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JANET OF THE DUNES
by
HARRIET T. COMSTOCK
Author of
Joyce of the North Woods,
A Son of the Hills, Etc.
[Illustration: JANET. _Frontispiece_]
Grosset & Dunlap
Publishers :: :: New York
Copyright, 1907, By Little, Brown, and Company.
All rights reserved
LOVINGLY
I Dedicate this Book
TO
CARRIE LOUISE SMITH.
HER FRIENDSHIP WAS, AND ALWAYS WILL BE, A LIGHT TO
ME UPON MY WAY. THE CHART SHE SAILED BY
WILL GUIDE MY COURSE AND BRING ME, I
HOPE, AT LAST, TO THE HARBOR
WHERE SHE HAS GONE.
HARRIET T. COMSTOCK.
FLATBUSH, BROOKLYN, N.Y.
June 15, 1907.
PREFACE
In this story of the dunes, the Hills and the Light, I have not
attempted any character drawing, although on the easterly shore of Long
Island there are many people who have retained, together with the plain
old English names which they brought with them by way of Connecticut and
Rhode Island, a simplicity and sturdiness of character not to be found
elsewhere, I believe, so near the great cosmopolis, and which is worthy
a place in song and story.
It has been my good fortune to mingle for many summers with these kindly
folk, and particularly with a little group of gentle, rather bashful and
silent men forming a crew, with their captain, of one of the United
States Life Saving Stations.
It is my hope that this story, if it does nothing else, will in some
small measure enhance the not-too-strong interest in which the poorly
paid, obscurely enacted heroism of the men in this service is held by
the general public.
They have not the advantages, like our soldiers and firemen, of dressy
uniforms and frequent parade before us. They would be greatly
embarrassed by anything like public homage; yet how beneficent is their
service! The lonely isolation of the Government Houses; the long,
ofttimes dangerous patrols every night from sunset to sunrise; their
detachment from home and social ties,--all speak for the dignified
bravery of these men along our coasts, and should call forth from us a
grateful and appreciative tribute.
HARRIET T. COMSTOCK.
FLATBUSH, BROOKLYN, N.Y.
JUNE 12, 1907.
ILLUSTRATIONS
Janet Frontispiece
page
"The two men stood spellbound before the easel" 117
"'What do you know of my mother?'" 187
"'They're on the outer bar! Two rockets! I've answered!'" 267
JANET OF THE DUNES
CHAPTER I
A sweeping curve of glistening beach. A full palpitating sea lying under
the languid heat of a late June afternoon. The low, red Life Saving
Station, with two small cottages huddling close to it in friendly
fashion, as if conscious of the utter loneliness of sea and sand dune.
And in front of one of these houses sat Cap'n Billy and his Janet!
They two seemed alone in the silent expanse of waste and water, but it
in no wise disturbed them. Billy was industriously mending a huge fish
net spread out upon the sands. Janet was planning a mode of attack, in
order to preserve unto herself the very loneliness and isolation that
surrounded them.
In Janet's hands Cap'n Billy knew himself a craven coward. Only by
keeping his eyes away from the face near him could he hope for success
in argument. And Cap'n Billy, with all the strength of his simple,
honest nature, meant to succeed in the present course--if Janet would
permit him!
It was yet to be discovered how beautiful was the girl, crouching upon
the sands. So unlike was she to the young people of the Station that she
repelled, rather than attracted, the common eye. Tall, slim, and sinewy
was she, with the quick strength of a boy. The smooth, brown skin had
the fineness and delicacy of exquisite bronze. Some attempt had been
made earlier in the day to confine the splendid hair with strong strands
of seaweed, but the breeze of the later morning had treated the matter
contemptuously, and the shining waves were beautifully disordered. Out
of all keeping with this brown ruggedness were Janet's eyes. Like
colorless pools they lay protected by their dark fringes, until emotion
moved them to tint and expression. Did the sky of Janet's day prove
kind, what eyes could be as soft and blue as hers? Did storm threaten, a
grayness brooded, a grayness quite capable of changing to ominous black.
Cap'n Billy, trained to watching for storms and danger, knew the
signals, and now, for safety, lay low.
