.9. 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 Vv 
 
 s 
 
 V 
 
 I T 4 '
 
 Tales of the Maine Coast
 
 Tales of 
 The Maine Coast 
 
 BY 
 
 NOAH BROOKS 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 1894
 
 Copyright, 1894, by 
 Charles Scribncr's Sons 
 
 TROW DIRECTORY 
 
 PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPA 
 NEW YORK
 
 "PS 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Pansy Pegg, .... ' 
 
 The Apparition of Jo Mnrch, . 47 
 
 The Hereditary Barn, 9 1 
 
 The Phantom Sailor, . . . . 131 
 
 The Honor of a Family, 179 
 
 The Waif of Nautilus Island, . . 215 
 
 A Century Ago, 257 
 
 871368
 
 THE setting of these short tales is mainly in 
 and around the ancient town of Castine, Me., 
 thinly disguised under the name of " Fairport." 
 That town was the birthplace and is the present 
 habitation of the author, who has sketched 
 many of his characters from real life. All of 
 the stories were written as diversions at infre 
 quent intervals during the later years of a busy 
 life with the hope that readers may find in 
 them the same recreation that the writer has, 
 and at the same time gain some notion of the 
 characteristics of the people and the natural 
 scenery of the Maine coast.
 
 Pansy Pegg
 
 PANSY PEGG 
 
 HER real name was Nance. There is no 
 tradition extant that she was ever called 
 Nancy. Her mother, who drifted to Fairport 
 more that fifty years ago, brought with her as 
 baggage a bulging bandbox stuffed with cloth 
 ing, two chairs, a bedstead, and Nance, then an 
 infant in arms. The full name of Mrs. Pegg 
 was never known to the Fairport public. When 
 she ran aground, so to speak, on the shore of 
 Oakum Bay, Fairport, she wore a gown of 
 homespun cotton - and - woollen stuff locally 
 named linsey-woolsey, skimped in the skirt and 
 dyed with sumach. This much-enduring gar 
 ment was Mrs. Pegg's only robe, from the day 
 of her landing to the day of her death, which 
 happened some ten years later ; and as Linsey 
 Woolsey Pegg, or more commonly Linsey 
 Woolsey, she was subsequently celebrated in 
 the annals of the town. 
 
 When Linsey Woolsey gave a name to her 
 fatherless offspring, that turbulent infant was
 
 Pansy Pegg 
 
 dipped in the briny waters of Oakum Bay and 
 was then and there christened Nance. "Just 
 Nance," said her mother, wearily, when asked 
 if that was all she had to give the child. " Just 
 Nance, and nothin' more." And by that curt 
 name she was thereafter called. 
 
 That part of the saline shore of Fairport 
 which lies between Jarvis's and Perkins's 
 wharves, sweeping inward with a flattened curve 
 a scant eighth of a mile, was and is known as 
 Oakum Bay. There were the sailor boarding- 
 houses, there the coasting and fishing schooners 
 of the port were beached for submarine repairs, 
 and there was the wide-doored boat-house 
 where three or four old women sat in the sun 
 spinning into yarn the oakum picked from 
 ropes and cables that had been weathered by 
 gales off Cape Horn, bleached in the fiery suns 
 of India and the South Pacific or mildewed by 
 the everlasting fogs of the Grand Banks. Were 
 they endowed with power of speech, full many 
 a tale of perilous adventure might these frag 
 ments of rigging tell as they ignobly passed into 
 their last estate of plebeian oakum to calk 
 withal the seams of the humble craft of the 
 port. 
 
 Water Street here skirts the inner edge of the 
 little bay, dustily or muddily meandering along
 
 the bluffy bank that overhangs the beach. At 
 odd intervals on the crumbling marge of this 
 ragged bank were dotted the weather-beaten 
 shelters of the oakum-pickers and fisher folk. 
 There was a long-timbered box-like structure in 
 which were steamed to flexibility the planks 
 used in patching vessels' hulls, and here and 
 there a time-stained cot or shabby hovel clung 
 desperately to the steep edge, supported on its 
 seaward side by tall stilts, which, like strad 
 dling legs, grotesquely sprawled along the shore. 
 The beach was garnished with sea -drift of 
 every imaginable description. Here was a tar- 
 kettle, there a lobster-pot, an aged pound-net, 
 the skeleton of an ancient jolly-boat, the bat 
 tered figure-head of a once-proud ship, now the 
 sport of village children, and here a sheave- 
 block or a tangle of running rigging. These bits 
 of wrack and waste, mingled with sun-whitened 
 seaweed and eel -grass, imparted to the classic 
 shores that indescribable marine flavor which is 
 an everlasting memory to each wandering son 
 and daughter of the coast of Maine. The faint 
 odor of tar, the subtle aroma of dripping kelp, 
 the mingled bouquet of various submarine 
 growths and shore-born things have followed 
 these far-wandering nomads to the uttermost 
 parts of the earth. There, too, one hundred 
 
 5
 
 Pansy Pegg 
 
 feet or so from low-water mark, lay the bones 
 of the British transport St. Helena, sunk in the 
 War of the Revolution, and now dived for by the 
 amphibious residents of the bay, who turn an 
 honest penny by selling to summer visitors 
 great chunks of solid English oak, black and 
 iridescent in the sea-change that has passed 
 through them in their century-long submersion 
 in the brine. 
 
 When Nance Pegg was ten years old her 
 mother, the faded Linsey Woolsey, gave up a 
 futile struggle for existence, and bequeathing 
 to the town her unpaid rent-bill, her poverty- 
 stricken outfit, and Nance, was carried up Wind 
 mill Hill to sleep as comfortably as she might 
 in the sandy soil of the village graveyard. 
 Nance, now become a charge upon the tax-pay 
 ers, would have been sent to the town poor- 
 house, across the harbor, but the shrewd eyes of 
 Marm Skinner, who kept the sailor boarding- 
 house, at the head of Jarvis's wharf, were upon 
 the child, and at that thrifty lady's request, 
 Nance was bound out to her by the selectmen ; 
 and so the girl entered on a life of drudgery as 
 the slave of Marm Skinner, at the beck and 
 call of a motley crew of sailor-men in the 
 boarding-house. Nance grew sturdily into a 
 maidenhood which was more boyish than girl- 
 6
 
 Pansy Pegg 
 
 ish. Nobody could guess what mixture of 
 alien blood had made in this offspring of the 
 American Linsey Woolsey so strange a child of 
 the sun. From her earliest and most rebellious 
 infancy she had refused to wear any headgear 
 whatever. In heat or cold, sunshine or shower, 
 winter or summer, Nance went bareheaded. 
 Her skin, roughened and reddened by exposure, 
 might have been very beautiful; her profile, 
 regular and aquiline, could not be marred by 
 any neglect of her own. Her crowning glory 
 might have been her hair, which was silky and 
 abundant and had that auburn-red hue which 
 is sometimes called Titianesque. But Nance's 
 perversity wellnigh destroyed its beauty. It 
 is said that the Russian peasant covers his head 
 with a wooden bowl, and the barber's shears 
 cut short off all that part of the crop that hangs 
 below the edge of the covering. Nance's hair, 
 which was parted on one side, man-fashion, was 
 dressed in the Russian manner. 
 
 Little cared Nance Pegg for the rude jocular 
 ity of the boys, the disdainful looks of the girls, 
 or the pitying glances of the elder Fairport 
 folk at her quaint and unlovely appearance. 
 Nimble-witted, sharp-tongued, and ready, under 
 provocation, for a tilt in wordy warfare with 
 anybody, Nance grew up to be at once the
 
 terror and the amusement of Oakum Bay. In 
 deed, her fame, like her lithe and flitting 
 presence, transcended the bounds of the little 
 settlement on the shore and pervaded the entire 
 township by the sea. Not even Squire Ather- 
 ton, the solemn and austere first selectman of 
 Fairport, or Parson Mason, the spiritual head 
 of the community, nor Philip Rowell, town 
 clerk, was so well-known a public character 
 as Nance Pegg, the orphaned child of the sea 
 and the sun. 
 
 The girl was an adept in all the arts and avo 
 cations of the shore folk. She disdained to row 
 in any other fashion than cross - handed ; she 
 knew the times and seasons, the habits and 
 the goings and comings of all manner of wild 
 fowl and fish, from the ululating and melan 
 choly loon or the high - flying wild goose to 
 the capricious mackerel and meditative clam. 
 Versed in sea lore, she knew the name of each 
 mast and sail and rope of the craft that navi 
 gated the waters of the bay, and could accurate 
 ly describe the rig and build of every kind of 
 vessel that sails the sea. A strong and wiry 
 frame gave her power of endurance, and no 
 fatigue appeared to fret her, no heat or cold 
 dismay her ; and he must be a tough and vent 
 uresome lad who dared to challenge the lightly
 
 Pansy Pegg 
 
 clad Nance to a swimming match in the chill 
 waters of the bay at any time of the year. Sent 
 by Mann Skinner on errands to the village 
 stores, she usually trundled before her a wheel 
 barrow which when empty twirled and whirled 
 before as she went, in very wantonness of phys 
 ical strength. Decent matrons and maids 
 were often scandalized by hearing Nance, as 
 she passed about the town on divers errands 
 bent, drumming with agile fingers on tin pan or 
 pail and keeping time thereto with her own 
 shrill and melodious whistle. 
 
 The girl was stubborn but never wayward, and 
 she grew up big and masculine, more and more 
 wilful, and in her developed a certain dominant 
 beauty which began to attract the notice of the 
 young sailors and fishermen of the port. Even 
 these rude critics said that her only charm was 
 in her eyes, which were changeful in their moods, 
 now blazing like sapphires in their wrath and 
 now tenderly violet in rare access of sentiment 
 or yearning. But for the most part she was a 
 rigid stoic. She hated every evidence of femi 
 nine weakness or gentleness, scorned the pretty 
 arts of needlework, and commented with acer 
 bity on the dress and manners of the village 
 maids, thereby delighting the sailor folk who ate 
 at Mann Skinner's table. " Their riggin' costs
 
 Pansy Pegg 
 
 more than the hull," was Nance's caustic re 
 mark, as she placed on the board a smoking dish 
 of beef-and-greens. "And they scud back to 
 harbor at the fust sign of a squall," she con 
 tinued sententiously. A party of gay pleasure- 
 seekers were passing by the windows of the 
 house, and a bearded sailor-man had asked her 
 why she did not array herself like one of these. 
 " No good," she sniffed, with her aquiline nose 
 in the air. " No good for keeps." 
 
