thing as "reaction," but that was what he was suffering from. The
excitement of the morning had died out like a fire which has no more
fuel to feed it, and he could not think of anything that he wanted to
do. He hung listlessly round, watching Aunt Patty's brisk operations
about the kitchen, and at last he thought he would go upstairs and see
if the captain's clothes were beginning to dry. Wet as they were, they
seemed on the whole the most interesting things in the house.
The clothes were not nearly dry, but on the floor, just below where the
rough pea-jacket hung, lay a little shining object. It attracted Davy's
attention, and he stooped and picked it up.
It was a tiny bottle full of some sort of perfume, and set in a socket
of plated filagree shaped like a caster, with a filagree handle. The
bottle had a piece of white kid tied over its cork with a bit of blue
ribbon. It was not a thing to tempt a boy's fancy, but Davy saw that it
was pretty, and the idea came into his head that he should like to carry
it home, to his little sister Bella. Bella was fond of perfumes, and
the bottle had cologne in it, as Davy could smell without taking out the
cork. He was sure that Bella would like it.
Davy had been brought up to be honest. I am sure that he did not mean to
steal the cologne-bottle. The idea of stealing never entered his mind,
and it would have shocked him had it done so. He was an imaginative
little fellow, and the tiny waif seemed to him like a shell or a pebble,
something coming out of the sea, which any one was at liberty to pick up
and keep. He did not say to himself that it probably belonged to the
captain, who might have a value for it, he did not think about the
captain at all, he only thought of Bella. So after looking at the pretty
toy for a while, he put it carefully away in the drawer where he kept
his things, pushing it far back, and drawing a pair of stockings in
front of it, so that it might be hidden. He did not want anybody to
meddle with the bottle; it was his now, or rather it was Bella's. Then
he went up to the walk once more, and was so interested in watching the
wreck and the boats, which, as the wind moderated, came and went between
her and the shore, picking up the barrels and casks which were floated
out of her hold, that he soon forgot all about the matter.
It was nearly dark before the two captains and Sam came back to eat the
meal which had been ready for them since the middle of the afternoon.
Aunt Patty had taken off her pots and saucepans more than once and put
them on again, to suit the long delay; but nothing was spoiled and
everything tasted good, which showed how cleverly she had managed. The
Maine captain--whose name it appeared was Joy--seemed more cheerful than
in the morning, and more inclined to talk. But after supper, when he had
gone upstairs and put on his own clothes, which Aunt Patty had kept
before the fire nearly all day and had pressed with hot irons so that
they looked almost as good as ever, his melancholy seemed to come on
again. He sat and puffed at his pipe till Aunt Patty began to ask
questions about the wreck. Captain Joy, it appeared, was part owner of
the ship, whose name was the "Sarah Jane."
"She was called after my wife's sister," he told them, "and my little
girl to home has the same name, 'Sarah Jane.' She is about the age of
that boy there, or a mite older maybe,"--nodding toward Davy. "She
wanted to come with me this vy'age, but her mother wouldn't hear of it,
and I'm mighty thankful she wouldn't, as things have turned out. No
child could have stood the exposure of such a night as we had and come
out alive; and Sarah Jane, though she's as spry as a cricket and always
on the go, isn't over strong."
The captain took a long pull at his pipe and looked dreamily into the
fire.
"I asked her, just as I was coming off, what I should bring her," he
went on, "and she had a wish all fixed and ready. I never knew such a
child for knowing her own mind. She's always sure what she wants, Sarah
Jane is. The thing she wanted was a cologne-bottle, she said, and it
must be just so, shaped like one of them pepper and vinegar what d' you
call em's, that they put on hotel tables. She was very pertikeler about
the kind. She drew me a picter of it on her slate, so 's to have no
mistake, and I promised her if New York could furnish it she should have
that identical article, and she was mighty pleased."
Nobody noticed that at the mention of the cologne-bottle, Davy gave a
guilty jump, and shrank back into the shadow of Uncle Si's broad
shoulders. Oh, if he could only put it back into the pocket of the
pea-jacket! But how could he when the captain had the jacket on?
"I was kind of fearful that there wouldn't be any bottles of that
pertikeler shape that Sarah Jane had in her mind," continued Captain
Joy, "but the town seemed to be chock-full of 'em. The very first shop I
come to, there they stood in the window, rows of 'em, and I just went in
and bought one for Sarah Jane before I did anything else, and when I'd
got it safely stowed away in the locker, I felt kind of easy in my mind.