The eyes were mild and sun-filled, the face bewitchingly friendly; but
when Janet took to wheedling, Billy hugged the shore.
"You don't really mean it, Cap'n, now, do you?"
"I do that!" muttered Billy, and he pulled the twine energetically.
"What, send your own Janet off to the mainland to stay--except when she
runs back?" This last in a tone that might have moved a rock to pity.
"Yes, that, Janet; and ye mustn't come on too often, nuther."
"Oh! Cap'n, and just when we've got the blessed beach to ourselves! Mrs.
Jo G. and her kind gone; only the crew and us! Why, Cap'n, this is
life!"
"Now, Janet, 'tain't no use fur ye t' coax. Ye're goin' on seventeen,
ain't ye?"
"Seventeen, Cap'n, and eleven months!"
"It's distractin' the way ye've shot up. Clar distractin'; an' I ain't
been an' done my duty by ye, nuther." Billy yanked a strand of cord
vigorously.
"Yes, you have, Cap'n," Janet's tone was dangerously soft; "I'm the very
properest girl at the Station. Look at me, Cap'n Daddy!"
But Billy steeled himself, and rigidly attended to the net. "Well," he
admitted, "ye're proper enough 'long some lines. I've taught ye t'
conquer yer 'tarnal bad temper--"
"You've taught me to know its power, Cap'n Daddy," warned Janet with a
glint of darkness in the laughing serenity of her gaze; "the temper is
here just the same, and powerful bad, upon provocation!"
A smile moved the corners of Billy's humorous lips.
"An' the bedpost is here, too, Janet. Lordy! I can see ye now as I used
t' tie ye up till the storm was over. What a 'tarnal little rascal ye
war! The waves of tantrums rolled over ye, one by one, yer yells growin'
less an' less; an' bime by ye called out 'tween squalls, 'Cap'n Daddy,
it's most past!'" There was a mist over Billy's eyes. "Ye 'tarnal little
specimint!" he added.
"But, Cap'n, dear!" Janet was growing more and more dangerous; "I've
been so good. Just think how I've gone across the bay, to the Corners,
to school. My! how educated I am! Storm or ice, I leave it to you,
Daddy, did I ever complain?"
"Never, Janet. I've stood on the dock and watched yer sail comin' 'fore
the gale, till it seemed like I would bust with fear. An' the way ye
handled yer ice boat in the pursuit of knowledge-gettin' was simple
miraculous! No, I ain't a-frettin' over yer larnin'-gettin'; it's the
us'n' of the same as is stirrin' me now. With such edication as ye've
got in spite of storm an' danger, ye ought to be shinin' over on the
mainland 'mong the boarders!"
"Boarders!" sniffed Janet, tossing her ruddy mane; "boarders! Folks have
gone crazy-mad over the city folks who have swooped down upon us, like
a--a--hawk! Every house full of those raving lunatics going on about the
views, and the--the artistic desolation! That's what those dirty, spotty
looking things on the Hills call it. Cap'n, you just ought to see them
going about in checked kitchen aprons, with daubs all over
them--sunbonnets adangling on their heads, little wagons full of truck
for painting pictures--and such pictures! Lorzy! if I lived in a place
that looked like those--sketches, they call them--I'd--I'd go to sea,
Cap'n Daddy--to sea!"
"But they be folks, Janet, an' it's a new life an' a chance, an' it
ain't decint fur ye, with all yer good pints, t' be on the beach along
with the crew, all alone!"
"Cap'n, I do believe you want to marry me off! get rid of me! oh,
Daddy!" Janet plunged her head in her lap and was the picture of
outraged maidenhood.
"'T ain't so! An' ye know it!" cried Billy. "But Mrs. Jo G., 'fore they
sailed off, opened my eyes."
"Mrs. Jo G.!" snapped Janet, raising her head and flashing a look of
resentment, "I thought so! What did she suggest--that I might come to
her house and wait--wait, just think of it, Cap'n, wait upon those
boarders?" She had suggested that, and something even worse, so Billy
held his peace.