 B\it a change was awaiting this waif of the 
 shore. Aunt Doty Perkins, the busy, bustling 
 manager of the village tavern that stood among 
 the elms at the foot of the Common, thought 
 to reclaim Nance from her hoydenish ways. 
 Madam Perkins was a generous person, ample of 
 bulk, kind of heart, and surreptitiously given to 
 certain sentimental vagaries that did not fit in 
 with her housewifely qualities and hard common- 
 sense. Her motherly heart had been touched 
 by the forlornness of the lot of the poor waif of 
 Oakum Bay, and she longed to take the girl, so 
 unfriended and neglected, into a softer atmos 
 phere and more homelike surroundings where, 
 as she phrased it, the girl might be made some 
 thing of. There had been a small rebellion in 
 Marm Skinner's boarding-house from which 
 Nance, now a well-grown girl with an athletic 
 10
 
 Pansy Pegg 
 
 figure, had emerged victorious, leaving the dame 
 on the field lamenting a broken teapot and an 
 eye bruised and blackened. Nance fled to 
 Madam Perkins, whom she had long since in 
 tuitively recognized as her friend. This crisis 
 in the girl's affairs was Madam Perkins's oppor 
 tunity. Tearfully and wrathfully, Marm Skin 
 ner transferred to Madam Perkins Nance's ar 
 ticles of bondage. She told the selectmen that 
 she could do nothing with the " sajcy jade " and 
 these magnates having consented to the deed, 
 the slave of the sailor boarding-house became 
 an inmate of the Hancock Tavern. In these 
 matters Nance took no part and apparently no 
 interest. But when, the legal formalities having 
 been complied with, the transfer was made in 
 due form, Nance entered on her new duties with 
 real enjoyment and gratitude, although outwardly 
 she went about her work with the same stolidity 
 and stoical self-control that had characterized 
 her servitude in the house of entertainment at 
 the head of Jarvis's wharf. 
 
 Nance was a tough subject for the humaniz 
 ing process which Madam Perkins was craftily 
 preparing for her. She clung to her wheelbar 
 row, her melodious whistle, and to most of her 
 masculine manners ; and, although she consented 
 to wear shoes and stockings and endured with 
 ii
 
 Pansy Pegg 
 
 patience the addition of three inches to the 
 length of her skirts, she absolutely refused to 
 have her hair dressed in any other way than the 
 fashion of the Russian bowl before referred to. 
 In one respect, however, she underwent a trans 
 formation unexpectedly sudden and radical. 
 
 " Her name has always been against her," 
 said Madam Perkins. " It stands to reason that 
 a girl born and baptized as Nance was has never 
 had a living show to be anything but a tomboy, 
 as she is. Nance ! ' ' she uttered with supreme 
 contempt. "Nance! What decent, self-respect 
 ing girl could remain decent and self-respecting 
 with a name like that ? ' ' 
 
 So, after much deliberation, and some con 
 sultation with a literary friend, Miss Callista 
 Hatch, Madam Perkins resolved to rechristen 
 Nance as Pansy. In those days Erne, Mattie, 
 Tiny, and other baby names, so greatly affected 
 by a later generation, were not known. They 
 who were averse to the use of such old-fashioned 
 girl names as Margaret, Mary, and Jane, usually 
 inclined to Sophronia, Euphelia, or Constantia, 
 names dear to the novel-readers of that time. 
 When it was announced that Nance was to be 
 known as Pansy Pegg, great was the entertain 
 ment of the community. There was something 
 so grotesque in the association of ideas, the 
 12
 
 beautiful flower and the tough girl, something 
 so comic in its alliteration, that the rechristen- 
 ing took the town by storm. The gossips re 
 peated "Pansy Pegg " in unaffected wonder 
 ment ; the boys yelled the name whenever its 
 wearer made her frequent appearance on the 
 street, and everybody was so tickled with what 
 seemed to be an original joke that the new 
 name was fastened on the girl with marvellous 
 readiness. Before a half year had passed none 
 apparently remembered that Linsey Woolsey's 
 child had ever been other then Pansy Pegg. 
 " Nance " was lost in the waters of oblivion. 
 
 The second stage of Pansy's reclamation from 
 tomboyhood was her matriculation in the town 
 school. Heretofore her education had been 
 chiefly confined to a knowledge of the letters of 
 the alphabet taught her by her mother. And 
 under the tutelage of an ancient mariner, laid 
 up for repairs in Marm Skinner's boarding-house 
 after a fall from the yard-arm, she had furtively 
 learned to count as high as one hundred and to 
 combine letters into words of two syllables. In 
 rural New England so light an educational out 
 fit as this would be regarded as wickedly meagre, 
 even for the humblest of longshore folk ; it was 
 shamefully deficient for a Pansy. Education is 
 generally accepted as the substitute for all short- 
 
 13
 
 Pansy Pegg 
 
 comings, and it was resolved that Pansy Pegg's 
 rehabilitation required at least a fair proficiency 
 in reading, writing, and arithmetic. 
 
 When Madam Perkins announced her inten 
 tion to send Pansy to school it was popularly 
 felt that this was another evidence of the boun 
 teous generosity of the landlady of the Hancock 
 Tavern. Such odd jobs of housework as the girl 
 could despatch " between schools," or early in 
 the morning, or later in the day, were to be all 
 her tasks. When the chores were done up and 
 the nine-o'clock school-bell rang, Pansy would 
 fare forth to the springs of knowledge that gushed 
 forth on the Common under the patronage of 
 the Town School Committee. It was Madam 
 Perkins's wish that Pansy should be a pupil of 
 Miss Maria Jane Bates, the elderly spinster, well- 
 seasoned in school-teaching, then administering 
 the terrors of the primary department of the 
 town-school system in the antique structure in 
 Dresser's Lane. In those remote days, graded 
 schools were unknown in Fairport ; there was 
 but a step between the mistress's school taught 
 by Miss Maria Jane and the master's school pre 
 sided over (as the modern phrase goes) by Mr. 
 Adoniram Judson Woods. Scholars advanced 
 to the Rule of Three in arithmetic and to the 
 American First Class Book in reading, or no
 
 longer amenable to the discipline of a woman 
 teacher, were promoted to the master's school 
 at once. Across this line Pansy could not go by 
 merit of her arithmetic or her reading. 
 
 " Law sakes alive, Mis' Perkins ! " said Miss 
 Callista, called in council on the question of poor 
 Pansy's disposal in school. "Law sakes alive ! 
 Pansy '11 never stand it for a day with Maria 
 Jane Bates. She'll be sure to raise a rumpus be 
 fore she has been inside the Dresser's Lane school 
 an hour, she's so big and unruly ; and she hates 
 the women folks so. She'll be sure to say or 
 do somethin' to rile up Maria Jane ; and you 
 know how quick-tempered Maria Jane is. 
 There'll be a tussle sure; who'll get the worst 
 of it there's no tellin' ; but it won't be Pansy, 
 I guess." 
 
 Miss Callista grimly smiled as she thought of 
 Pansy Pegg wrestling with the small and lame 
 schoolmistress, whose sharp temper and yet 
 sharper tongue held in check an unruly flock of 
 children who feared the slight little woman 
 more than they would have feared the awful 
 master of the school on the Common. 
 
 "Well, I'm sure I don't know," sighed the 
 good landlady of the Hancock Tavern. " Pansy 
 is a master hand to work, and they do say that 
 she's just as good a fighter as she is a worker ;
 
 Pansy Pegg 
 
 and if she should ever tackle Maria Jane Bates, 
 the Lord have mercy on Maria Jane. But I do 
 rely on Maria Jane's moral 'suasion. She's a 
 lady born and bred. Her mother was a Black, 
 of the down-Bluehill-way Blacks, you know, 
 and her father was own cousin to Squire Ather- 
 ton. I've counted a good deal on Maria Jane's 
 example and softenin' influence on Pansy." 
 
 " Softenin' influence," repeated Miss Cal- 
 lista, sardonically. " Maria Jane Bates is as 
 sour as a vinegar cruet, and she does nothin' 
 from the time school's took in until the time 
 it's let out but scold, scold, scold ; and they do 
 say that when she gets home she keeps up her 
 everlasting clack until her poor old bedridden 
 father layin' there in the ell-part of the house 
 calls to them to shet the door until the squall 
 blows out. Softenin' influence ! Oh, land ! ' ' 
 
 Madam Perkins, though with many misgiv 
 ings in her mind, still argued that with the 
 schoolmistress was a more hopeful outlook for the 
 rampagious and obstreperous Pansy. The harsh 
 discipline of the master's school she dreaded. 
 She was not willing to give up the prospective 
 refinement which she had expected for her dif 
 ficult charge. But with many a sigh and many 
 a prayer that all would turn out for the best, 
 she sent the girl to the school on the Common. 
 16
 
 Pansy Pegg 
 
 The appearance of Pansy Pegg in that insti 
 tution of learning was a keenly enjoyed sensa 
 tion for the scholars. The big girls on the high 
 back seats on their side of the school -house, 
 which faced the entrance, gazed with elegant 
 and superior scorn on the new-comer. The 
 little girls farther down in dignity and on the 
 plane that sloped to the centre of the school 
 floor, giggled behind their books and put out 
 their tongues at Pansy when the master's atten 
 tion was directed at the stranger. The boys 
 on the other side of the room at once recog 
 nizing an enemy, coughed derisively, and for a 
 moment appeared to have entered the early 
 stages of pulmonary consumption. Mr. Adon- 
 iram Judson Woods, a very small man, with 
 very small white hands and mild blue eyes, 
 perched on his high stool behind his desk, 
 sharply rapped for order and cried " Silence ! " 
 then colored red to the roots of his thin and 
 flax-colored hair. The schoolmaster, despite 
 his reputation for severity, was as sensitive as 
 any one of his girl pupils. 
 
 Only Pansy Pegg, who had stirred this wave 
 of feeling, remained unmoved. Guided by a 
 motion of the master's ferule, or ruler, as it was 
 more generally called, she strode across the 
 floor space between the girls' side and the boys' 
 
 17
 
 Pansy Pegg 
 
 side of the school-room and crowded herself, 
 with a feeble attempt at a grin, into the cramped 
 seat and desk assigned to her. Pansy was big 
 ger than the biggest girl in the school. To the 
 smaller scholars she appeared gigantic. And 
 the incongruousness of this great girl squeezed 
 into a narrow seat intended for the youngest of 
 scholars just emancipated from the thraldom 
 of the schoolmistress, was comic, as comic as 
 Pansy Pegg could well be. Some of the bigger 
 boys humorously shuffled their feet on the sanded 
 floor by way of showing that they appreciated 
 the fun of the situation ; and Mosey Ellis, a 
 peachy-cheeked mite of a boy, ironically known 
 as " Goliah," snorted with infantile glee ; where 
 upon he was austerely directed by the master to 
 stay after school at noon, a dictum which Mo 
 sey tearfully accepted as equivalent to an order 
 for ten blows with the ruler on the ampler part 
 of his small person, or five blows with the rat 
 tan on his bare hand, as the dread tyrant might 
 capriciously decide thereafter. 
 
