Aunt Barbara, who had quite regained her breath. "I really did not know
how cozy this corner was. I must say that I had forgot to associate it
with anything but Serena's and my putting away blankets in the spring. I
used to like to sit by the window and read when I was your age, Betty.
In those days I could look over this nearest elm and see way down the
river, just as you can now in winter when the leaves are gone. I dare
say the three generations before me have played here too. I am so glad
that we could have Betty this summer; it is time she began to strike her
roots a little deeper here."
"Yes," said Mr. Leicester, "but I _can't_ do without her, my only
Betsey!" and they all laughed, but Betty had a sudden suspicion that
Aunt Barbara would try to keep her altogether now. This frightened our
friend a little, for though she loved the old home dearly, she must take
care of papa. It was her place to take care of him now; she had been
looking over his damaged wardrobe most anxiously that morning, as if her
own had never known ruin. His outside clothes were well enough, but
alas for his pocket handkerchiefs and stockings! He looked a little
pale, too, and as if he had on the whole been badly neglected in minor
ways.
But there never was a more cheerful and contented papa, as they walked
toward the river together hand-in-hand, in the fashion of Betty's
childhood. They found that the packet had come in, and there was a group
of spectators on the old wharf, who were looking eagerly at something
which proved to be a large cat-boat which the packet had in tow. Mr.
Leicester left Betty suddenly and went to the wharf's edge.
"Did you have any trouble bringing her up?" he asked.
"Bless ye, no, sir," said the packet's skipper; "didn't hinder us one
grain; had a clever little breeze right astern all the way up."
"Look here, Betty," said papa, returning presently. "I went down this
morning to hunt for a dory with a sail, and I saw this cat-boat which
somebody was willing to let, and I have hired it for a while. I wish to
look up the river shell-fish a bit; it's not altogether play, I mean you
to understand."
"Oh, _papa_!" cried Betty joyfully. "The only thing we needed was a nice
boat. But you can't have clutters in pots and pans at Aunt Barbara's,
can you, and your works going on? Serena won't like it, and she can be
quite terrible, you know!"
"Come on board and look at her," said Mr. Leicester, regardless of the
terrors of Serena's disapproval. The cat-boat carried a jib beside a
good-sized mainsail, and had a comfortable little cabin with a tiny
stove and two berths and plenty of lockers. Two young men had just spent
their vacation in her, coasting eastward, and one of them told Mr.
Leicester that she was the quickest and steadiest boat he ever saw,
sailing close to the wind and answering her rudder capitally. They had
lived on board altogether and made themselves very comfortable indeed.
There was a light little flat-bottomed boat for tender, and the white
cat-boat itself had been newly painted with gilt lettering across the
stern, _Starlight, Riverport_.
"I can ask the Out-of-Door Club one day next week," announced Betty,
with great enthusiasm. "Isn't she clean and pretty? _Won't_ Aunt Barbara
like her, papa?"
"I must look about for some one to help me to sail her," said Mr.
Leicester, with uncommon gravity. "What do you think of young Foster? He
must know the river well, and his fishing may be falling off a little
now. It would be a good way to help him, don't you think so?"
Betty's eyes shone with joy. "Oh, yes," she said; "they do have such a
hard time now. Nelly told me so yesterday morning. It has cost them so
much lately. Harry has been trying to get something to do in Riverport."
They were busy anchoring the Starlight out in the stream, and now Mr.
Leicester helped Betty over the side into the tender and sculled her
ashore. Some of the men on the wharf had disappeared, but others were
still there, and there was a great bustle of unloading some bags of
grain from the packet. Mr. Leicester invited one of his old
acquaintances who asked many questions to come out and see the cat-boat,
and as Betty hurried up the street to the house she saw over her
shoulder that a large company in small leaky crafts had surrounded the
pretty Starlight like pirates. It was apt to be very dull in Tideshead
for many of the idle citizens, and Mr. Leicester's return was always
hailed with delight. It was nearly tea-time, so that Betty could not go
over to tell Mary Beck the good news; but one white handkerchief,
meaning _Come over_, was quickly displayed on the pear-tree branch, and
while Betty was getting dressed in a much-needed fresh gown for tea
Becky kindly appeared, and was delighted with the good news. She had
seen the Starlight already from a distance.