"It's simply outrageous the way our people are going on," the girl
continued; "they are bent upon beggaring the city folks! Beggaring them,
really! they have no consciences about the methods they take to--to rob
them!"
"Janet, hold yer tiller close!"
"Oh! I know, Cap'n, but I do not want to take part in it all. I want to
stay alone with you. Think of the patrols, Cap'n Daddy! I'll take them
all with you. Sunset, midnight, and morning! You and I, Daddy, dear,
under the stars, or through storm! Ah, I've ached for just this!"
Billy felt his determination growing weak.
"I've made 'rangements, Janet; Cap'n David he's goin' to board ye, an'
ye can look about, an' if ye see an openin' t' get a chance t' better
yerself--not in the marryin' way, but turnin' a penny--why it will all
help, my girl, an' ye ought t' be havin' the chance with the city folks,
what all the others is havin'."
"Oh! you sly old Cap'n Daddy! And do you realize that Cap'n Davy's Susan
Jane isn't any joke to live with? You don't hear Davy tattling, but
other folks are not so particular. Daddy, dear, I just cannot!" And with
this the girl sprang into the net, rolled over and over and then lay
ensnarled in the meshes at Billy's feet, her laughing eyes shining
through the strands.
"Ye 'tarnal rascal!" cried Billy.
"You think you've caught me!" whined Janet, "you think you've got me!
Oh! Cap'n, I'm afraid of the city folks!"
"Fraid!" sneered Billy. "My Janet 'fraid o' anythin'!"
"Yes, honest true! I do not want to be near them. I scent danger; not to
them, but to me!"
Billy, bereft of his hands' occupation, looked out seaward. He was
well-nigh distracted. Always his duty to this girl was uppermost in his
simple mind; but his love and anxiety mingled with it. He no more
understood her than he understood the elements that made havoc along
the coast and necessitated his brave calling. He waged war with the sea
to save his kind; and he struggled against the opposing forces in Janet
that he in no wise understood, in order that she, as a girl among
others, should have her rights.
Wild little creature as she had always been, Billy had used all the
opportunities at hand to tame her into a similarity to the other
children of the Station; and when he had failed, he gloried in the
failure, and grew more distracted. Braving opposition in the girl and
the dangers of Nature, Billy had forced the child across the bay to the
school at the Corners. What there was to learn in that primitive
institution, Janet had learned, and much more besides in ways of which
Billy knew nothing.
For years the quaint seaside village had lain unnoticed in its droning
course. Ships, now and again, had been driven upon the bar outside the
dunes, and at such times the bravery of the quiet crew at the Government
Station was sung in the distant city papers.
Now and again the superiority of the Point Quinton Light would be
mentioned. But Captain David never knew of it. He tended and loved the
Light with a fatherly interest. It was his life's trust, and David was
a poet, an inarticulate poet, who spoke only through his shining Light.
The government was his master. David thought upon the government in a
personal way and served it reverently.
Then an artist had discovered Quinton-by-the-Sea. He took a painting of
it back to the restless town, a painting full of color of dune, sea,
bay, and hundred-toned Hills, with never a tree to stay the progress of
the unending breezes. That was sufficient! The artist was great enough
to touch the heart and Quinton was doomed to be famous! But it was only
the beginning now. Every house in the village had opened its doors to
the strangers; and every pocket yawned for possible dollars. Tents were
pitched in artistic arrangement on the Hills, but the hotel was not yet.
Managers waited to see if the fever would last. While they waited, the
village folk reaped a breathtaking harvest. Mrs. Jo G., the only woman
who had lived at the Life Saving Station in her own home, packed up and
went "off," with baggage and children, to open the old farmhouse on the
mainland and take boarders. Before going she left food for Billy to
digest.
"This be Janet's chance," she said, standing with her hands on her hips,
and her sunbonnet shading her fair, pinched face--nothing ever tanned
Mrs. Jo G. "She can turn in an' help wait on table, or she kin take in
washin'. It won't hurt her a mite. Washin' will have t' be done, an' the
city folks will pay. Janet can make them fetch and carry their own duds.
She can stand on her dignity; an' wash money is as good as any other."