 Poor Pansy was not only the biggest girl, 
 but she was the lowest scholar in the school. 
 She sat in the lowest seat of all, and she was so 
 low down in the classification of the pupils that 
 she was a class by herself. Even the youngest 
 of the little tots around her regarded her with 
 18
 
 ill-concealed wonder as she laboriously floun 
 dered through "bias," "borax," "butler," 
 "bridal," "climax," and so on, in the two- 
 syllabled words in the fifth chapter of the Na 
 tional Spelling Book, in which her first lessons 
 were cast. But Pansy, if she noted any of these 
 things, showed no sign of what she thought of 
 them. The grim old cast-iron stove in the 
 middle of the school-room was not more im 
 passive than her countenance. She conscien 
 tiously labored to read and spell when, in her 
 ' ' freshman class of one, ' ' she stood up at the 
 master's call and went through her lessons. 
 She was constant at school, and although she 
 looked full oft with a quaking heart through the 
 aperture cut in one of the panels of the tavern 
 kitchen-door to give a view of the face of the 
 clock in the dining-room, to note the fateful 
 movements of the hands toward school-time, 
 she never required from the landlady one of 
 those written "excuses " to which other schol 
 ars resorted in frequent weakness of spirit. In 
 her dumb and undemonstrative way she appre 
 ciated Madam Perkins's kindly meant inten 
 tions to humanize her. 
 
 But the spirit of mischief was strong upon 
 her, and no sooner had Pansy become wonted 
 to the strange environment of the school-house 
 
 19
 
 Pansy Pegg 
 
 than this began to assert itself. In her inmost 
 heart she despised the school, the master, the 
 books and lessons, the boys and especially the 
 girls, with a contempt too deep for measure 
 ment. She was skilled in all manner of small 
 and vexing games ; and although nobody ever 
 brought home to her door any serious mischief 
 wrought, it was never for an instant doubted 
 that the knotting of the school bell -rope, the 
 overturning of the bell, the tarring of the mas 
 ter's ruler, the torturing pins in the boys' seats, 
 the water in their ink-stands, and the multifari 
 ous and endless trickeries of the schoolhouse 
 were all of Pansy. She was one of those rare 
 girls who can throw a stone like a boy, and 
 certain was her aim at any target whatever. 
 Thereby she fell. 
 
 Spit-balls, made of paper chewed fine and 
 hard, were lawful ammunition among the boys, 
 but were abhorred by the girls and were inex 
 orably banned by the authorities. To Mr. 
 Adoniram Judson Woods a spit-ball was in 
 cendiary, insubordinate, devilish. A boy de 
 tected in the act of making or firing a spit-ball 
 was simply whaled ; a mere whipping was not 
 sufficiently condign for his offence. If Master 
 Woods could have revived the rope's - end 
 soaked in brine which had been one of the 
 20
 
 Pansy Pegg 
 
 instruments of torture under a previous admin 
 istration, but now prohibited, he would have 
 reserved that punishment for the spit - ball 
 player. Pansy Pegg excelled in the art of 
 making and firing spit-balls. She had a deft 
 way of flipping with thumb and finger one of 
 these projectiles, masticated to the hardness of 
 a bullet, with such accuracy of aim that the 
 mark was never missed. Watching her op 
 portunity when the master's attention was 
 diverted for an instant, she would stealthily 
 raise her right hand with thumb and fore 
 finger charged, snap the ball, which sped like a 
 white flash to some poor wretch's ear or eye, 
 he the while delving in book or atlas, uncon 
 scious of harm. There would be a half-sup 
 pressed yell of pain, or a surprised cry of 
 " Ouch ! " and everybody knew that the victim 
 had been shot with a spit-ball by Pansy Pegg. 
 But Pansy, with her eyes demurely dropped 
 upon her book, as she sat facing the wooden 
 wainscot of her corner, was apparently as un 
 conscious of the fierce inquisition for the as 
 sailant as if she were solitarily wading the cool 
 waters of Oakum Bay or from her eyrie at the 
 head of Jarvis's wharf was watching the spin 
 ners in the sun. 
 
 Or a flight of more juicy and thoroughly 
 21
 
 Pansy Pegg 
 
 masticated spit-balls would bombard the ceil 
 ing over the master's desk until it resembled a 
 stuccoed space irregularly embossed with flat 
 rosettes of plaster. Pansy scorned to spit-ball 
 the girls. Poor things, she thought, they 
 could not fire back ; and they would tell. 
 That was the boys' one virtue : they would not 
 tell. 
 
 But long impunity had made Pansy over 
 bold. One fatal day she was caught by the 
 master in the very act of projecting a wad of 
 chewed paper which hit Joe Murch in the 
 hollow of the ear and made him roar. It was a 
 wonderful shot, for Joe's seat was full twenty 
 feet away from Pansy's, and the bullet had 
 hit the mark with inerrant speed. But this sur 
 prising expertness did not save the marksman 
 from the punishment which the master had long 
 before hung over her head. Girls were not 
 " rulered ' ' in that school. Pansy, however, be 
 ing an exceptional transgressor, had been warned 
 that if she were ever detected in the act of fir 
 ing spit-balls, she would be punished corpore 
 ally ; she must now meet her fate. She sul 
 lenly wondered whether it would be the ruler 
 or the rattan, as the schoolmaster lectured her, 
 there standing big and red, with downcast eyes, 
 before the whole school. 
 22
 
 Pansy Pegg 
 
 Adoniram Judson Woods, with a fluttering 
 heart quivering in his little body, went to the 
 desk and took out his rattan. He felt that the 
 eyes of his flock, especially the eyes of the big 
 girls in the back seats, were upon him, and his 
 dignity must be preserved at any cost. 
 
 "Hold out your hand," he commanded 
 with shrill sternness, for his voice, like his per 
 son, was small. Pansy extended her hand, red 
 with much dish -washing and roughened by 
 mannish toil. For a moment, in her ready obe 
 dience, she seemed to tower far above the lit 
 tle white schoolmaster, she, the biggest and brav 
 est girl in the school. There was a swish and 
 the sharp rattan cut sharply across Pansy's palm. 
 
 One or two of the little girls said " Oh ! " 
 with involuntary sympathy, and Sophronia 
 Crawford, a large girl, for whose favor the 
 master was popularly believed to hanker, burst 
 into audible weeping. Never once flinching, 
 Pansy, flushed with anger and pain, rubbed her 
 hand on her gown and waited. " Hold it out 
 again, ' ' the schoolmaster ordered in his deepest 
 tenor voice. Pansy received the second blow, 
 then swiftly clutching in the air, she seized the 
 tingling rattan, snatched it from the master's 
 surprised grasp and with it dealt him two re 
 sounding thwacks on his thinly thatched head. 
 
 23
 
 Pansy Pegg 
 
 With bated breath, every boy and girl, big 
 and little, looked on as Pansy, having given 
 the master "as good as he sent," handed him 
 back his rattan, awkwardly courtesying as she 
 did so. Master Woods, pale and red by turns 
 no more, but inflamed to a brilliant crimson 
 that glowed through his flaxen hair like the 
 northern lights on the snow, flew at Pansy in 
 a very ecstasy of wrath. He rained blows over 
 her head, her arms, her hands, and her shoulders 
 until nearly every girl in school was loudly cry 
 ing with terror and even the larger boys quaked 
 with fear. 
 
 Then Dave Booden, a mighty fisher lad, of 
 nearly twenty years, arose in his place in the 
 high back seats, and striding noisily down the 
 aisle, said, " See here, mister, this ere thing 
 has gone fur enough," and took the rattan from 
 the master's nerveless hold. 
 
 ' ' Sho ! You just mind your own business, 
 you great big lubber," said Pansy Pegg, 
 angrily. "Leave him to me, can't you?" 
 With that Pansy collared the master with both 
 her hands and in one movement easily threw 
 him over among the seats and desks behind her. 
 While the poor man was gathering himself to 
 gether, Pansy stalked out of the school-room, 
 snatched a fearful joy in one look of farewell as 
 24
 
 Pansy Pegg 
 
 she swiftly swept with her eye the tumultuous 
 brood of scholars, and so disappeared forever 
 out of the purview of Mr. Woods. 
 
 On that day Pansy Pegg was eighteen years 
 old. She was absolved from the bondage of 
 the selectmen, her own mistress. 
 
 Mrs. Doty Perkins was entertaining a few 
 choice friends in the parlor of the inn with 
 roseate reports of Pansy's present condition of 
 beatitude, her future prospects of attaining com 
 plete ladyhood, and her tractable disposition, 
 when the unhappy and enraged subject of her 
 praise stole in at the back door. It was in the 
 middle of the afternoon, and school had just 
 been called in from recess when Pansy's en 
 counter with the master took place. The lull 
 in the household affairs of the tavern gave 
 the girl opportunity to tiptoe her way to the 
 kitchen chamber, where she had made her lair. 
 Sweeping up her scant array of personal be 
 longings, Pansy threw them into a sea-chest 
 which had been bequeathed to her by an old 
 rover of the deep, years before; then she 
 closed and locked it and sat down on its sky- 
 blue lid to think. 
 
 " Lucky I'm a free gal now," she muttered. 
 " Them darned selectmen hev no more power 
 over me. That's great ! Wish I could feel to 
 
 25
 
 Pansy Pegg 
 
 go in and say good-by to Mis' Perkins. But 
 no ; that'd never do. She'll be down on me 
 like a thousand o' brick fer pitchin' into the 
 schoolmaster. Didn't he look scart ! " And 
 Pansy rocked herself with glee, sitting there on 
 the blue sea-chest. 
 
 " I must be stirrin'," she continued, turning 
 an ear to the door and listening to the murmur 
 of voices of the gossips in the foreroom below. 
 ' ' But where ? Land o' Goshen ! Hev I got 
 to go back to Marm Skinner's ? There ain't 
 nobody else' 11 take me in ; and I'm not sartin 
 shore thet she's forgiven me yet for the peltin' I 
 gin her when I quit. Oh, my ! oh, my ! what a 
 mess she wuz in when I left her ! ' ' And Pansy 
 chuckled again as she recalled Marm Skin 
 ner's discomfiture, the while rubbing her knees 
 in mirthfulness. The action drew her atten 
 tion to her right hand, still smarting with pain ; 
 she regarded its palm crossed with two crimson 
 welts, and tears of wrath stood in her eyes. 
 