"My father used to have a splendid sailboat," said fatherless Becky with
much wistfulness, and Betty put her arms round her and gave her a warm
kiss. Sometimes it seemed that whatever one had the other lacked.
XVI.
DOWN THE RIVER.
THERE was a great stirring about and opening and shutting of kitchen
doors early the next morning but one. Betty had been anxious the day
before to set forth on what she was pleased to call a long cruise in the
Starlight, but Mr. Leicester said that he must give up the morning to
his letters, and after that came a long business talk with Aunt Barbara
in the library, where she sat before her capacious secretary and
produced some neat packages of papers from a little red morocco trunk
which Betty had never seen before. To say truth, Aunt Barbara was a
famous business woman and quite the superior of her nephew in financial
matters, but she deferred to him meekly, and in fact gained some
long-desired information about a northwestern city in which Mr.
Leicester had lately been obliged to linger for two or three days.
It was a day of clear hot sunshine and light breeze, not in the least a
good day for sailing; but Betty was just as much disappointed to be kept
at home as if it had been, and after breakfast she loitered about in
idleness, with a look of dark disapproval, until papa suddenly faced
about and held her before him by her two shoulders, looking gravely into
her eyes, which fell at once.
"Don't be cross, Betty," he said quietly; "we shall play all the better
if we don't forget our work. What is there to do first? Where's 'Things
to be Done'?"
Betty dipped into her pocket and pulled out a bit of paper with the
above heading, and held it up to him. Papa's eyes began to twinkle and
she felt her cheeks grow red, but good humor was restored. "1. Ask Seth
to sharpen my knife. 2. Find Aunt Mary's old 'Evenings at Home' and read
her the Transmigrations of Indur. 3. Find out what 'hedonism' means in
the dictionary. 4. Sew on papa's buttons."
"Those were all the things I could think of last night," explained Betty
apologetically. "I was so sleepy."
"It strikes me that the most important duty happened to be set down
last," said Mr. Leicester, beginning to laugh. "If you will look after
the buttons, I will tell you the meaning of 'hedonism' and sharpen the
jack-knife, and I am not sure that I won't read the Transmigrations to
Aunt Mary beside, for the sake of old times. I know where those little
old brown books are, too, unless they have been moved from their old
places. I am willing to make a good offer, for I have hardly a button to
my back, you know. And this evening we will have a row, if not a sail.
The sky looks as if the wind were rising, and you can ask Mary Beck to
go with us to-morrow down the river, if you like. I am going to see
young Foster the first time I go down the street. Now good-by until
dinner-time, dear child."
"Good-by, dear papa!" and Betty ran up-stairs two steps at a time. She
had already looked to see if there were plenty of ink in his ink-bottle,
and some water in a tiny vase on his writing-table for the quill pens.
It was almost the only thing she had done that morning, but it was one
of her special cares when they were together. She gathered an armful of
his clothes, and finding that Aunt Mary was in a hospitable frame went
into her room for advice and society, and sat busily sewing by the
favorite cool western window nearly all the morning.
In the evening, when the tide was high, Betty and Mr. Leicester went out
for a little row by themselves, floating under some overhanging
oak-boughs and talking about things that had happened when they were
apart.
Now we come back to where we began this chapter,--the early morning of
the next day, and Serena's and Letty's bustling in the pantry to have a
basket of luncheon ready, so that the boating party need not lose the
tide; the boating party itself at breakfast in the dining-room; Mary
Beck in a transport of delight sitting by her window at the other side
of the street, all ready to rush out the minute she saw Betty appear. As
for Harry Foster and Seth, they had already gone down to the shore.
