Judith awoke with a bewildering sensation of guilt and need of
action. What had happened? What had she done that she ought not to
have done?--or was it something that she ought to? Memory struggled
back to her dimly, then flashed upon her in sudden clearness.
She had taken a school of mackerel--that was what she had done that
was praiseworthy. She had left them down there in the old black dory,
undressed and unpacked--that was the thing she ought not to have done.
That was the awful thing! For if they were not dressed and packed at
once--
"Oh, I shall lose them! I shall lose them!" moaned poor Judith,
sitting up in bed and wringing her hands in the keenness of her
distress. "How could I have _let_ myself fall asleep! How could I
have slept all this time like a log!"
It was very dark, so it must be midnight or later. There was no light
anywhere, on land or sea, or in Judith's troubled soul. To her
remorseful mind all her terrible labor and strain of body had been in
vain; she had gone to sleep and spoiled everything, everything!
Judith had never been so utterly tired out as when she went to sleep;
she had never been so tired as she was now. She felt lame in every
joint and muscle of her body. But her conscience stood up before her
in the dark and arraigned her with pitiless, scathing scorn.
"Well, aren't you ashamed of yourself? See what you've done! All
those beautiful fish lost, when you might have saved them--just by
staying awake and attending to them. A little thing like that! And
you worked so hard to get them--I was proud of you for that. Ah-h, but
I'm ashamed of you now!"
"Don't! don't--you hurt!" sighed Judith, "I'll get up now, this
minute, and go down there. Don't you see me getting up? I've got one
shoe on now."
Judith was not experienced in the dressing of many fish at a time and
the packing of them in barrels for market. At sixteen, how can one
be--and one a girl? But she knew in a rather indefinite way the
importance of having it done promptly. She remembered father's and
the boys' last school of fish--how she had hurried down to the shore
and watched the dory come creeping heavily in, how the boys had
cheered, as they came, how father had let her help at the dressing,
and mother had brought down hot coffee for them all and then "fallen
to," herself and worked like a man. How they all had worked to get
the barrels packed full of the shining layers in time for the steamer
next morning!
All this Judith remembered as she crept silently away through the
darkness and turned toward the salty spray that the wind tossed
in her face. That had been a phenomenally large school of
mackerel--eighteen barrels for market in the distant city. Judith was
not quite sure, but she thought the check that came back to father
had been for a hundred and fifty dollars. Mackerel had been in great
demand then. A hundred and fifty dollars! Judith stopped short and
caught her breath.
"But my school was just a little one," she thought, "and maybe people
aren't very mackerel hungry now." Still, a hundred dollars--or even
fifty--fifty dollars would go so far toward that doctor across the
sea! Supposing she had lost fifty dollars! She hurried on through the
black night, not knowing what she should do when she got to her
destination, but eager to do something. The lantern she carried cast
a small glimmer into the great dark.
Judith was not afraid--how long had it been since she was afraid of
the dark? But a distant thrill shot through her when she saw another
faint glimmer ahead of her. Then it seemed to divide into two
glimmers--they blinked at her like evil eyes. They were straight
ahead; she was going toward them! She must go toward them if she went
to the old dory drawn up on the beach.
"And I'm goin!" Judy said defiantly. "Blink away, you old bad-y
two-eyes! Wait till I get there and fix you!" It helped to laugh a
little and nod defiance at the blinking eyes.
The salty spray increased to a gentle rain, buffeting her cheeks. The
steady boom of the breakers was in her ears like the familiar voice
of a friend. Judith tramped on resolutely.
The lights were two lanterns, sheltered from the wind, beside the old
black dory. Judith came upon them and cried out in astonishment. For
she had come upon something else--a boy, dressing fish as if his life
depended on it!
"Jemmy Three!" she ejaculated shrilly.
The boy neither turned about nor stopped.
"Hullo! That you, Jude? Got a lantern? Take that knife there an' go
to work like chain lightnin'. I've filled two barrels--there isn't any
time to lose, now, I tell you! Steamer's due at seven."
"But--but--I don't understand--" faltered Judith.
"Well, you needn't, till you get plenty o' time. Understandin' don't
dress no fish." Jemmy Three, like Jem One, had missed his rightful
share of schooling. "What we got to do now is dress fish."
Judith went to work obediently, but the wonder went on in her mind.
What did it all mean? How had Jemmy Three found out about the
mackerel? Why was he down here in the dead of night dressing and
packing them?
By and by the boy saw fit to explain in little jerks over his
shoulder. Judith pieced them together into a strange, beautiful story
that made her throat throb.
"Saw you had a load here--saw 'twas mackerel--knew they'd got to be
'tended to--'tended to 'em," Jemmy Three slung over his shoulder, as
he worked.
"Suspicioned you'd struck a school, and gone home clean tuckered. Oh,
but you're a smart one, Jude! Couldn't no other girl 'a' done it,
sir, this side o' the Atlantic!"