 " The everlastin' peak-nosed, tow-headed, 
 pernickity little runt ! I'll git even with him 
 yet! See 'f I don't!" Then recollecting 
 that she had given the schoolmaster a great deal 
 more than he sent, considering all things, she 
 laughed softly to herself and turned her thoughts 
 once more to her cloudy future. 
 26
 
 Pansy Pegg 
 
 " Dave Booden, he said Marm Skinner didn't 
 bear me no grudge," and the girl's cheek 
 slightly deepened in color as Dave's name 
 brought before her a vivid picture of the big 
 fisher lad's sudden appearance on the school 
 room field of battle. "Dave knows; but he 
 had no call to put his oar into my tussle with 
 the schoolmaster. I hev a great mind to try 
 old Marm Skinner ag'in as ever I had to eat ! " 
 
 Pansy knitted her brow in profound thought. 
 The susurrus of soft voices below, as the 
 ladies departed by the front door, hastened her 
 resolution. She rose tumultuously, made a 
 farewell grimace at her reflection in the little 
 looking-glass on the wall, and glancing about 
 the chamber as if to be sure that none heard 
 her, said, in a loud, emphatic whisper, "I'll do 
 it, if it takes a leg ! " 
 
 How Pansy made her peace with Marm 
 Skinner, none but themselves ever knew. The 
 elder woman had an eye to her own advantage. 
 Pansy was indeed a master hand to work. The 
 machinery of the boarding-house had never run 
 so smoothly since her departure on the enter 
 prise of being made a lady of; and the months 
 that had intervened had mitigated Mrs. Skinner's 
 rage and had wiped away the blackness from 
 under her eye. She bore the girl no malice, 
 27
 
 Pansy Pegg 
 
 and in view of her undeniable household use 
 fulness, was ready to let bygones be bygones. 
 Sure enough, Dave knew. 
 
 It was Dave who went up to the Hancock 
 Tavern that night with Pansy's old wheel 
 barrow and brought away the sea-chest contain 
 ing her slender kit. It was Dave who told the 
 grieving Madam Perkins that Pansy had taken 
 up her abode again with Marm Skinner ; and 
 it was to Dave that Madam Perkins first de 
 livered her severe remark concerning poor 
 Pansy's fall from grace " Like a sow that was 
 washed returned to her wallowing in the mire " 
 a scriptural illustration whose aptness so 
 tickled the good lady's fancy that she used it 
 for weeks afterward whenever she had occasion 
 to refer to the girl's ignominious flight. 
 
 When the school had been dismissed that 
 day, Sophronia Crawford had dropped into the 
 tavern on her way home, quite by accident, to 
 borrow from Madam Perkins her famed recipe 
 for making rice-coral work, and in an entirely 
 incidental manner had narrated to the aston 
 ished landlady the entertaining and exciting 
 drama played by Pansy Pegg and the school 
 master, with Dave Booden looming in the final 
 tableau. The dame listened with many ohs 
 and ahs, and when the tale was done and she 
 28
 
 had absorbed the last scrap of information from 
 her artless visitor, she hurriedly gathered up 
 her ample skirts and mounted to Pansy's 
 chamber. The clothes-pegs on the wall were 
 bare; every trace of Pansy's occupation of the 
 room was gone, save the chest. 
 
 " Locked and the key gone, as sure as I'm 
 a living sinner," murmured the good lady, sink 
 ing heavily on the sky-blue chest and sobbing 
 hysterically. Sophronia, who had doubtfully 
 followed upstairs, afraid of being intrusive, but 
 anxious to learn all the details of the flight, for 
 retail purposes, stood irresolute in the doorway 
 and wiped a sympathetic tear. " Locked and 
 the key gone ! " repeated Madam Perkins, 
 more in sorrow than in anger. " I should hate 
 dreadfully to have anybody suppose I failed of 
 doing my whole duty by that minx. I'm sure 
 I done my best for her. I'm sure I did. But 
 ' we may give advice, but we can't give con 
 duct,' as Poor Richard says." So saying, the 
 dame rose with decision and wiped Pansy Pegg 
 forever from her books. 
 
 Pansy's adventure with the schoolmaster was 
 the topic of conversation at all the tea-tables of 
 Fairport that evening. Boys so fortunate as to 
 have seen the scrimmage related its particulars 
 to less-favored comrades, who listened with envi- 
 29
 
 Pansy Pegg 
 
 ous greed to the highly ornamented tale. Be 
 fore the nine o'clock curfew rang, the story of 
 the day had passed into the traditions of the 
 town, never more to be forgotten. 
 
 Pansy got even with the schoolmaster later 
 in that very year. In those days when the 
 steamboat, that twice a week brought its pas 
 sengers from Portland, arrived at the village 
 wharf, the greater part of the population of 
 Fairport went down to see who had come and 
 who was going "to the east'ard " that day. 
 This pleasant custom, which has not altogether 
 fallen into disuse, crowded the old and weather- 
 beaten wharf with gentle bustle and afforded 
 the people an occasion for social interchange 
 rather more agreeable than the distribution of 
 the daily mail at the village post-office. 
 
 The T. F. Secor was discharging her passen 
 gers and freight one chilly November Saturday 
 afternoon, the clamor of her escaping steam 
 drowning the buzz of conversation and the 
 music of greetings and farewells of comers and 
 goers. The last warning of " All aboard!" 
 had been shouted at the gang-plank, when there 
 was a sudden rush to one side of the wharf and 
 somebody cried "The schoolmaster's over 
 board!" 
 
 Those who, at imminent peril of their own
 
 Pansy Pegg 
 
 safety, reached the edge of the dock in time 
 saw the white-headed little schoolmaster help 
 lessly floundering in the water. While some 
 bawled loudly for a boat-hook, others for a line, 
 and others for information as to the master's 
 proficiency in the art of swimming, there was a 
 flash of calico, a gleam of red-flannel petticoat 
 in the air, and Pansy Pegg skilfully struck the 
 water close by the drowning man's side. 
 
 " Grab on to my shoulders," said the girl in 
 a low and quiet voice. ' ' Grab on to my shoul 
 ders and don't get scart." 
 
 The schoolmaster, choking with brine and 
 blowing, as David Booden subsequently re 
 marked, " like a porpuss," meekly obeyed and 
 was borne triumphantly ashore by Pansy, who, 
 as soon as she felt the shallow bottom beneath 
 her feet, shook off the master's embrace, waded 
 to the beach, and having wrung her scant 
 skirts of their dripping burden, stalked grimly 
 homeward along the water-front. 
 
 ' ' Three cheers for Nance Pegg ! ' ' cried an 
 enthusiastic sailor-man, who having spent most 
 of his time at sea, had never quite accustomed 
 himself to the girl's new name. The cheers 
 were given lustily, as if the cheerers enjoyed 
 this exciting episode very much indeed. Pansy 
 waved her hand with grave jocosity and dis-
 
 Pansy Pegg 
 
 appeared around the corner of the wharf build 
 ings, her wet skirts clinging to her athletic 
 limbs. 
 
 "The pesky fool," she muttered to herself, 
 " what did he want to go philanderin' about 
 that ere string-piece fer? That's what I'd like 
 to know. I said I'd get even with him. Well, 
 I hev. ' ' And Pansy laughed to herself as she 
 homeward swished her watery way. 
 
 It can hardly be said that Pansy's chivalrous 
 exploit rehabilitated her in the esteem of the 
 community ; but much of the obloquy which 
 she had incurred by reason of her unfeminine 
 assault on the schoolmaster was cancelled by 
 her gallant rescue of that functionary. As for 
 Master Woods, himself, he showed his gratitude 
 by sending to the girl a handsome copy of 
 " Friendship's Offering," a literary annual high 
 ly esteemed by the ladies and gentlemen of that 
 day. On the fly-leaf of the book were written 
 the names of the donor and the donee, with an 
 appropriate quotation in Latin, all of which, 
 inscribed in a fair, round hand, Pansy regarded 
 with sardonic mirth, not unmixed with a feeling 
 of awe. When she had studied the engravings 
 in this work of art, she put it carefully away in 
 the bottom of her sea-chest, wrapped in a red- 
 silk handkerchief, a gift from Dave Booden 
 
 32
 
 Pansy Pegg 
 
 possessions too choice for human nature's daily 
 use. 
 
 David, be it said, was so entranced by 
 Pansy's adventure in the salt sea-wave that he 
 exceedingly regretted that he had already 
 christened his new sail-boat the Whisper ; if it 
 were not too late he would call her the Pansy. 
 But Dave could not now make a change of 
 name without awaking the derision of his com 
 rades and fellow - craftsmen of Oakum Bay. 
 Fairport was just passing from the sleepiness of 
 an old town that has lost its commerce to the 
 more feverish activity and smartness of a popu 
 lar summer -resort. Dave was one of the first 
 to take advantage of the new conditions. The 
 Whisper, a sloop-rigged craft, neat in figure, 
 beautiful in model, and lovingly kept in that 
 "ship-shape and Bristol fashion" which de 
 lights the eye of the mariner and the marine 
 amateur, was the first pleasure-boat built for 
 hire on Penobscot Bay ; and right proud were 
 Dave's friends and neighbors of the graceful 
 craft whose lines, reflected in the tranquil tide 
 of Oakum Bay, roused even the admiration of 
 the undemonstrative Pansy, who intelligently 
 and critically judged her to be "the beauti- 
 fullest thing afloat. ' ' 
 
 Whether it was Pansy's fond appreciation of 
 
 33
 
 Pansy Pegg 
 
 the Whisper or Dave's undisguised admiration 
 of her prowess that kindled the flame, we may 
 not know ; but the community awoke to the 
 fact that " Dave Booden was sweet on Pansy 
 Pegg." Dave was a fine young fellow, good- 
 looking, with ruddy cheeks, curling hair, dark 
 eyes and a manly frame. The young viking, 
 supple, proficient in the rough sports and yet 
 rougher occupations of the shore folk, might 
 well attract the sly admiring glances of the 
 maids of Oakum Bay. Moreover, Dave was 
 known to be forehanded and thrifty. Full of 
 fun and frolic, he was yet a total abstainer at a 
 time and in a community that were not noted 
 for abstemiousness; and although he lent a 
 willing hand when the Green Dragon, an 
 ill-favored resort on Oakum Bay, was mobbed 
 and wrecked, one wild March night, he bore 
 the reputation of a peaceful and law-abiding 
 citizen. And when it was whispered about the 
 port that he was sparking Pansy, the gossips, 
 young and old, lamented that Dave should 
 throw himself away on so tough a customer. 
 