On the wide sofa in the hall was a funny old-fashioned leather satchel
with a strong strap-handle. It seemed full to overflowing, and beside it
lay a warm shawl neatly folded, and, not to make too long a story, Aunt
Barbara's third-best bonnet was close at hand, and these were her
provisions for spending the day on the river. Mr. Leicester had insisted
that she should go with them, and that if she found it tiresome there
was nothing to prevent her coming back by train from Riverport in the
afternoon. Aunt Barbara felt as if she were being a little adventurous,
and packed her small portmanteau with a secret foreboding that she might
be kept out over night; still she had always been very fond of boating,
and had seen almost none of it for many years, in fact since Betty's
father had been at home sometimes, in his college vacations. There was a
fine breeze blowing already in the elms and making the tall hollyhocks
bow in the garden, and when they reached the wharf and put down the
creaking wicker basket on the very edge the tide was still high, and
Harry Foster had already hoisted the Starlight's sail with one careful
reef in it, and was waiting to row them out two at a time in the
tag-boat. Nelly Foster could not go, as she and her mother were very
busy that day, but Harry's face looked brighter than Betty had ever seen
it, and she was sure that papa must have been very good, and, to use a
favorite phrase of his, opened a new gate for him. Mary Beck was
strangely full of fears, considering that she was the granddaughter of a
brave old sailor; but after she was out of the unsteady smaller boat,
and had been decoyed by Betty to the bows of the Starlight, and shown
how to stow herself away so that she hindered neither jib nor boom, she
began to enjoy herself highly. Aunt Barbara sat under her every-day
parasol, looking quite elegant and unseaworthy, but very happy. Harry
Foster was steering just beside her, and Mr. Leicester, with Seth's
assistance, was shaking out the reef; for the wind was quieter just now,
and they wished to get farther down river as soon as possible, since
here, where the banks were often high and wooded and the stream narrow,
it was gusty and uncertain sailing for so large a boat. They slipped
down fast with the wind and tide, and passed the packet, which had
started out ahead of them. She carried an unusual number of passengers,
and was loaded deep with early potatoes. The girls waved their
handkerchiefs and the men on board the packet gave a cheer, while Mr.
Leicester saluted with the Starlight's flag, and it was altogether a
ceremonious occasion. Seth said that he "guessed folks would think old
Tideshead was waking up." Of all the pleasure-boat's company Seth was
perhaps the best satisfied. He had been in a state of torture lest he
might not be asked to make one of the crew, and it being divulged that
although of up-country origin he had once gone to the Georges Banks
fishing with a seafaring uncle, Mr. Leicester considerately asked for
his services. Seth had put on the great rubber-boots and a heavy red
woolen shirt that he wore on shipboard in March weather. He was already
obliged to fan himself incessantly with his straw hat, as they were
running before the wind, and presently, after much suffering, made an
excuse to go into the little cabin, whence he reappeared, much abashed,
in his stocking feet and a faded calico shirt, which had been luckily
put on under the red one. Aunt Barbara held her parasol so that it
covered her face for a few minutes, and there was a considerate silence,
until Seth mentioned that he "had thought he knew before what it was to
be het up, but you never knew what kind of weather 't was to be on the
water."
At the next bend of the river the wind made them much cooler, while the
boat sailed even better than before. There had been plenty of rain, so
that the shore was as green as in June and the old farm-houses looked
very pleasant. Betty had not been so far down as this since the day she
came to Tideshead, and was looking eagerly for certain places that she
remembered. Aunt Barbara and papa were talking about John Paul Jones and
his famous river crew, some of whom Aunt Barbara had known in their old
age, while she was a girl. Harry Foster was listening with great
interest. Betty and even Becky felt proud of Harry as he steered,
looking along the river with quick, sure eyes. They did not feel so
familiar with him as usual; somehow, he looked a good deal older since
the trouble about his father, and there was a new manliness and dignity
about him, as if he knew that his mother and Nelly had no one but
himself to depend upon. It was plain to see that his early burden of
shame and sorrow had developed a strong character in the lad. There was
none of the listlessness and awkward incapacity and self-admiration that
made some of the other Tideshead boys so unattractive, but Harry Foster
had a simple way of speaking and of doing whatever had to be done.
There was a group of wooden pails on the boat, and a queer apparatus for
dredging which Mr. Leicester had made the afternoon before with Seth's
and Jonathan's help. They had implored a flat-iron from Serena for one
of the weights, and she had also contributed a tin pail, which was
curiously weighted also with small pieces of iron, so that it would sink
in a particular way. It was believed that a certain uncommon little
creature would be found in the flats farther down the river, and Mr.
Leicester told the ship's company certain interesting facts about its
life and behavior which made everybody eager to join the search. "I have
been meaning to hunt for it for years," he said. "Professor Agassiz told
me about it when I was in college; but then he always roused one's
enthusiasm as no one else could, and made whatever he was interested in
seem the one thing in the world that was of very first importance."