We come down with a load of coal, but I hadn't more 'n a quarter cargo
to take back, mostly groceries for the stores up to Bucksport and
Ellsworth,--and it's lucky it was no more, as things have happened. The
schooner was pretty old and being so light in ballast, I jedged it
safest, when the blow come on so hard from the nor'-east, to run it
under the lee of Cape Cod and ride it out there if we could. But we
hadn't been anchored more 'n three hours--just about nine o'clock it
was--when the men came to tell me that we was taking in water terrible
fast. I suppose the ship had kind of strained her seams open in the
gale. It want no use trying to pump her out in such a storm, and if we
didn't want to go down at our anchorage, there wasn't anything for it
but to cut her loose and drive across the Haven in hopes of going
aground on the sand before she sank. I can tell you if ever a man
prayed, I prayed then, when I thought every minute she'd founder in deep
water before we struck the shoal. And just as she was settling I heard
the sand grate under the keel, and you may believe I was thankful,
though it meant the loss of pretty much all I've got in the world. I
shouted to the men to get to the rigging in the mainmast, for I knew
she'd go to pieces pretty soon, and there wasn't no way of signalling
for help till daylight, and I gave one dive for the cabin, got the
papers out of the locker, and Sarah Jane's cologne-bottle, buttoned them
up inside my pea-coat, and just got back again in time to see the
foremast go over the side and the sea make a clean sweep of the decks.
The mainmast stayed, and we lashed ourselves, and managed to hold on
till sunrise, when we see you a-coming out to us, and glad we were.
"Every now and then in the night, when the water was washing over us, I
put my fingers inside my coat and made sure that Sarah Jane's bottle was
there, and wasn't broken. I didn't want the child to be disappointed,
you see. It was safe when we come ashore, I'm certain of that, but--"
The captain paused.
"Now don't say it got broken after all!" cried Myra sympathetically.
"No, it wasn't broken, but it's just as bad," said Captain Joy. "Either
I dropped it getting out of the boat and trod it down in the sand, or
else some one has took it. It's gone, any way, and do you know, it's a
foolish thing to say, but I feel nigh as bad about that there little dud
as wasn't worth more 'n fifty cents, as I do about the loss of the hull
cargo, on account of Sarah Jane."
There was a pause as he ceased. Aunt Patty and Myra were too sorry for
the captain to feel like speaking at once. Suddenly into the silence
there fell the sound of a sob. Everybody started, and Uncle Si caught
Davy's arm and pulled him into the firelight where his face could be
seen.
"Why, what are you crying for, little 'un?" asked Uncle Si.
"I'm so sorry. I didn't know it was the captain's," said Davy, in a
tear-choked voice.
"Didn't know what was the captain's? Now, Davy Crocker, 'twasn't ever
you who took that bottle?" cried Aunt Patty.
"I found it on the floor," sobbed Davy. "I thought it was washed ashore
from the shipwreck. I didn't suppose it belonged to anybody, and I
wanted it for Bella. Oh, I'm so sorry."
"Why, then it ain't lost after all," cried Captain Joy, brightening up.
"Well, how pleased Sarah Jane _will_ be! Don't cry any more, my lad. I
can see how it was, and that you didn't think it was stealing to take
anything that had been in the sea."
Aunt Patty and Myra, however, still were deeply shocked, and could not
look as lightly at Davy's offence as did the captain. Davy crept
upstairs, brought down the cologne-bottle and slid it into Captain Joy's
hand; then he crept away and sat in a dark corner behind the rest, but
his conscience followed him, and Myra's reproachful look.
"Oh, Davy!" she whispered, "I never thought you'd be so mean as to take
anything from a shipwrecked sailor!"
This was Davy's punishment, and rankled in his mind long after everybody
else had forgotten the matter, after the sands had swallowed up all that
was left of the "Sarah Jane," and after the captain had returned to
Bucksport and made the real Sarah Jane happy by the gift of the bottle
she had wished for so much. It rankles occasionally to this day, though
he is now a stout lad of fifteen. That he, he of all boys, should have
done such a thing to a man just saved from the sea! He consoles himself
by resolving to be particularly kind to shipwrecked sailors all the rest
of his life; but unluckily, the "Sarah Jane" is, so far, his sole
experience of a wreck, and the only sailor he has as yet had any chance
to do anything for is Captain Joy, and what he did for him we all know.