 And Pansy ? Words cannot fitly express the 
 scorn with which she perceived that Dave was 
 really "making up" to her. It had been 
 forced upon her attention in various ways. 
 When David had sent her, wrapped in pink 
 
 34
 
 Pansy Pegg 
 
 tissue-paper, a lace collar smuggled from foreign 
 parts by one of the sailors on board the ship St. 
 Leon, she admired the delicate fabric with 
 burning cheeks, spreading it over her red hands ; 
 then she put it in her bosom all wrapped as 
 given, and when next she met Dave trundling 
 a barrel of tar along the wharf, she threw his 
 token at him and wildly took to flight. Later 
 in the next spring, one mellow day, while Pan 
 sy was setting her room to rights and had opened 
 the window to let in the soft sea-air, a sudden 
 flight of russet apples entering the window in 
 single file called a tell-tale blush to her face ; 
 for she knew that nobody but the persistent 
 Dave could have thus paid court to her. Look 
 ing out and seeing her suitor gazing expectantly 
 from the steps of the cooper's shop on the beach, 
 she briefly remarked, "Well, I'm gormed ! " 
 and closed her lattice with an injurious clatter. 
 Pansy was untalkative where her own affairs 
 were concerned, but, like all such self-contained 
 persons, she kept up a busy communion with 
 herself. " The idee," she remarked to her 
 own reflection in the looking-glass " the 
 idee of Dave Booden's wantin' to keep com 
 pany 'long o' me ! The idee of any feller's 
 wantin' to keep company 'long o' me ! Land 
 sakes alive ! Did you ever ? " 
 
 35
 
 Pansy Pegg 
 
 Pansy was grimly interrogating her face in 
 the glass. 
 
 "No, and nobody never. Look at them 
 cheeks o' mine, all rough and blowsy-frowsy ; 
 pooty good teeth ; ' ' and here Pansy grinned 
 widely, the better to regard the pearls in her 
 mouth. "Eyes? Sho ! Dave says they are 
 the color of the sea off soundin's ; much he 
 knows about a gal's eyes; hair just look at 
 that air hair ! color o' stale mustard, 'n an' all 
 touzled and ez brash ez a bunch o' oakum ; 
 and ez fer hands," and Pansy looked ruefully 
 at her overworked but still well-shaped hands, 
 "red ez a b'iled lobster, rough ez a nutmeg- 
 grater. Them pore gal-critters thet traipse 
 round the town with ribbins and furbelows on 
 'em air what Dave reely wants; only he don't 
 know." Pansy looked down at her faded 
 calico frock, destitute of a furbelow of any sort, 
 and again marvelled at Dave's infatuation. 
 
 Nor did personal contact aid David in his 
 suit. Seated by her side on the gunwale of an 
 ancient jolly-boat stranded on the beach of 
 Oakum Bay, one summer night, David, dis 
 couraged but still hoping against hope, be 
 sought Pansy to reconsider her oft-repeated re 
 fusal. It was a rare opportunity. Not often 
 did any young man get near enough to Pansy 
 
 36
 
 Pansy Pegg 
 
 Pegg to take her hand in his. But although 
 she had snatched away her fingers from his hold, 
 she did not rudely leave him as had been her 
 wont. The influences of the balmy night, the 
 lapping of the tide upon the pebbly beach, the 
 moonlight glorifying the distant shores of 
 Hainey's Point and Hospital Island and giving 
 an unearthly beauty of color to the gaunt piles 
 of the wharves, bronzed with sea-weed all 
 these may have touched Pansy's secretive nat 
 ure where Dave's impassioned words had failed. 
 
 The girl sat still, her bold eyes now down 
 cast and her roving glance noting the small de 
 tails of the sea-wrack at her feet. She could 
 not take in the possibility that she, the tomboy, 
 the jest of the village, the rude comrade of the 
 rough sailor-men at Marm Skinner's boarding- 
 house, should be the object of any man's love ; 
 and as for this good-looking young fellow at 
 her side, the admiration of all the girls of the 
 bay pshaw ! the notion was ridiculous, " puf- 
 fickly rediclus," Pansy had repeatedly said to 
 herself. 
 
 " See here, Pansy," hoarsely whispered the 
 love-lorn suitor, "why can't you say yes? It 
 don't make a bit of differ what you think of 
 yourself. I jest think the world and all of you. 
 You're the nicest gal on the bay, bar none ! 
 
 37
 
 Pansy Pegg 
 
 Bar none ! " he repeated with emphasis de 
 signed to clinch his assertion. " 'N'f you'd 
 agree to get spliced, we'd be ez happy ez two 
 turkle doves, I swan to man we would; 'n' you 
 know it ! " he cried, triumphantly, bending 
 around and gazing into her averted face. " Ez 
 happy ez two turkle doves, 'n' you know it. 
 'N' you know I've got a nice mess of furnitur' 
 left me by my mother when she died. Why, 
 when ma slipped her moorin's last fall, Pansy, 
 and I wuz left alone with them six flag-bottom 
 chairs and things, d'ye know what I said to 
 myself? " 
 
 Pansy dumbly shook her head. 
 
 " Well, I sez to myself ' when Nance sez 
 yes, them things ' hello ! I said ' Nance ; ' 
 'scuse me, Pansy, I didn't go for to do it; I 
 meant to say ' Pansy.' Well, I sez to myself, 
 sez I, ' them things '11 set us up to housekeepin' 
 when she sez yes.' Did, honor bright. Now, 
 if you'll only say yes, jest one little word, y-e-s, 
 it's a go. Is't a go, Pansy ? " 
 
 Poor Dave breathed hard. He belonged to 
 an undemonstrative and little-speaking race. 
 But he had said a good deal ; and so he sighed 
 and waited. 
 
 "No feller can reely think long o' me," 
 murmured Pansy, still with averted face. " No 
 
 38
 
 Pansy Pegg 
 
 feller reely can. He may think he duz, but he 
 reely duzn't." 
 
 " But I do," eagerly replied Dave. "I do, 
 and I reely do. I'm man-grown 'n' I know my 
 own mind. I'm toler'ble well fixed, too; and 
 the woman that anchors alongside o' me aint 
 agoin' to get neglected or overlooked. Then 
 there's them flag-bottom chairs, six on 'em, 
 and every thing handy about the place even 
 down to the pots and kittles in the cluzzit and 
 the firewood in the shed. Forgive me, Nance, 
 I mean Pansy, fer even namin' the names of 
 them air things, but I do just dote on you, now 
 don't I?" 
 
 In answer to this appeal, long and fervid 
 from David Booden, Pansy only bent her head 
 until her thick hair hung like a curtain over her 
 eyes. When she did break silence, she lifted 
 up her face, refined and transfigured in the 
 moonlight, and, looking across the harbor to 
 the misty, spruce-black shores beyond, she 
 said : "I ain't fit to be no man's helpmate. I 
 sh'd hate dretfully tohev the Fairport wimmen- 
 folks pityin' ' pore Dave Booden ' because he'd 
 merried a great lubberly tomboy. I sh'd ever- 
 lastin'ly hate to hev them taller-faced gals of 
 the port p'intin' at me 'n' sayin' ' Nance Pegg's 
 in love ! ' Waugh ! the bare thought of it makes 
 
 39
 
 me sick ! Nance Pegg in love ! Land o' 
 Goshen ! D'ye s'pose I'm a born fool, Dave 
 Booden ? No man-critter shel' ever twit you 
 with merryin' a pore-house gal ; and no gal- 
 critter shel' ever p'int fingers at me fer bein' 
 in love ; not much, Dave." 
 
 Beyond this, Pansy would not go. Not an 
 other word could the ardent David allure her 
 to speak. While he pleaded with simple and 
 heartfelt eloquence, Pansy rose and, holding 
 herself as straight as an arrow, went homeward 
 to Marm Skinner's across the moonlit beach. 
 
 And yet, in the solitude of her bed-chamber, 
 with the door carefully closed, Pansy held up 
 in her hand a tallow-dip and regarded herself 
 in the looking-glass. " He called me Nance," 
 she said, with a pleased laugh, " 'n' he said the 
 color of my eyes wuz the color of the sea off 
 soundin's ! Much he knows." So saying, 
 with a sudden flush of redness, she blew out 
 the light and looked out upon the beach. Dave 
 was still sitting on the old jolly-boat in an at 
 titude of profound dejection. 
 
 " Sorry for Dave," she muttered as she went 
 to sleep, an hour later. 
 
 The mysterious loss of the Whisper is record 
 ed in the annals of Fairport. On the day after 
 Dave Booden's final interview with the obdu- 
 40
 
 Pansy Pegg 
 
 rate Pansy, he cast off his moorings and slipped 
 down the harbor, solitary and alone. What 
 bitter thoughts, what unavailing regrets bore 
 him company, none can tell. But for these, 
 Dave was uncompanioned. The sky was blue 
 and clear over the old port, but a southwest 
 breeze was stirring and a summer fog was drift 
 ing up Penobscot Bay. The eastern end of 
 Long Island had been blotted from sight when 
 the Whisper fetched her first long tack over 
 toward Nautilus Island. Dave's bird-like craft 
 was standing handsomely out on her westward 
 reach, well up in the wind's eye, when the fog 
 shut down at Otter Rock and the white sails 
 of the Whisper disappeared in the mist, never 
 more to be seen on the waters of Fairport Har 
 bor and Oakum Bay. 
 
 What became of the boat, whether she was 
 run down in the fog by some bigger craft, or 
 whether she struck on some one of the sunken 
 ledges of the bay, or whether Dave sullenly 
 sailed away and hid himself forever in exile, no 
 man knows. He was too good a sailor, too 
 careful a navigator, to be brought to grief while 
 he had his wits about him. Nevertheless, he 
 went out of this truthful narrative as completely 
 as if the sea had opened and engulfed him when 
 the fog shut down at Otter Rock.
 