Betty's heart glowed as she listened; she thought the same thing of
papa. "He was such an inspirer of others to do good work," said Mr.
Leicester, still thinking lovingly of his great teacher.
Sometimes the river was narrow and deep and the Starlight's course lay
near the shore, so that the children came running down to the water's
edge to see the pretty boat go by, and envy Betty and Mary Beck in the
shadow of her great white sail. Some of them shouted Hollo! and the two
girls answered again and again, until the little voices sounded small
and piping and were lost in the distance. Halfway to Riverport, where
the houses were a good way from any village, it seemed as if these old
homes had remained the same for many years; none of them had
bay-windows, and the paint was worn away by wind and weather. It was
like stepping back twenty or thirty years in the rural history. Aunt
Barbara said that everything looked almost exactly the same along one
reach of the river as it did when she could first remember it. The
shores were green with pines and ferns and gray with ledges. It was salt
water here, so that they could smell the seaweed and the woods, and
could hear the song-sparrows and the children's voices as they passed
the lonely farm-houses standing high and fog-free above the water. From
one of these they heard the sound of women's voices singing.
"They're havin' a meetin' in there, I expect," explained Seth. "Yes, I
hear 'Liza Loomis's voice too. You know, Miss Leicester, she used to
live up to Tideshead and sing in the Methodist choir. She's got a lovely
voice to sing. She's married down this way. They like to git together in
these scattered places, but 't is more customary up where I come from to
have them neighborhood meetin's of an afternoon." Betty watched the
small gray house with deep interest, and thought she should like to go
in. There were little children playing about the door, as if they had
been brought and left outside to amuse themselves. It was very touching
to hear the old hymn as they sailed by, and Aunt Barbara and Betty's
father looked at each other significantly as they listened. "Becky, you
ought to be there to help sing," Betty whispered, as they sat side by
side, but Becky thought it was very stupid to be having a prayer-meeting
that lovely morning.
Seth Pond had celebrated the Fourth of July by going down to Riverport
on the packet, and he had gathered much information about the river
which he was glad to give now for everybody's pleasure and
enlightenment.
"There's a bo't layin' up in that cove that's drowned two men," he said
solemnly. "There was a lady with 'em, but she was saved. I understand
they'd been drinking heavy."
Betty looked at the boat with awe where it lay with the stern under
water and the bows ashore and all warped apart. "Isn't she good for
anything?" she asked.
"Nobody'll ever touch _her_," said Seth contemptuously,--"she's drowned
two men."
But Miss Leicester smiled, and said that it appeared to have been their
own fault.
They could see into the low ruined cabin from the deck of the Starlight,
and, after they passed, the cabin port-hole seemed to watch them like an
eye until it was far astern.
"I suppose she will lie there until she breaks up in a high tide, and
then the women will gather her wreck wood to burn," said Mr. Leicester,
watching the warped mast, and Harry Foster said that no fishermen on
the river would ever touch a boat that they believed to be unlucky.
Just then they came round a point and passed a little house close by the
water, where there were flakes for drying fish and a collection of
little weather-beaten boxes shaped like roofs which were used to cover
the fish in wet weather. Betty thought they looked like a village of
baby-houses. At this moment a woman darted out of the house door,
screaming to some one inside, "I've lost Georgie and Idy both!" and off
the anxious mother hurried along the steep path to the fish flakes, as
if that were where she usually found the runaways. Presently they heard
a child's shrill voice, and a pink pinafore emerged from among the
little roofs. Ida was deposited angrily in the lane, while the mother
went back to hunt for the other one. It was very droll to see and hear
it all from the river, but it was some minutes before loud shrieks
announced the adventurous Georgie's capture.
"Georgie must ha' been hull down on the horizon," remarked Seth blandly,
trying to be very nautical, and everybody laughed; but Betty and Mary
thought the woman very cross, when it was such a pretty place to play
out there among the bayberry, and perhaps there were ripe blackberries.
Harry Foster said that children did mischief in pulling off bits of the
dry fish and spoiling them for market; but there was no end of fish, and
everybody felt a sympathy for "Idy and Georgie both" in their sad
captivity.