Billy experienced a distinct chill at this last proposition. Why, he
could hardly have told. During Janet's babyhood and early childhood he
had assumed all household duties himself. Later he and Janet had shared
them together over tub and table, but that Janet should wash for the
boarders was harrowing!
"You think she's too good, Cap'n," sneered Mrs. Jo G., "but she ain't.
She's wild, an' she ought t' get her bearin's. She ain't any different
from my girls nor the others, though you act as if you thought so. You
ain't as strong as you once was, Cap'n, an' come the time when you pass
in your last check, who's goin' t' do for Janet? An' how's she goin' t'
know how t' do fur herself? You ain't actin' fair by the girl. It's
clear Providence, the way the city folks has fallen, as you might say,
right in our open mouths. There'll be plenty of chances on the mainland
fur Janet t' turn a penny, an' get an idea of self-support. But she
ought t' be there, and not stuck here!"
Mrs. Jo G. had hardly turned the Point, after this epoch-making speech,
before Billy was starting for the Light and the one friend of his heart.
"David," he explained, viewing his friend through a fog of thick, blue
smoke, "I want that ye should take my girl! Once Janet is here, she'll
be mighty spry 'bout gettin' in t' somethin'. I don't want her t' take
t' washin' or servin' strangers, 'less she wants t', but when 'sperience
_an'_ money is floatin' loose, my girl ought t' be out with her net."
"Course!" nodded David; "an' Janet's a rare fisher fur these new
waters."
"Ye'll keep yer eye on her, David--knowin' all ye do?"
The furrows deepened on Billy's brow. David took his pipe from his
mouth.
"God's my witness! I will that!" he said.
Thus things stood while Janet, coiled in the meshes, lay laughing up at
Billy.
"What do you think of your haul, Cap'n Billy Daddy?" The man sighed.
"You wouldn't let those dreadful old sharks--they _are_ sharks,
Cap'n--you wouldn't let them hurt your poor little fish, now would
you?" The rippling, girlish laugh jarred Billy's nerves. He must take a
new tack.
"See here, Janet, do ye mind this? Ye ain't jes' _my_ child--Lord knows
ye ain't--yer hers!"
"Hers?"
"Yes."
"Ah! you mean my mother." The net lay quite still. Having no memory of
the mother, Janet was not deeply impressed. "I know, Cap'n; when you are
in a difficulty you always bring--'her'--in,--what she would like, and
what she wouldn't. It's my belief, Cap'n, she'd have done and thought
exactly as we told her to."
"'T ain't so, nuther! She had heaps of common sense, an' as she got near
port, she saw turrible clear, an' she talked considerable 'bout larnin',
an' how it could steer yer craft better than anythin' else; an' she
'lowed if ye was gal or lad, after ye got larnin', she wanted ye should
go out int' the world an' test it. She wasn't over sot 'bout the
Station. She'd visited other places."
Janet sat up, and idly draped the net about her.
"I suppose if my mother had lived," she said, "I would have listened to
her--some. But, Cap'n Daddy, I reckon she would have gone off _with_
me. Like as not we would have taken boarders, but, don't you see, Cap'n,
I would have had her?"
"True; an' it's that what's held my hand many's the time. Yer not havin'
her has crippled us both. But a summer on the mainland ain't a-goin' t'
swamp us, Janet. With the _Comrade_ tied to David's wharf, an' me here,
what's goin' t' happen to a--a girl like you?"
Janet looked across the summer sea.
"What? Sure enough, Cap'n Daddy, just what? And I ought to be earning my
keep."
"I'm goin' t' set ye up with some gal fixin's what I've saved fur ye.
Yer mother's things! Ye ain't never seen them. S'pose we take a look
now. A summer, with runnin's over t' the Station, will be real
interestin', Janet. An' ye must tell me everythin'. There ain't no
reason why ye shouldn't sail over every little while, but I do hope
ye'll make yerself useful somehow. It will help bime by. An' I'm gettin'
stiff." He arose awkwardly and strode toward the tiny house. Janet
followed, trailing her fish net robe and humming lightly.
The house was composed of three small rooms with a lean-to, where of
late years Billy had slept. From the middle room, which was the living
room, a ladder, set against the wall, led to the loft overhead. The man
slowly climbed upward, and Janet went after.