 Pansy Pegg 
 
 For days and even weeks afterward the 
 'longshore folk took little thought of Dave's 
 unexplained absence. It was no unusual thing 
 for him to spend much time cruising among 
 the islands of the bay. He had patrons in 
 Belfast and in Camden who were glad to hire 
 his boat and his services fora trip up the Penob- 
 scot River or to the remoter regions of Somes's 
 Sound and Bar Harbor. But when the weeks 
 lengthened into months and the Whisper was 
 not reported, and the humble cottage by the 
 beach, where its owner had " kept batch " ever 
 since his mother died, remained fast locked, it 
 began to be vaguely hinted about the wharves 
 that the Whisper, the pride of the port, had 
 somehow been lost. These murmurs reached 
 the homes of Fairport, and many whose estate 
 was far higher than that of the Boodens, sin 
 cerely sorrowed over the darkly hinted fate of 
 the missing man. He was respected, by some 
 admired ; and the loss of the handsome young 
 skipper and his favorite boat was in some sense 
 a public calamity. 
 
 " Willin' feller, Dave Booden wuz," said 
 old Cap'n Eliphalet Grindle, sitting meditative 
 ly on the edge of Adams's wharf, nominally 
 fishing for tomcods, but really "just lazin' the 
 time away," as his bustling spouse often de- 
 42
 
 Pansy Pegg 
 
 clared. " Wuz ! " he repeated, cautiously look 
 ing around to see if any of Dave's intimates 
 were within earshot. " I might hev said 'is,' 
 mightn't I, Mister Woods?" 
 
 The school-master, whose Saturday afternoons 
 were chiefly spent, when the weather was pleas- 
 ent and the tide served, in hopeless and unprof 
 itable angling from the wharf, breathed a sigh 
 for his ancient and long-forgiven enemy, the 
 big boy of the town school. 
 
 "It is hard to speak of our friends in the 
 past tense, Captain," he answered, sadly; "but 
 I greatly fear that the probabilities are all against 
 the safe return of David. He was a likely 
 young man. He left no relatives ? " 
 
 "Nary one, 'cept that jade, Nance Pegg; 
 'n' she's no relation, onless a gal that's been 
 courted stiddy goin' on a year or more is likely 
 to be called kin to the feller that she's sacked. 
 No, no relations 's fur ez I know on. 'S moth 
 er died las' fall. 'S father 's lost on the bark Val 
 halla; she went onto the Sow-'n-Pigs, Boston 
 harbor, 'n a gale o' wind lemme see, 'n 1832, 
 the cholery year. Haul in yer line, school 
 master ! Ye've got a bite ! Sculpin, I guess." 
 
 " Smart's a whip, he wuz," continued Cap'n 
 Grindle, as the master, having disentangled a 
 wicked-looking sculpin from his hook, baited 
 
 43
 
 Pansy Pegg 
 
 and resumed his seat on the string-piece by the 
 Cap'n. "Smart's a whip, 'n' the only thing 
 I ever hed ag'in him wuz his gittin' stuck on 
 that air Nance Pegg. Land o' love ! how any 
 right-sensed man could git mashed on that big 
 gawk of a tomboy everlastin'ly fetches me; " 
 and here the worthy Cap'n deftly and steadily 
 pulled up his line with a silver-bellied tomcod 
 wriggling on his hook. He tenderly cared for 
 his prey and added : ' ' They do say the gal 
 takes it ruther hard. ' ' He looked at the school 
 master with an interrogation point in his kindly 
 gray eyes. 
 
 "I do not know as to that," replied Mr. 
 Woods, " but sometimes when I take my walks 
 down on Dyce's Head, I observe Pansy sitting 
 on the rocks and looking with peculiar wistful - 
 ness out to sea. Perhaps she hopes that David 
 will come sailing back, some day." 
 
 "He! he! he!" cackled the Cap'n. "She's 
 longin' fer him to come back arter she g'in him 
 the sack, is she ? Wai, all I know is thet my 
 old woman, she sez thet Nance left Marm Skin 
 ner's and took a place down to the lighthouse, 
 so's to be there on the Head where she could 
 watch for the Whisper when she comes a-sailin' 
 in. Wai, the Whisper wont never come a-sail 
 in' in ; ye can jest bet yer boots on that. ' ' 
 
 44
 
 Pansy Pegg 
 
 "Is it true that Pansy has softened her ways 
 and put on some of the graces of womanhood 
 since the Whisper sailed off on her protracted 
 cruise ? ' ' asked the school-master, hesitatingly. 
 
 " Wai, I don't know about the softenin' part, 
 but my old woman, she's a master-hand at ob- 
 sarvin' other wimmen folks, Mis' Grindle is," 
 said the Cap'n with a glow of honest pride, 
 " she says as how the gal's reely quite prinked 
 up. Parts her hair in the middle, 'n' she's got 
 real nice hair now that she's tendin' to it ; 
 'n my old woman, she sez she's seen Nance 
 wearin' a bow o' red ribbin on her buzzum of n'; 
 'n' they do tell she's took to wearin' a bunnit, 
 regular. Gosh all hemlock ! school-master ! 
 Don't you see you've got another bite? " 
 
 When Cap'n Grindle went home to his sup 
 per, that afternoon, he said to Mrs. Grindle, 
 holding up his string of fish, " Nice mess o' 
 tomcods, Calline, aint it? That ere gawk of a 
 school-master sot 'longside o' me on the wharf, 
 gammin' 'bout Dave Booden 'n Nance Pegg, 
 and got so consarned obligatious 'bout it that 
 he never hauled in ary fish 'cept one sculpin. 
 Queer dick, he is." 
 
 Mrs. Grindle regarded her husband with as 
 much asperity as her broad and gentle face was 
 capable of and said : "I sh'd think you two 
 
 45
 
 men could find som'thin' better to do than set 
 on the edge of the wharf gossipin' about gals 
 and fellers. Ez for that Pegg gal, she's fell 
 away awful sence Dave wuz lost. Leastways, I 
 s'pose he's lost. She's a mere shadder to what 
 she wuz. But she's a trollop, that's what she 
 is a trollop ! Ef it hadn't b'en for her, Dave 
 Booden, who wuz a likely young feller ez ever 
 drawed the breath of life, would be 'live and 
 well to-day. Now hurry up, Cap'n, and clean 
 them fish 'fore supper. A trollop, that's what 
 she is, pore thing ! " 
 
 All this happened and was said years and 
 years ago. The loss of the Whisper and her 
 lonely skipper is remembered only by the elder 
 ly folk of Fairport. But the summer visitor, 
 sauntering among the rocks of rocky pastures of 
 "Perkins's Back" and Dyce's Head, some 
 times notes the gaunt, bent form of an old wom 
 an who, making her way painfully to a granite 
 bowlder that overhangs the bluffs, turns her 
 face, wrinkled with age and whitened and re 
 fined by sorrow, seaward from where she sits. 
 That is Pansy Pegg, with her eyes fixed on the 
 shining waves, her withered hand at her ear, as 
 if she expected to hear some whisper from the 
 sea. 
 
 46
 
 The Apparition of Jo Murch
 
 THE APPARITION OF JO 
 MURCH 
 
 IT is no exaggeration to say that Jotham 
 Murch was the worst boy in Old Man Pot 
 ter's school. It was a town school, and the 
 school committee of the selectmen were often at 
 their wits' end to provide ways and means for 
 the government of the unruly sons of fishermen 
 boys who had no paternal discipline at home, 
 as their fathers were usually at sea nine months 
 in the year. There was Bob Weeks, for example, 
 whose mother was such a termagant that her hus 
 band used to say that fishing on the Grand 
 Banks was " comfortabler than stayin' to home." 
 But even Mrs. Weeks could not wholly beat the 
 spirit of mischief out of Bob, who put red pep 
 per on the school stove, nailed down the lid of 
 the master's desk, interposed with his fists when 
 ever Old Man Potter attempted to ferule a par 
 ticularly small boy, smoked a tobacco pipe under 
 his own desk, and did many other perverse and 
 mischievous things. Then there was Bill Bridges, 
 
 49
 
 The Apparition of Jo Murch 
 
 who set fire to the school-house ; and Sam Snow 
 man, who stole the master's thermometer, and 
 whose mother restored it with the tearful remark 
 that she didn't see " what possessed Sam to run 
 off with that air pesky moniment." It is not 
 necessary that I should tell of Joe Triford, who 
 made squirt-guns of the hollow metal pen-handles 
 Avhich were in vogue in those days, and who was 
 a mysterious squirter of ink for four days before 
 he was found out and handsomely " rope's-end- 
 ed " on his bare legs by the enraged master. 
 Most of these boys, and others like them, had 
 been to sea at least one voyage, or had had one 
 season's experience in fishing off St. George's, 
 Bay Chaleur, or on the Grand Banks. It is 
 said that the merchant marine and the United 
 States Navy draw, or used to draw, their best 
 men from the ranks of these hardy New England 
 fishermen. Perhaps so. But in my youth, at 
 least, no more rough, quarrelsome, and thor 
 oughly heathenish young fellows ever infested 
 a Christian community than were the majority 
 of the fishermen's sons around Penobscot Bay. 
 
 Still, I will say that Jotham Murch was the 
 worst boy in the master's school of Fairport. 
 He was a fighter. He " sarced " the big boys 
 and then kept out of their way ; but the little 
 boys and he were constantly fighting. He and
 
 The Apparition of Jo Murch 
 
 I were of the same age and never came to blows 
 but once, and that was when I had interfered in 
 behalf of his younger brother Abe, whom Jotham 
 was pounding to a jelly. Even at this remote 
 period, I record with mortification the fact that 
 I got one of the worst " lickings " that a boy 
 ever had ; but I am also proud to say that Jo 
 emerged from the conflict in a state of ragged- 
 ness and ruin that was startling to see. The 
 remnants of his shirt, I remember, consisted of 
 a stout unbleached cotton binding buttoned 
 about his neck, and one sleeve, which his for 
 giving brother had picked up and saved for him. 
 But not for this, not even for being obliged to 
 shake hands with him before the whole school, 
 do I bear Jo Murch any malice. 
 