He caught up the dressed fish and bent over a fresh barrel; his voice
sounded muffled and hollow to Judith.
"Knew there weren't no time to spare--nobody hereabouts to help
out--went at it myself all flyin',--been down here since seven
o'clock."
"Oh, Jemmy!" Judith trembled. The throb in her throat hurt her. "What
time is it now?" she asked.
A grunt issued from the barrel depths. "Time! Ain't any time now! I
told you we'd got to fly!"
It was almost twelve. They worked on, for the most part silently,
until daylight began to redden the east. One barrel after another was
headed up by Jemmy Three's tireless hands. Judith counted barrels
mechanically as she toiled.
"Four!" she cried. Then, "Five!" "Six!"
"There'll be a good eight--you see," Jem Three said, rolling a new one
into position. "You'll get a good fifty dollars, Jude; see if you
don't! How's that for one haul? Ain't any other girl could 'a' done
it!"
"Oh, don't!" sobbed Judith suddenly. She let a little silver fellow
slip to the ground, half-dressed, and went over to Jemmy Three.
"Don't say another word--don't dress another fish--don't move till I
tell you!" she cried. "I cant't stand it another minute! I--I thought
you helped yourself to my lobsters--I _thought_ I thought it. And
you've been here all night working for me--"
"Oh!" cried Jemmy Three softly. But he did not stop working.
"I thought that was why there were only three yesterday--I thought
there'd have been fifty to-day," ran on Judith. The new daylight
lighted her ashamed face redly, like a blush.
"There wouldn't 'a' been but five--" said Jemmy Three, then caught
himself up in confusion. The blush was on his face now.
Judith's cry rang out above the sea-talk. "Then you _put some in!_"
she cried, "instead of helping yourself. You put some in my traps,
Jemmy Three--that's what you did! You put in _twelve!_"
"Guess there's somethin' the matter with your traps, Jude," muttered
the boy. "Guess they better be overhauled--guess a fellow's gotter
right to go shares, ain't he?"
"Jemmy Three, I'm going to hug you!"
"Oh, oh--say, look out; I'm all scales!"
"I had scales on my eyes, but they've fallen off now," laughed the
girl tremulously. "It's worse to have scales on your eyes than all
over the rest o' you. I can see things as plain as day now,
and--and--you look perfectly beautiful!"
"Hold on--I'm dressin' fish! The steamer's due at seven--"
"I don't care if she's due this minute, I've got to talk! If she was
in plain sight--if I could see her smokestack--I should have to talk. I
tell you I can _see_ now, and you look splendid--splendid, and I look
like a little black--blot. To think of my being up home asleep, and
you working down here, dressing _my_ fish--and me thinking those mean
thoughts of you! It makes me so ashamed I cant't hold my kn-knife."
Judith was crying now in good earnest. She had sunk down on the sand,
and her crouching figure with the red glow from the east upon it
looked oddly childish and small. Jemmy Three saw it over his
shoulder.
"Look a-here, Judy," he said gently, dropping his own knife and going
over to the rocking, sobbing figure. "You look _a-here_, I tell you!
What you cryin' for, with eight barrels o' fish 'most packed an' a
good fifty dollars 'most in your pocket? You better laugh! Come on,
get up, and let's give a rouser! Three cheers for the only girl in
the land o' the free an' the home o' the brave that darst tackle a
school o' mack'rel alone! Hip, hip--"
"Jemmy, Jemmy, don't!"
"_Hooray!_ Now let's dress fish. You're all right--don't you worry
about bein' a blot, when I tell you you're a reg'lar brick! I'm proud
o' you!"
It was the longest speech Jemmy Three had ever made, and the
peroration surprised himself as much as it did Judith. He put up his
hand and cleared something away from his eyes--it couldn't have been
scales, for he left the scales there.
At five mother came hurrying down to find Judith. The scale-strewn
beach and the scale-strewn children, the barrels in orderly rows
waiting to be rolled to the little landing-place of the steamer, the
heap of clumsy wet netting--all told her the whole astonishing story.
And what they did not tell, Judith supplemented eagerly.
"I declare! I declare!" gasped mother in mingled pride and pity, "you
two poor things, putting in like this! You'll be tired to
death--you'll be sick abed!"
"Guess we'll weather it," nodded Jemmy Three, working steadily. "But
if you think we ain't hungry enough to eat a pine shing--"
"I'll go right home and boil some coffee and eggs and bring 'em down,
and then I'll go to work, too," cried mother energetically. "You poor
starved things!"
After a salt toilet in the surf, they ate a hurried breakfast with
keen relish. Judith had forgotten her aching joints and lame muscles,
and Jemmy Three had forgotten his sleepless night. Victory lay just
ahead of them, and who cared for muscles or sleep!