The space above was hardly high enough for an upright position, so man
and girl sat down upon the floor, and it happened that a locked chest
stood between them.
"Janet, ye ain't never seen these things, have ye?"
"No, Cap'n Billy." The mocking laugh was gone from the face.
"Ye ain't got no sense of curiosity 'bout anythin', Janet--not even yer
mother. Most girls would have asked questions."
This seemed like a rebuke, and Janet kept silent.
"Ain't ye got no curious feelin' 'bout yer mother?"
"Cap'n Billy, you haven't ever let me miss anything in all my life. I
s'pose that's why I haven't asked. I never knew her, did I, Cap'n Billy?
You made up for everything."
This unnerved Billy.
"That's logic," he nodded, "an' it's good-heartedness, as well; but,
Janet, I'm goin' to tell ye somewhat of yer mother." He took a key from
his pocket, unlocked the chest and raised the lid.
"Them things is hers!" he said reverently. "Little frocks--" Three he
laid out upon the floor. Cheap, rather gaudy they were, but of cut and
fashion unknown to the beach-bred girl. "And little under-thin's, an' a
hat, an' sacque; shoes--just look at them, Janet! Little feet they
covered, but such willin' little feet, always a-trottin' 'bout till the
very last, so turrible afraid they wouldn't be grateful enough. Lord!
but that was what she said." The pitiful store of woman's clothing lay
near Janet, but she made no motion to touch it.
"And this is her!" Captain Billy took a photograph from the bottom of
the chest, unwrapped it from its covering of tissue paper, and handed it
to the quiet girl opposite. "This is her, an' as like as life! The same
little hat on, what she set such store by! I ain't had the heart t' show
ye this before." Janet seized the card eagerly. The light from a small
window in the roof fell full upon it.
"Oh!" she breathed, "she was--why, Cap'n Billy, she was more than
pretty! I think I should have felt her more if I had seen this."
"Maybe, Janet."
"Am--am I like her?"
"Like as not, if ye was whiter an' spindlin'er, there'd be a likeness."
An uneasiness struggled in Billy's inner consciousness as he viewed the
girl. "Ye're more wild-like," he added.
"I wish I had asked a lot about her," Janet whispered, and there was a
mist in her eyes; "I have been careless just because I've been happy. It
seems as if we had sort of pushed her away, and kept her still."
"Well, it's her turn t' speak now, girl, an' that's what I've been
steerin' round t'. Ye're hers an'--"
"And yours, Cap'n Billy, even if you have taught me to say Captain,
instead of Father."
"It was her word for me, child, an' ye added Daddy of yer own will. 'My
Cap'n,' she use t' say. It sounded awful soothin'; an' her so grateful
'bout nothin'! Sho! An' she wanted ye to be a help long o' me. Them was
her words. An' Lordy! child, I'm willin' t' work an' share with ye--but
savin' is pretty hard when there ain't nothin' much t' save from, an' if
this summer-boardin' business is goin' t' open up a chance fur ye, it
ain't cause I want help, but she'd like ye t' have more things. Don't ye
see? An' I jest know ye'll get yer innin's on the mainland."
"I have been a selfish girl!" Janet murmured, holding the photograph
closer, "a human crab; just clinging and gripping you. Then running
wild and fighting against you when you wanted me to learn to be useful!
I think, Cap'n Billy, if you had shown me--my mother, and talked more of
her--maybe it would have been different. Maybe not,"--with a soft
sigh,--"I reckon every one has to be ready for seeing. I don't just know
_how_ to--how to get my share from those--those boarders. But I'll find
a way! I mean to be helpful, Cap'n. I can't bring myself to wait on
them. Mrs. Jo G. doesn't seem to mind that, but I do. And I hate to see
them eat--in crowds. But I'll find something to do. Put the clothes in
the carpet-bag, Cap'n Billy Daddy; I may not wear them over there, but
I'd like to have them. May I take the picture?"
"Yes, only be powerful careful o' it. An' don't show it round. Somehow
she seems to belong to nobody but jest us two."