 Before he was fifteen he stole seven shillings 
 and sixpence, New England currency, from his 
 grandmother's light-stand-drawer a circum 
 stance which gave him the nickname of " Seven- 
 and-six." During that period of adolescence, 
 too, he fixed a big cod-fish hook on the back 
 stay of a ship lying at the wharf, in such a man 
 ner that when a poor little chap, whom he had 
 seduced into climbing into the main-top, at 
 tempted to escape by the usual way, he was 
 cruelly caught by the leg. He blocked up the 
 mouth of Fred Tilden's rabbit-warren and then
 
 The Apparition of Jo Murcb 
 
 deliberately stoned to death four of his white 
 rabbits. As for tying kettles to dogs' tails, 
 bringing cats surreptitiously into the school 
 room, loading sticks of wood for the school-house 
 stove with powder, " telling on " scholars who 
 played truant, mutilating the books of his ene 
 mies, and borrowing books which he never re 
 turned Jo stood at the head of delinquents 
 charged with such offences. He organized and 
 commanded expeditions to plunder the scanty 
 apple-orchards of Fairport ; and once he and 
 three other kindred spirits subsisted four days 
 and three nights in the depths of the spruce 
 thickets of the Blockhouse pasture on green corn, 
 turnips, and chickens ravished from the Light 
 house farm. It should be added that as a liar 
 he was fertile, picturesque, and unconscionable. 
 At the age of seventeen Jo disappeared from 
 Fairport, having gone to sea with his father, who 
 commanded a square-rigged brig, famous in 
 those coasts for flying at her fore a burgee with 
 "George W. Murch " on it in large letters. 
 Jotham shipped as cabin-boy, was regularly 
 " rope's-ended " by his father, and, smarting 
 with pain and panting for larger liberty, he de 
 serted the square-rigged brig in the port of Suri 
 nam. From Havana, about six months after 
 ward, he wrote to his mother for money to pay 
 
 52
 
 The Apparition of Jo Murch 
 
 his passage home. That indulgent parent sent 
 the required sum, but Jo did not return to Fair- 
 port. Years went by, and only at long inter 
 vals were there any tidings of him. At last he 
 was definitely heard of as being engaged with a 
 thrifty ex-citizen of Fairport, a timber dealer, in 
 Pascagoula, Fla. It was understood that Jo had 
 sowed his wild oats and was trying to save money 
 for his mother ; his father, in the meantime, 
 had been lost in a gale which wrecked the 
 square-rigged brig off the coast of Africa. Jo 
 gradually worked his way north, the climate of 
 Florida not agreeing with him ; and when he 
 was about twenty-two years old he established 
 himself in the produce and commission business 
 in Boston. His career there was brief. After 
 a few weeks, he absconded with the proceeds of 
 his sales, leaving consignors and shippers noth 
 ing but an empty store and a small lot of un- 
 paid-for counting-room furniture by way of in 
 demnity. Meantime, I had left Fairport, and 
 only when I returned on my summer vacations 
 did vague rumors of Jotham's changeful adven 
 tures reach me. 
 
 Years slipped away, and now and then, like a 
 reminiscence out of a very distant past, would 
 come a report of Jo Murch's being seen or heard 
 from in some foreign land. For example, my 
 
 53
 
 The Apparition of Jo Murch 
 
 big brother Jack, who had then just risen to the 
 command of afine ship, was lying at Port Mahon, 
 island of Malta, when he heard an altercation at 
 the door of his cabin. Stepping out to see what 
 was the matter, he found a very ragged and dirty 
 man trying to convince the steward that he 
 knew the captain. 
 
 " There, now," cried he, as my brother ap 
 peared, ''that's Captain Rivers. Don't you 
 know me, Jack ? ' ' 
 
 It was Jo Murch. The steward desisted from 
 his purpose of putting the man over the side of 
 the ship, and gave him up to the captain with 
 obvious surprise. 
 
 Jo was forlorn and miserable. But his usual 
 good spirits and impudence had not deserted 
 him. He was at Port Mahon, he said, waiting 
 the arrival of a rich cargo of goods from some 
 where. The winds had been contrary ; the 
 ship was nineteen days overdue ; his expenses 
 were heavy ; he had seen Jack's ship reported, 
 and would Jack favor him with a loan of five 
 dollars until the Antigone came in ? She must 
 be in soon with this wind, and her cargo was 
 insured for three hundred thousand dollars. 
 
 "I'll give you the five dollars," said plain- 
 spoken Jack, " for you know you don't intend 
 to pay me, and you know you never will. But 
 
 54
 
 The Apparition of Jo Murcb 
 
 I don't mind giving you five dollars, just for 
 the sake of old times. I would do that for 
 any Fairport boy that I went to school with, if 
 I found him in foreign parts and low down as 
 you seem to be. ' ' 
 
 Jo accepted the rebuke with great cheerful 
 ness, and protested that he would pay ' ' when 
 his ship came in." Of course that mythical 
 craft never sailed into Port Mahon, nor did Jack 
 lay his eyes on Jotham while he stayed there. 
 Jack was fated to meet Jo once more, many 
 years afterward, during the late civil war. His 
 ship was then lying at Liverpool, embargoed 
 on account of being partly owned by persons 
 living in New Orleans and presumably rebel, as 
 that city was then closed against Union arms 
 and authorities. Jack chafed under this long 
 and unprofitable confinement ; but, though his 
 ship was supposed to be rebel property, he was a 
 furious Union man. He would defend the ship 
 with his life, but he abhorred a rebel. 
 
 One day, after a year of idle waiting had 
 passed, who should come on board but Jo 
 Murch. During this long interval his adven 
 tures had been various. He had commanded a 
 Russian transport during the Crimean war. He 
 had engaged in trading along the coast of South 
 America. He had done a large business in 
 
 55
 
 The Apparition of Jo Murcb 
 
 smuggling cigars from Cuba to Key West, and 
 his present business in Liverpool was to buy a 
 cargo of goods to run the blockade of Savan 
 nah. My brother, to use the common phrase, 
 ' ' opened on him ' ' for being a rebel and a rene 
 gade a Northern man honestly brought up in 
 Fairport, and now upholding secession and run 
 ning the blockade ! It was disgraceful, so Jack 
 said. 
 
 Jotham was not the man he was at Port 
 Mahon, seven years before. He was now flush of 
 money, well dressed, and prosperous. He not 
 only defended himself, but upbraided Jack in the 
 most abusive terms. The South was right, and 
 it was just such chicken-hearted chaps as Jack 
 (who was tied up with a rebel ownership) who 
 were responsible for the injustice done to South 
 ern people. Jack could not answer this some 
 what inconsistent tirade, but he would hear no 
 treason on his ship. If Jo did not " cork up " 
 he would fire him out into the dock. Jo did 
 not " cork up." On the contrary, he talked on 
 excitedly about the wrongs of the South, until 
 Jack, who is a tremendous fellow, seized Jo by 
 the collar and the ampler part of his trousers 
 and deliberately threw him overboard. There 
 was a great disturbance, of course ; but Jo es 
 caped with a ducking, while my brother was 
 
 56
 
 The Apparition of Jo Murcb 
 
 hauled up before a magistrate and fined ten 
 pounds, which he paid with. satisfaction, grimly 
 remarking that it was worth the money. 
 
 Nothing more direct than this had reached 
 me from Jotham. He was reputed to have 
 made several millions by his operations during 
 the war, but when peace returned he did not 
 come home with it to enjoy his gains. He 
 settled in Havana, it was said, and married the 
 widow of a sugar-planter. Perhaps it was the 
 necessity of furnishing labor for his sugar plan 
 tations which drove him into his next venture ; 
 for, not long after this, we heard of his being in 
 the slave-trade off the coast of Africa. This 
 was too horrible for belief, and I could not, 
 somehow, connect even the rapscallion who had 
 been my seat-mate in the Fairport school so 
 long ago, with the slave-trade. But the story 
 came very straight, and, as if to make it certain, 
 there was a later report that Jotham Murch, 
 formerly of Fairport, Me., was hanged in Ports 
 mouth harbor, England, for piracy, otherwise 
 slave-trading. That, at last, seemed to finish 
 Jo Murch. 
 
 In the hot summer of 1872, 1 went one night 
 to my work in the office of the Morning Clarion. 
 Mounting to the fifth story of the ricketty, stived 
 building, I stood in the narrow doorway of the 
 
 57
 
 The Apparition of Jo Murcb 
 
 editorial rooms, dripping with perspiration and 
 trying to recover my spent breath. From the 
 dark nook where I stood I saw my associates 
 and subordinates grouped about a strange-look 
 ing old man. He sat at my desk, with his feet 
 which were covered with shabby shoes rest 
 ing on my writing-pad. His head was quite 
 bald, save for a few wisps of hay-colored hair 
 which fringed its lower edge, like a forgotten 
 aftermath on the margin of a meadow. His 
 nose was flat, and destitute of a bridge. He 
 wore shiny black trousers and a colorless linen 
 duster. 
 
 About this ancient mariner for such he 
 seemed to be the young gentlemen of the office 
 hung with manifest delight. The stranger was 
 telling them a story. To my amazement, it was 
 a tolerably faithful narrative of a disreputable ad 
 venture in which I had been engaged during my 
 school-days, say thirty years before. Somewhat 
 nettled, as well as bewildered, I emerged from 
 the shadow and advanced into the gas-lighted 
 room. One of the listeners said to the ancient 
 mariner, " This is Mr. Rivers," whereupon they 
 all scattered to their several desks. The ancient 
 mariner took down his feet, and, with a gesture 
 of surprise, said : 
 
 " Why, Bill ! How are you ? ' ' 
 
 58
 
 The Apparition of Jo Murcb 
 
 He made as if he would seize me by the 
 hand, but I coldly drew back with : 
 
 " I can't say that I know you." 
 
 The forlorn-looking old man, whom I now 
 saw was also nearly toothless, cried, with glee : 
 
 " I thought you wouldn't know me ! Why, 
 I'm Jo Murch ! " 
 
 If the spirit of my grandfather, whose grave 
 stone in Fairport burying -ground was mossy 
 when I was a school-boy, had risen through 
 the floor of the Morning Clarion office, I could 
 not have been more astonished. 
 
 In my surprise, I blurted out my instant 
 thought "Jo Murch? Why, I thought you 
 were hanged in Portsmouth harbor ! ' ' 
 
 "Oh, no," said Jo, blithely, "that was 
 another feller. Just like you newspapers 
 always getting things wrong end first ! " 
 
 "Well, Jo, I'm glad to see you anyway." 
 And I trust that the recording angel dropped a 
 tear of pity for poor Jo, as he wrote down this 
 charitable falsehood. I was not glad to see 
 this strange apparition. Jo Murch was a hand 
 some, bright-eyed young fellow, a favorite with 
 the girls, and a lady-killer when he came to 
 man's estate. This aged person did not have 
 Jo Murch's Roman nose, nor his fresh com 
 plexion, nor his upright carriage and elastic 
 
 59
 
 The Apparition of Jo Murcb 
 
 tread. He was bald, bent, seamed, brown, 
 and broken-nosed. 
 
 " I never should have known you, Jo." 
 
 ' ' No, dare say not ; but you are as handsome 
 and rosy and well fed as ever eh, you fat ras 
 cal ! " And he punched me in the stomach 
 with a skinny finger. ' ' I well / have had 
 adventures since you licked me so like tarna 
 tion at Old Man Potter's school." 
 