One does not always have the opportunity to make up for a blunder or a
fault, and I am afraid Davy may live his life out and never again have
the good luck to show his good intentions by _not_ picking up and hiding
a Shipwrecked Cologne-Bottle!
UNDER A SYRINGA-BUSH.
The old syringa at the foot of the Wade's lawn was rather a tree than a
bush. Many years of growth had gone to the thickening of its interlaced
boughs, which grew close to the ground, and made an impervious covert,
except on the west side, where a hollow recess existed, into which a
small person, boy or girl, might squeeze and be quite hidden.
Sundry other small persons with wings and feathers had discovered the
advantages of the syringa. All manner of unsuspected housekeepings went
on within its fastnesses, from the lark's nest, in a tuft of grass at
the foot of the main stem, to the robin's home on the topmost bough.
Solicitous little mothers brooded unseen over minute families, while the
highly decorative bird papa sat on a neighboring hedge, carrying out his
mission, which seemed to be to distract attention from the secreted
family by the sweetness of his song and the beauty of his plumage. In
the dusk of the evening, soft thrills and twitters sounded from the
bush, like whispered conversation; and very entertaining it must have
been, no doubt, to any one who understood the language. So, altogether,
the old syringa-bush was an interesting little world of itself.
Elly Wade found it so, as she sat in the green hiding-place on the west
side, crying as if her heart would break. The syringa recess had been
her favorite "secret" ever since she discovered it, nearly two years
before. No one else knew about it. There she went when she felt unhappy
or was having a mood. Once the boughs had closed in behind her, no one
could suspect that she was there,--a fact which gave her infinite
pleasure, for she was a child who loved privacies and mysteries.
What are moods? Does any one exactly understand them? Some people
attribute them to original sin, others to nerves or indigestion; but I
am not sure that either explanation is right. They sweep across the
gladness of our lives as clouds across the sun, and seem to take the
color out of everything. Grown people learn to conceal, if not to
conquer, their moods; but children cannot do this, Elly Wade least of
all.
As I said, this was by no means her first visit to the syringa-bush. It
has witnessed some stormy moments in her life, when she sat there hot
and grieved, and in her heart believing everybody cruel or unjust. Ralph
had teased her; or Cora, who was older than she, had put on airs; or
little Kitty had been troublesome, or some schoolmate "hateful." She
even accused her mother of unkindness at these times, though she loved
her dearly all the while.
"She thinks the rest are always right, and I wrong," she would say to
herself. "Oh, well! she'll be sorry some day." What was to make Mrs.
Wade sorry Elly did not specify; but I think it was to be when she,
herself, was found dead, somewhere on the premises, of a broken heart!
Elly was very fond of depicting this broken heart and tragical
ending,--imaginative children often are. All the same, if she felt ill,
or cut her finger, she ran to mamma for help, and was as much frightened
as if she had not been thinking these deadly thoughts only a little
while before.
To-day Elly had fled to the syringa-bush with no idea of ever coming out
again. A great wrong had been done her. Cora was going with a
yachting-party, and she was not. Mamma had said she was too young to be
trusted, and must wait till she was older and steadier.
"It is cruel!" she said with a fresh burst of sobs, as she recalled the
bitter moment when she heard the verdict. "It was just as unkind as
could be for her to say that. Cora is only four years the oldest, and I
can do lots of things that she can't. She doesn't know a bit about
crocheting. She just knits. And she never made sponge-cake, and I have;
and when she rows, she pulls the hardest with her left hand, and makes
the boat wabble. I've a much better stroke than she has. Papa said so.
And I can swim just as well as she can!
"Nobody loves me," was her next reflection,--"nobody at all. They all
hate me. I don't suppose anybody would care a bit if I _did_ die."
But this thought was too hard to be borne.
"Yes, they would," she went on. "They'd feel remorse if I died, and they
ought to. Then they would recollect all the mean things they've done to
me, and they would groan, and say, 'Too late--too late!' like the bad
people in story-books."
Comforted by this idea, she resolved on a plan of action.
"I'll just stay here forever, and not come out at all. Of course, I
shall starve to death. Then, all summer long they'll be hunting, and
wondering and wondering what has become of me; and when the autumn
comes, and the leaves fall off, they'll know, and they'll say, 'Poor
Elly! how we wish we'd treated her better!'"
