. Chirp and flutter and shrill
song! 'Twas a time for the mating of birds. The haste and noise and
pomposity of this busy love-making! The loud triumph and soft
complaint of it! All the world of spruce and alder and sunlit spaces
had been a-flutter. But the weather was now fallen gloomy, the sky
overcast, the wind blowing in from the black, uneasy sea, where floes
and gigantic bergs of ice drifted, like frozen ghosts, cold and dead
and aimlessly driven; and the hopeful sunshine had left the hills, and
the piping and chirping were stilled, and I heard no more fluttering
wings or tender love-songs. The fool of Twist Tickle paused in the
road to stare vacantly northward. 'Twas there dark with menacing
clouds--thick, sombre clouds, tinged with a warning blue, rising
implacably above the roughening black of the sea. He wondered, it may
be, in his dull, weakling way, concerning the coasts beyond the grave
curtain, which he must discover--new coasts, dealing with us
variously, as we disclose them to our hearts. I watched him with
misgiving. To be sure, the skipper of the _Quick as Wink_ was an
unkind man, cynical and quick to seek selfish laughter, whatever the
wound he dealt; but Tumm, our friend and the genial friend of all the
world, thinks I, more hopefully, would not have the poor fool
wronged.
"Dannie," says Moses, turning, "I'm scared my cookin' won't quite fit
the stomachs o' the crew o' the _Quick as Wink_."
"Ay, Moses," says I, to hearten him; "but never a good man was that
didn't fear a new task."
He eyed me doubtfully.
"An'," I began, "your mother, Moses--"
"But," he interrupted, "mother wasn't quite t' be trusted in all
things."
"Not trusted!" I cried.
"You'll not misunderstand me, Dannie?" he besought me, putting a hand
on my shoulder. "You'll not misunderstand, will you? But mother wasn't
quite t' be trusted," says he, "when it come t' the discussion," says
he, pausing to permit a proper appreciation of the learned word,
which he had appropriated from my tutor's vocabulary, "o' my
accomplishments."
It had never occurred before.
"For mother," he explained, "was somehow wonderful fond o' me."
The church-bell called him.
"Hear her voice, Dannie?" said he. "Hear her voice in that there bell?
'Come--dear!' says she. 'Come--dear! Come--dear!' Hear it ring out?
'Come--dear! Come--dear! Come--dear!'"