In Tarpaulin and oilskins she did not look like a Judith. Easily
she might have been a Joseph or a James. So it was not really to be
wondered at that the little girl in the dainty clothes--the little
girl from The Hotel--should say, "Why!"
"What is your name?" the Dainty One had asked.
"Judith Lynn," had answered the boy-one in oilskins.
"Why!" Then, as if catching herself up at the impoliteness of such a
little word in such a surprised tone--"I mean, please excuse me for
thinking you were a boy," the little Dainty One had added, in
considerable embarrassment. And Judith had laughed--Judith's laughs
were rare, but the crisp, salty brightness of the sea was always in
them. The sea was in everything about Judith.
"I don't wonder!" laughed Judith. "Me, with these togs on! But I
guess _you'd_ be a boy when you went out to your traps--you can't
'tend traps in skirts. Blossom calls me Judas with these on!"
It was strange how suddenly the rather big voice--a voice has to be
big to compete with the voice of the sea--grew soft and tender at the
name of Blossom.
In Judith Lynn's rough, hard, salt-savored life Blossom was the one
thing sweet and beautiful. Blossom was the little frail wisp of a
child that Judith loved. This other child, here on the sand, watching
her with friendly wonder, reminded her a little of Blossom. Anyway,
they were both sweet and beautiful.
"Traps?" queried this other child. "I didn't know there were mice in
the ocean!--you were going out on the ocean, weren't you?"
Again Judith's rare, bright laugh. Children were such funny
things!--Blossom was, too.
"Lobster-traps," she explained, when the laugh had laughed itself
out. "I'm going out to mine to get the lobsters. Out there where
those little specks of white are bobbing 'round on the water--don't
you see?"
"I see some little specks--yes, they're a-bobbing! Are those _traps?_"
"Mercy, no! The traps are sunk 'way down to the bottom o' the sea!
Those are nothing but the little wooden floats that tell me where the
traps are. I couldn't go hunting all over the bay, you know."
"No--oh, no, you couldn't go hunting all over the bay," repeated the
small, puzzled voice. The Dainty One was distinctly interested. "I
s'pose, prob'ly, every one of those little white specks has got a
fish line to it. I hope they've all got _bites_. Oh, my suz! Here
comes Elise. Elise is always a-coming!" with a long sigh.
Elise was slender and tall, in cap and apron. She walked with the
stride of authority. A frown of displeasure was getting visibler and
visibler on her face, the child noticed with another sigh. Elise was
'most always a-frowning.
"Good-by. I--I guess I'd better go and meet her," the Dainty One said
hurriedly. "She isn't quite as cross when you go and meet her. It
helps."
But the child came back again to Judith Lynn. She held out one little
sun-browned, sea-browned hand.
"I'm happy to have seen you," she said, with soft graciousness, as if
Judith were a duchess in laces instead of a boy-girl in fisherman's
togs. "I'd be pleased to see you some more. I like you."
"Oh!" stammered the boy-girl in fisherman's togs, a flush of pleasure
reddening her brown face. No one had even said "I'd be pleased to see
you," to her before, though Blossom, of course, _was_ always pleased.
No one but Blossom had ever said, "I like you," and Blossom's way
was, "I love you."
"I must go--she's 'most here," went on the child, rather anxiously.
"But first I wish you'd tell me who Blossom is. You spoke about
Blossom, didn't you?"
"Yes. She's my little sister. Her regular name is Janet. It's only me
calls her Blossom."
"Oh, but that's lots the prettiest name! _I'm_ going to call her
that, too. I'd be pleased to see Blossom. Is she about my tallness?"
Judith's face had undergone one of its swift changes. It had grown
defensive and a little fierce. She should not see Blossom!--this other
child who could walk away over the sand to meet Elises, whoever
Elises were. She should not see Blossom! Blossom should not see her!
"But, maybe--prob'ly she's a baby--"
"No, she's six. She'd be about as tall as you are, if she was
straightened--I mean if she could stand up beside o' you. I guess
you better go to that woman in the cap or she'll scold, won't she?"
"Goodness, yes! Elise always scolds. But I'd rather be scolded than
not hear about that little Blossom girl--"
"Mademoiselle!" called the woman in the cap sharply. She came up
puffing with her hurry. "Mademoiselle has escape again--Mademoiselle
is ba-ad!" she scolded.
"I didn't ex-scape, either--I only walked. You don't walk when you
ex-scape. You sat and sat and sat, and I wanted to walk."