Before long the houses were nearer together, and even clustered in
little groups close by the river, and sometimes the Starlight passed
some schooners going up or down, or being laden with bricks or hay or
firewood at small wharves. Then they came in sight of the Riverport
steeples, only a few miles below. The wind was not so gusty now and blew
steadily, but it was very light, and the Starlight moved slowly. Harry
and Seth had already hoisted a topsail, and while Mr. Leicester steered
Harry came and stood by the masts, looking out ahead and talking with
the two girls. But Harry felt responsible for the boat, and could not
give himself up to pleasuring until, as he said, he understood the
tricks and manners of the Starlight a little better. It was toward noon,
now, for they had come slowly the last third of the way; and Mr.
Leicester, after a word with Aunt Barbara, proposed that they should go
ashore for a while, for there was a beautiful piece of pine woods close
at hand, and the flats which he was going to investigate were also
within rowing distance. So down came the sails and alongside came the
tag-boat; and Aunt Barbara was landed first, parasol and all, and the
others followed her. The tide was running out fast, and it was not easy
to find a landing-place along the muddy shores. Betty thought the
Starlight looked much smaller from the shore than she seemed when they
were on board. Harry and Seth made everything trig and came in last,
leaving the cat-boat at anchor far out.
Even after the joy of sailing it was very pleasant ashore under the
shady pines, and Mr. Leicester found a delightfully comfortable place
for Aunt Barbara to sit in, while the girls were near by. "What an
interesting morning we have had!" Betty heard Aunt Barbara say. "Sailing
down the river brings to mind so many things in the past. The beginnings
of history in this part of the country always have to do with the river.
I wish that I could remember all the stories of the early settlements
that I used to hear old people tell in my childhood."
"See that little green farm in the middle of the sunburnt pastures
across the river," said Mr. Leicester, who had been looking that way
intently. "Look, Betty! what a small green spot it makes with its
orchard and fields among the woods and brown pastures, and yet what toil
has been spent there year after year!"
Betty looked with great interest. She had seen the green farm, but she
had not thought about it, and neither had Mary Beck, who could not tell
why she kept looking that way again and again, and somehow could not
help thinking how good it would be to make a green place like that by
one's own life among dull and difficult surroundings. Betty was her
green place; by and by she could do the same thing for somebody else,
perhaps.
"What a lovely place this is!" said Aunt Barbara, still enthusiastic.
"There is such sweet air here among the pines, and I delight in the wide
outlook over the river. I begin to feel as young as ever. I thought that
I was almost too old to enjoy myself any more, last winter. It is such
a mistake to let one's self make great things out of little ones, as I
did, and carry life too heavily," she added.
"You must feel ever so much older inside than you look outside," said
Betty, who was in famous spirits.
Mr. Leicester laughed with the rest, and then looked over his shoulder
with a droll expression, as if something was causing him great
apprehension. "Aunt Barbara!" he began, and then hid his face with his
arm, as if he were about to be well whipped.
"What mischief now?" said she.
"I have played you a trick: you are not leaving your home and friends
for one day, but for two."
Miss Leicester looked puzzled.
"You were very good not to say that I was foolish to carry two extra
sails."
"I did think it was nonsense, Tom," he was promptly assured, "but then I
remembered that you had only hired the boat, and thought perhaps the
sails went with it. Of course they take up too much room in the cabin.
You can't mean that you are going on a longer voyage?"
"_Tents!_" shouted Betty, jumping up and dancing about in great
excitement. "_Tents!_ don't you see, Aunt Barbara? and we're going to
camp out." It was a very anxious moment, for if Aunt Barbara said, "We
must go home to-night," there would be nothing to do but obey.
"But your Aunt Mary will be worried, won't she?" asked Miss Leicester,
whose quick wit suspected a deep-laid plot. She was already filled with
a spirit of adventure; she really looked pleased, but was not without a
sense of responsibility.
"I thought you would like it," explained Mr. Leicester, in a
matter-of-fact way; "and there was no need of telling you beforehand, so
that you would make your will and pay your taxes and get in all the
winter supplies and have the minister to tea before you started. Aunt
Mary knows, and so does Serena; you will see that Serena contemplated
the situation by the way she filled these big baskets."