She settled herself into a more comfortable position,--it isn't
necessary to have cramps, you know, even if you _are_ starving to
death,--and went on with her reflections. So still was she that the
birds forgot her presence, and continued their twittering gossip and
their small domestic arrangements undisturbed. The lark talked to her
young ones with no fear of being overheard; the robins flew in and out
with worms; the thrush, who occupied what might be called the second
story of the syringa, disciplined a refractory fledgling, and papa
thrush joined in with a series of musical expostulations. Elly found
their affairs so interesting that for a moment she forgot her
own,--which was good for her.
A big bumble-bee came sailing through the air like a wind-blown drum,
and stopped for a minute to sip at a syringa blossom. Next a soft whir
drew Elly's attention, and a shape in green and gold and ruby-red
glanced across her vision like a flying jewel. It was a
humming-bird,--the first of the season. Elly had never been so near one
before, nor had so long a chance to look, and she watched with delight
as the pretty creature darted to and fro, dipping its needle-like bill
into one flower-cup after another, in search of the honey-drop which
each contained. She held her breath, not to startle it; but its fine
senses seemed to perceive her presence in some mysterious fashion, and
presently it flew away.
Elly's mind, no longer diverted, went back to its unhappiness.
"I wonder how long it is since I came here," she thought. "It seems like
a great while. I guess it must be as much as three hours. They're all
through dinner now, and beginning to wonder where I am. But they won't
find me, I can tell them!"
She set her lips firmly, and again shifted her position. At the slight
rustle every bird in the bush became silent.
"They needn't," she said to herself. "I wouldn't hurt them. I'm not like
Ralph. He's real bad to birds sometimes. Once he took some eggs out of a
dear, cunning, little song-sparrow's nest, and blew the yolks. I'd never
do such a mean thing as that."
But though she tried to lash herself up to her old sharpness of feeling,
the interruption of wrathful thoughts had somewhat soothed her mood.
Still, she held firmly to her purpose, while an increasing drowsiness
crept over her.
"I shall stay here all night," she thought, "and all to-morrow, and
to-morrow night. And then"--a yawn--"pretty soon I shall be dead, I
suppose, and they'll be--sorry"--another yawn--"and--"
Elly was asleep.
When she woke, the bright noon sunshine had given place to a dusky
light, which made the syringa recess very dark. The robins had
discovered her whereabouts, and, hopping nearer and nearer, had perched
upon a branch close to her feet, and were talking about her. She was
dimly conscious of their voices, but had no idea what they were saying.
"Why did it come here, any way?" asked Mrs. Robin. "A great heavy thing
like that in _our_ bush!"
"I don't know, I'm sure," replied Mr. Robin. "It makes a strange noise,
but it keeps its eyes shut while it makes it."
"These great creatures are so queer!" pursued Mrs. Robin. "There,--it's
beginning to move! I wish it would go away. I don't like its being so
near the children. They might see it and be frightened."
The two birds flitted hastily off as Elly stretched herself and rubbed
her eyes.
A very uncomfortable gnawing sensation began to make itself evident. It
wasn't exactly pain, but Elly felt that it might easily become so. She
remembered now that she fled away from the table, leaving her breakfast
only half finished, yesterday morning,--was it yesterday, or was it the
day before that? It felt like a long while ago.
The sensation increased.
"Dear me!" thought Elly, "the story-books never said that starving to
death felt so. I don't like it a bit!"
Bravely she fought against the discomfort, but it gained upon her.
She began to meditate whether her family had perhaps not been
sufficiently punished.
"I've been away a whole day," she reflected, "and a whole night, and I
guess they've felt badly enough. Very likely they've all sat up waiting
for me to come back. They'll be sorry they acted so, and, any way, I'm
so dreadfully hungry that I must have something to eat! And I want to
see mamma too. Perhaps she'll have repented, and will say, 'Poor Elly!
She _may_ go.'"
In short, Elly was seized with a sudden desire for home, and, always
rapid in decision, she lost no time in wriggling herself out of the
bush.
"There, it's gone!" chirped the female robin. "I'm glad of it. I hope it
will never come back."
Very cautiously Elly crept through the shrubbery on to the lawn. It
still seemed dark, but she now perceived that the gloom came from a
great thunder-cloud which was gathering overhead. She could not see the
sun, and, confused with her long sleep, was not able to make out what
part of the day it was; but, somehow, she felt that it was not the early
morning as in the bush she had supposed.
Across the lawn she stole, and upon the piazza. No one was visible. The
open window showed the dining-table set for something,--was it tea?
Upstairs she crept, and, looking in at the door as she went by, she saw
her mother in her room taking off her bonnet.