The child's voice was full of grievance. Sometimes she dreaded
Elise--when she saw her coming down the beach--but she was never
afraid of her "near to."
"But it is not for Mademoiselle to walk so far--what is it the doctor
say? Mademoiselle is ba-ad when she walk so far!"
With a sudden gesture of defiance the Dainty One sprang away across
the sand, looking over her shoulder willfully. "But it's so good to
walk!" she cried. "You'd walk if you was me, Elise--you'd walk and
walk and walk! Like this--see me! See me run--like this!"
The eyes of the woman in the white nurse's cap met for an instant the
eyes of the boy-girl in the oilskins, and Judith smiled. But Elise
was gravely tender--Elise's face could undergo swift changes, too.
"Yes, certainment I would," muttered Elise, looking away to the
naughty little figure. It was running back now.
"And then you'd be goody again--see me!" chanted the child. "And
you'd go right straight back to Elise--that would be _me_, if you
were I--and you'd put your arms round her, so, and say, ''Scuse
me,'--hear me!"
Judith Lynn got into the old brown dory and rowed away to her
lobster-traps. There was no laughter any more in her eyes; they were
fierce with longing and envy. Not for herself--Judith was sixteen,
but she had never been fierce or envious for herself. It had always
been--it would always be--for Blossom, the frail little wisp of a
girl she loved.
She was thinking intensely, What if that were Blossom, running down
the beach? They were about of a "tallness"--why shouldn't it be
Blossom? Why shouldn't Blossom run down the beach like that and call
"See me!"
She would walk and walk and walk--it would feel so good to walk!
Once she had said to Judith--the great oars stopped as Judith
remembered--once Blossom had said, "Oh, Judy, if I ever walk, I
shall walk right across the sea. You couldn't stop me!"
But Blossom would never walk. Judith bent to the great oars again and
toiled out into the bay. Her lips were set in the old familiar lines
of pain. In the distance was just visible a fleck of white and a
fleck of blue--Elise and the Dainty One on the sands.
"I never want to set eyes on them again--not on her, anyway!" thought
Judith as she toiled. "What did she want to speak to me for, in her
nice little mincing voice! She belongs to hotels and I belong to
the--sea. Blossom and I--what has she got to do with Blossom!"
But the little mincing voice had said, "I'd be pleased to see you--I
like you." It had said, "I'd be pleased to see Blossom."
"She sha'n't! I won't have her! I won't have Blossom see her!" Judith
stormed in her pain.
The picture of the little frail wisp of a child who would never walk
was so distinct to her--and this other picture of the Dainty One who
walked and laughed, "See me!" The two little pictures, side by side,
were more than Judith could bear.
The traps were nearly empty. It was going to be a poor lobster
season. To hotels like that one down the beach that would be a
disappointment. To Judith, who stood for fisher-folk, it would mean
serious loss. When the lobster season was a good one, more than one
little comfort and luxury found its way into more than one humble
fisher-home. And Blossom--Blossom would suffer if the lobster-traps
were empty. For Judith and her mother had agreed to set apart enough
of the lobster-money to get Blossom a wheel-chair. Judith had seen
one once on a trip to the nearest town, and ever since she had
dreamed about a little wheel-chair with Blossom in it. To wheel up
and down the smooth, hard sand, with Blossom laughing and crying,
"See me!"
"There's got to be lobsters!" Judith stormed, jerking up her traps
one after the other. "There _shall_ be lobsters!"
But she rowed back with the old brown dory almost as empty as when
she had rowed it toilsomely out to her traps.
There were but three Lynns in the small home upshore. Two years ago
there had been six, but father and the boys, one day, had gone out of
sight beyond the bay and had never come into sight again. It is the
sad way with those "who go down to the sea in ships."
Judith was the only man left to 'tend the traps and fish in the safer
waters of the bay. At fourteen one is young to begin toil like that.
Even at sixteen one is not old. But Judith's heart was as strong as
her pair of brown, boy-muscled arms. She and the old dory were well
acquainted with each other.
To-day Judith did not hurry homeward across the stretch of bright
water. She let the old dory lag along almost at its own sweet will.
For Judith dreaded to go home with her news of the poor little "haul"
of lobsters. She knew so well how mother would sigh and how little
Blossom would try to smile. Blossom always tried to smile when the
news was bad. That was the _Blossomness_ of her, Judith said fondly.
"That's Lynn luck," mother would sigh. Poor mother, who was too worn
and sad to try to smile!