"This is the best bread 'n' butter I ever ate," said Judith between
bites.
There proved to be the "good eight" barrels, when they were done, and
they were done by six o'clock, or a very little after. By half-past
six, the barrels had been rolled down the slope of the beach to the
little wharf not far away. Then the tired two rested, and remembered
muscles and sleep.
They dropped in the soft, moist sand and rubbed their aching arms.
"I'm proud o' _you_, Jemmy!" Judith said shyly, and looked away over
the water. Her repentance had come back and lay heavily on her heart.
She longed unutterably to recall those evil thoughts--to have another
chance out there beyond to summon Jemmy Three with the little shrill
old signal. How she would send it shrilling forth now!
"Jemmy," she said slowly, as they waited, "you know our signal, don't
you? The one we used to practice so much."
For answer Jemmy Three pursed his lips and sent out a clear
"carrying" cry.
"Well, I wish--don't you know what I wish?"
"'Twas Christmas," Jemmy said flippantly, but he knew. He dug his
bare toes in the sand--a sign of embarrassment.
"I wish I'd called you out there at the school!" lamented Judith,
"even if you couldn't have heard. I wish--I wish--I _wish_ I'd called!
If I ever strike another school--Jemmy, I'd give you half o' this one
if I dared to. But I'm afraid to have Blossom wait--I don't _dare_
to!"
"O' course not," agreed Jem Three vaguely. He did not at all know
what Judith meant. Girls had queer ways of beginnin' things in the
middle like that. No knowin' what a girl was drivin' at, half the
time!
"Jemmy--say--"
"What say? Ain't that smoke out there?"
"No, it's a cloud. Jemmy Three, I'm going to tell you something. I
_want_ to. I'm going to tell you what that money's going to do--you're
listening, aren't you?"
"With both ears--go ahead."
"Well--oh, it's going to be something so _beautiful_, Jemmy! I never
knew till day before yesterday that you _could_ do anything so
beautiful--I mean that anybody could. I never dreamed it! But you
can--somebody can! There's a man can, Jemmy! All you need is money to
take you across to him and--there's the money!" waving her hand toward
the rows of barrels. Her eyes were shining like twin stars. She had
forgotten aches and lameness again.
"I told Uncle Jem," she went on rapidly, while Jem Three gazed at her
in puzzled wonder and thought more things about girls. "He told me to
go down to the hotel and ask that other little girl's mother, and I
meant to go last night! But I went to sleep last night! So I'm going
to-day--I'm going to ask her to tell me just exactly how to do it."
"Do what?" inquired Jem Three quietly. That was the only way to do
with girls--pull 'em up smart, like that!
"Mercy! Haven't I told you?" cried Judith. "Well, then--Jemmy, if you
were a little mite of a thing--a Blossom, say--and a fairy came to you
and said, 'Wish a wish, my dear; what would you rather have in all
the world?' what would you answer, Jemmy? Remember, if you were a
little mite of a Blossom with a--with a--little broken stem." Judith's
voice sank to a tender softness. She didn't know she was "making
poetry."
The boy with his toes deep in the sand was visibly embarrassed.
Whatever poetry lay soul-deep within him, there was none he could
call to his lips.
"Wouldn't you answer her, 'Legs to walk with'?" went on the girl
beside him softly. "You know you would, Jemmy! _I_ would--everybody
would. You'd say, 'The beautifulest thing in the world would be to
_walk_--dear fairy, I want to walk so much!' And then supposing--are
you supposing?--the fairy waved her wand over you and you--_walked!_
Do you know what you'd say then? _I_ know--you'd say, 'See me! Judy,
see me! Jemmy, everybody, see me!'"
Judith laughed to herself under her breath. The twin stars in her
eyes shone even a little brighter.
"The fairy's a great doctor--he's across there, 'way, 'way out of
sight. He's going to wave his wand over Blossom. He waved it over
another little broken girl, _and she walked_. I saw her. _She_ said,
'See me!'--I heard her. That's what the money is going to do, Jemmy."
"Gee!" breathed Jemmy softly. It was his way of making poetry.
"And you see, I don't dare to wait--I'm afraid something might happen
to that doctor."
"O' course!--you go down there all flyin' an' see that woman, Jude."
And that afternoon Judith went. It was to Mrs. Ben she went first;
she felt acquainted with Mrs. Ben.
"Can I see--I'd like to see that mother whose little girl can walk,"
Judith said eagerly.
"Land!" ejaculated Mrs. Ben.
"I mean," explained Judith, smiling, "whose little girl was lame and
a doctor made her walk by waving his wa--I mean by--by curing her. I
heard her telling another mother. I'd like to see--do you suppose I
could see that lady?"
"I guess I know who you mean--there ain't been but one little girl
here lately," Mrs. Ben said. "But there ain't any now. They've gone
away."