"My poor child, where did you think we had gone?" she called out. "Papa
was kept in town till the second train, and that was late, so we have
only just got back. You must be half starved, waiting so long for your
dinner. I hope nurse gave you some bread and milk."
"Why,--what day is it?" stammered the amazed Elly.
"Day? Why, Elly, have you been asleep? It's to-day, of
course,--Thursday. What did you think it was?"
Elly rubbed her eyes, bewildered. Had the time which seemed to her so
long really been so short? Had no one missed her? It was her first
lesson in the comparative unimportance of the individual! A sense of
her own foolishness seized her. Mamma looked so sweet and kind! Why had
she imagined her cruel?
"Did you go to sleep, dear?" repeated Mrs. Wade.
"Yes, mamma," replied Elly, humbly; "I did. But I'm waked up now."
TWO GIRLS--TWO PARTIES.
A great bustle and confusion had reigned the whole week long in the old
house at the top of the hilly street, known to the neighborhood as "the
Squire's." All the slip-covers had been taken from the furniture in the
best parlor. All the company china had been lifted off its top shelf and
washed. All the spare lamps had been filled, all the rooms swept and
dusted, all the drawers in the bureaus freshly arranged, for--as Milly
said to herself--"who knew but some one might take a fancy to peep in?"
Milly Grace, the Squire's daughter, had sat for hours in a cold woodshed
tying up wreaths of ground-pine and hemlock with fingers which grew more
chilly every hour. These wreaths now ornamented the parlor, festooning
curtains, chimney-piece, and door-frames, and making green edges to the
family portraits, which were two in number, neither of them by Copley
or Stuart, as was plain to the most casual observation.
One of these portraits represented the Squire's father in a
short-waisted, square-tailed blue coat, and a canary-colored waistcoat.
His forefinger was inserted in a calf-bound volume of Blackstone, and
his eyes were fixed with a fine judicial directness upon the cupola of
the court-house seen through a window in the background. The other was
his wife, in a sad-colored gown and muslin tucker, with a countenance
which suggested nothing except saleratus and the renunciation of all
human joys.
The Squire did not care much for this picture. It made him feel badly,
he said, just the feeling he used to have when he was a boy and was sent
every Sunday by this orthodox parent to study the longer answers of the
Shorter Catechism on the third step of the garret-stairs, with orders
not to stir from that position till he had them perfectly committed to
memory. It was this strict bringing-up, perhaps, which made him so
indulgent to Milly,--a great deal too indulgent her step-mother thought.
In the buttery stood a goodly row of cakes little and big, loaves whose
icings shone like snow-crust on a sunny day, little cakes with plums
and little cakes without plums; all sorts of cakes. On the swinging
shelf of the cellar were moulds of jelly clear and firm. In the
woodhouse stood three freezers of ice-cream, "packed" and ready to turn
out. Elsewhere were dishes of scalloped oysters ready for the oven, each
with its little edging of crimped crackers, platters of chicken-salad,
forms of blanc-mange, bowls of yellow custard topped with
raspberry-and-egg like sunset-tinted avalanches, all that goes to the
delectation of a country party: for a party there was to be, as after
this enumeration I need hardly state. It was Milly's party, and all
these elaborate preparations were her own work,--the work of a girl of
nineteen, with no larger allowance of hands, feet, and spinal-vertebræ
than all girls have, and no larger allowance of hours to her day; but
with a much greater share of zeal, energy, and what the Squire called
"go" than most young women of her age can boast of.
She it was who had pounded away at the tough sacks full of ice and salt
till they were ready for the freezers. She it was who had beaten the
innumerable eggs for the sponge cakes, pound cakes, fruit cakes, "one,
two, three, four," jelly, nut and other cakes, who had swept the rooms,
washed the china, rearranged, changed, brightened everything. Like most
other families on Croydon Hill, the Graces kept but one "help," a stout
woman, who could wash, iron, and scrub with the best, and grapple
successfully enough with the simple daily _menu_, but who for finer
purposes was as "unhandy" as a gorilla. All the embellishments, all the
delicate cookeries, fell to the share of the ladies of the household,
which meant Milly as a general thing, and in this case particularly, for
the party was hers, and she felt bound to take the burden of it on her
own shoulders as far as possible, especially as her step-mother did not
quite approve, and considered that the Squire had done a foolish thing
in giving consent. "Milly should have her way for once," the Squire had
announced.