"Never mind, Judy," Blossom's little, brave smile would say. "Never
mind--who cares!" But Judy knew who cared.
Strange fancies came sometimes to the fisherman-girl in the great
dory, out there on the bay. Alone, with the sky above and the sea
beneath, the girl let her thoughts have loose rein and built her
frail castles in the salt, sweet air. Out there, she had been a
beautiful princess in a fairy craft, going across seas to her
kingdom; she had been a great explorer, traveling to unknown worlds;
she had been a pirate--a millionaire in his yacht--a sailor in a
man-of-war. She had always had a dream-Blossom with her, on her
wonder-trips, and sometimes they were altogether Blossom-dreams. Like
to-day--to-day it was a Blossom-dream, a wistful little one with not
much heart in it. They seemed to be drifting home, away from
something beautiful behind them that they had wanted very much. They
had been sailing after it--in the dream--with their hands stretched out
to reach it. And it had beckoned them on--and further on--with its
golden fingers, till at last it had vanished into the sunset, down
behind the sea, and left them empty-handed after all. They had had to
turn back without it. And Blossom--the little dream-Blossom in the
dream--had tried to smile.
"Never mind, Judy," she had said. "Never mind--who cares!" But they
had both cared so much!
Then quite suddenly Judith's fancy had changed the dream from a sad
one to a glad one. She had rested lazily on her great black oars and
painted another picture on her canvas of sea and sky--this time of
Blossom riding way over a beautiful glimmery sea-road in a little
wheel-chair, soft-cushioned and beautiful. She, Judith, followed in
the old dory, and Blossom laughed with delight and called back over
her shoulder, "See me! See me!"
A whiff of night-breeze warned Judith that it was growing late and
the dream-fancies must stop. She leaned over the side of the dory and
pretended to drop them, one at a time, into the sea. That was another
of her odd little whimsies.
"Good-by, sad dream--good-by, glad dream," she said. "You will never
go ashore. You will always stay out here in the sea where I drop
you--unless I decide to dream you over again some day. If I do,
good-by till then." For Judith never dreamed her day-dreams on land.
They were a part of the sea and the sea-sky and the old black dory.
She must make her trip to the Hotel with her poor little haul of
lobsters, for she had promised all she got to Mrs. Ben. But for a
wonder Judith's pride deserted her, and she decided to tramp away
down the beach in her fisherman-clothes. When had she done that
before! When _hadn't_ she walked the weary little distance inshore
and back, to and from her home, for the sake of going down the beach
in her own girl-things. But to-night--"Never mind, Judy--who cares!"
she said to herself, with a shrug. Let Mrs. Ben laugh--let the fine
people lounging about laugh--let everybody laugh! Who cared? To-night
Judith was tired, and the stout little heart had gone out of her.
"Land!" laughed Mrs. Ben, in her kitchen door. But the sober face
under the old tarpaulin checked her. Mrs. Ben's heart was tender.
"I shouldn't think I looked very landish," Judith retorted. "And I
guess you won't say 'land!' when you see your lobsters. That's every
one I got to-day, Mrs. Ben!"
But Mrs. Ben said "Land!" again. Then, with an unexpected whirl of
her big, comely person, she had her hands on the boy-girls' shoulders
and was gently pushing her toward a chair by the window.
"You poor dear, you! Never mind the lobsters. Just you set there in
that chair and eat some o' my tarts! You look clean tuckered out."
"Not _clean_ tuckered," laughed Judith rather tremulously. It was
good to be pushed about like that by big, kind hands. And how good
the tarts were! She sank into the chair with a grateful sigh.
"I don't suppose you can be expected to bring lobsters when there
ain't any in the traps! All is, the folks 'll have to eat tarts!"
Mrs. Ben's folks were the people who lounged about in gay summer
clothes. Judith could see them out of the window as she ate her
tarts.
Some ladies were sitting on the doorsteps very near by, and their
voices drifted in to Judith with intervals of silence. She began to
notice what the voices were saying. They were talking about a little
figure in dainty white that was circling about not far away, and the
little figure in white was Judith's acquaintance of the beach.
One of the voices was a mother-voice--Judith was sure of that from the
tenderness in it. The other voice was just a plain _voice_, Judith
decided. It sounded interested and curious, and it began to ask
strange questions about the dainty little figure. Judith grew
interested, too--then, very interested indeed.
Suddenly Judith caught her breath in an inarticulate little cry. For
she could hear what the mother-voice was answering.