 The associate editors giggled at their desks, 
 and the foreign news editor interrupted us to 
 ask if he should set Gladstone's speech in min 
 ion, leaded, with a pica head, or run it up solid, 
 with a brevier italic. 
 
 Jo's stormy and checkered career as a block 
 ade-runner, slave-trader, smuggler, and foreign 
 mercenary, flitted mistily through my mind, as 
 I directed Gladstone to be set in minion, lead 
 ed, with a brevier italic head and minion cap 
 under. 
 
 Jo cocked his head on one side, with a par 
 rot-like leer, and remarked : 
 
 ' ' Old man Potter would be mightily tickled 
 to see you bossing Gladstone's speech. Don't 
 you remember that time the old man tore your 
 satinet trousers off of you, trying to get at a 
 good place to wallop you with his ferule? " 
 
 " Do ye moind if I set it in nonpareel ? I 
 60
 
 The Apparition of Jo Murch 
 
 fancy it would be shuparior," interrupted the 
 foreign editor. And there was another slight 
 snicker of laughter around the office. 
 
 " You see, Jo, I'm pretty busy at this time 
 of night. Come up to my lodgings to-mor 
 row, and we will talk over old times." And 
 Jotham went away with a promise to see me 
 in Van Tassell Place, next day, between two 
 and four in the afternoon. 
 
 "That gentleman seems to have been a great 
 traveller," remarked one of my associates. 
 
 " Yes, and if you have any copy ready for 
 to-morrow morning's paper, suppose you rush 
 it upstairs. ' ' 
 
 And so the weary burden of the night was 
 taken up again, and Jo Murch faded out of 
 mind. 
 
 Next day, as the yellow heat rained into the 
 cracks of my closed blinds, in Van Tassel 
 Place, the housemaid knocked on the door, 
 opened it, and said : "A quare-lookin' gintle- 
 man is axin for yez at the fut of the shtair. ' ' 
 
 With that, Jo's wrinkled and yellow face ap 
 peared over her shoulder, and he said : 
 
 "And it's meself, ye purty dear, that's just 
 forninst yez." 
 
 The indignant girl darted a flash of scorn at 
 the intruder, let him into the room, shut the 
 61
 
 The Apparition of Jo Murcb 
 
 door with a bang of disapproval, and clattered 
 out of sight, but not until Jo had put his head 
 over the banisters and cried : 
 
 " Fetch us up a pitcher of good cold ice- 
 water, there's a nice girl. It's hotter than blue 
 blazes to-day." 
 
 Jo looked even more seedy and worn in the 
 gay beams of garish day than in the gaslight. 
 As I regarded him attentively, it was impos 
 sible to discover a trace of the boy who had 
 sat in the same seat with me in Sunday-school 
 and at Old Man Potter's. He was curiously 
 bent in the back, his nose was abnormal in 
 shape, and even his eye had a queer squint 
 which was not so before. But there was no 
 mistaking the air of easy impudence with which 
 he tossed on the table a small wooden box 
 which he carried, stripped off his linen duster, 
 kicked his broken shoes into a corner, and 
 threw himself on the sofa with the manifest in 
 tention of taking things easy. 
 
 " Hand me that fan, will you, Bill ? Thanks ; 
 this is the hottest of the hot, I guess ; hotter 
 than old Mary Ann Hot. I have not seen 
 such a day outside of Timbuctoo. I was there 
 in '51. Ever in Timbuctoo? No? Well, 
 it's hotter than New York." 
 
 " How long have you been in New York, 
 62
 
 The Apparition of Jo Murcb 
 
 and where were you from when you came here, 
 Jo?" 
 
 " Oh, don't ask me now. It's too long a 
 yarn. Wait till I get cool. By the way, have 
 you any objection to my peeling off my pants ? 
 I could cool quicker in my drawers. Blame 
 ^ these black cassimeres, anyhow. I have to 
 wear 'em this hot weather by the advice of my 
 doctor. Legs, you know " and here Jo strug 
 gled with his trousers " legs must be protected 
 at all hazards. I had a fever when I was in 
 Leghorn. By the way, have you got a good 
 cigar? I've got some first-chop down to my 
 hotel; smuggled 'em myself, and I ought to 
 know." 
 
 Jo ensconced himself again on the sofa, half 
 undressed, with a fragrant cigar in his lips, 
 stretched at full length, and with his indescrib 
 able legs, which bore signs of a Leghorn fever, 
 comfortably crossed. 
 
 " Great thing, Bill, this linen spread on a 
 sofa in summer, and such summers as they do 
 have in New York ! By the way, how do you 
 suppose I found out where you were ? ' ' 
 
 " I give it up," somewhat ruefully. 
 
 "Well, I saw a story of yours in the Pick- 
 nickers 1 Magazine. It had several Fairport 
 names in it, likewise some reminiscences of 
 
 63
 
 The Apparition of Jo Murcb 
 
 Fairport school-days. Oh, don't you remem 
 ber that time Alf Martin and I drove the skunk 
 into Miss Dawson's school ? My ! how those 
 girls did scud ! I can see Almira Dawson now, 
 hitching up her skirts and making for the tall 
 grass. Let me see, where was I ? Mozam 
 bique ? Oh, no ! I was telling how I found 
 you. Well, I went to the office of the Pick- 
 nickers 1 ; stiff lot they are. They wouldn't 
 tell where I could find you. Told 'em I was 
 an old friend and all that sort of thing, you 
 know; no go; could only find that you lived 
 in New York. So I went to the ' City Direc 
 tory,' looked among the R's ; not many Riv- 
 erses ; found you were in the Clarion office, 
 and here I am just as easy." 
 
 Jo at once made himself very much at home ; 
 helped himself to cigars from a box on the 
 table ; inquired if I had anything to drink ; 
 and, when he had stretched himself again on 
 the sofa, with a fresh cigar in his lips and a big 
 glass of ginger-ale and ice within easy reach, 
 he sighed comfortably, and said that this was 
 " really very tidy." 
 
 " Let me see where was I ? " murmured Jo, 
 between puffs of his cigar. " Oh, I told you 
 I would tell you where I had been. Dear, 
 dear me, to think that you and I should meet 
 
 64
 
 The Apparition of Jo Murch 
 
 again after so many years ! Say, Bill, don't 
 you remember that time when we had that fight 
 down to the Back Cove, how I closed up one 
 of your eyes with blue clay when we were mak 
 ing marbles on the shore ? Golly ! what a wal 
 loping you gave me ! ' ' 
 
 "Beg pardon, Jo, 'twas I who got the wal 
 loping; but I do remember that I tore your 
 clothes all off of you. ' ' 
 
 " So you did so you did, Bill; and I re 
 member that when I went home that afternoon 
 I had to stand with my back against the fence 
 when I met some of the girls, I was tore so 
 awfully behind." And Joe kicked up his 
 crooked legs and laughed so uproariously that 
 the street-boys passing by caught the strain, 
 and ran away ha-haing with a mocking chorus. 
 Jo heard it, and suddenly growing grave, said : 
 
 " How much worse the boys are now than 
 they used to be when we were boys ! Impu 
 dent, idle, thievish vagabonds ! I suppose the 
 boys of the present generation are the worst 
 that ever were. By the way," he continued, 
 with animation, " were you a Union man dur 
 ing the war? " 
 
 " Certainly I was." 
 
 " So I supposed. Your brother Jack was a 
 hell-roaring Yank. Why, I met him in Liver- 
 
 65
 
 The Apparition of Jo Murch 
 
 pool, where he was tied up with a part -rebel 
 ownership, and when we ventured on a little 
 discussion about the war, he threatened to 
 chuck me overboard if I didn't cork up." 
 
 " He says he did throw you overboard," 
 said I. 
 
 " He says so ! " screamed Jo, sitting up on 
 end. "He says so ! Well, I never! Well, 
 perhaps he did ; I really don' t recollect, it was 
 so long ago." And Jo calmly settled back 
 again. 
 
 "What were you doing in Liverpool during 
 the war ? " I inquired. 
 
 " Oh, yes, I must tell you about that. You 
 see, I was United States Consul at Jacmel, West 
 Indies, when the war broke out. My sympa 
 thies were with the South, and so I went into 
 blockade-running. My position gave me lots of 
 advantage over the other fellows, and we did 
 a great business. Our vessels used to run into 
 Jacmel with a full cargo, and wait for a good 
 time when there was no moon and we knew 
 where the Yankee cruisers were. Then we 
 would run into Charleston, Savannah, Mobile, 
 or wherever we could do best." 
 
 " You must have had a big capital to operate 
 with, Jo." 
 
 " I should say so. Why, our books used to 
 66
 
 The Apparition of Jo Murcb 
 
 show a business of five million a year. And 
 then the fun ! Why, hunting bears on Great 
 Mountain was nothing to it. Don't you re 
 member how you and I and Dave Patchin got 
 chased by a bear, and we had nothing but a 
 single-barrelled gun between us ? But in block 
 ade-running you are chased by a man-of-war 
 that may blow you to kingdom come with one 
 shot, whereas a bear give me a light, will 
 you ? Thanks. Well, as I was saying, being 
 United States Consul, I got the hang of the 
 thing, and was just coining money. My share 
 was five hundred thousand dollars, all in good 
 gold coin. Then your confounded mean old 
 government got after me. One day a sharp- 
 faced Yankee from Rhode Island came into my 
 office, just as I was lying back after settling up 
 my profits of the last cruise. He said that he 
 had been appointed to take my place. Re 
 ports of ' irregularities ' had reached the 
 State Department, he said. ' Irregularities ! ' 
 Wasn't that good? I showed fight, of course, 
 but he showed his papers and I had to surrender. 
 And, come to think of it, it wasn't just the 
 thing, you see, for a United States Consul to be 
 engaged in running the blockade, was it? " 
 
 " I should say that it wasn't." 
 
 ' ' No, of course not ; but then you see I was 
 
 6?
 
 The Apparition of Jo Murch 
 
 devoted to the South, and the end justifies the 
 means, you know, and all that sort of thing." 
 
 " Especially when you are making half a 
 million a year," I interposed. 
 
 " Yes," said Jo, with a sigh, " but that all 
 went." 
 
 " All went ? Did you lose it, after all ? " 
 
 "Every stiver of it. After I was cheated 
 out of my consulship I went on one or two 
 voyages myself. It was on my first to 
 Liverpool for a cargo that I fell in with Jack, 
 when he threw me I mean threatened to 
 throw me into the dock. On my second 
 voyage into Charleston I was chased by the 
 Osceola and the Kittywink, two United States 
 gun-boats. We had an assorted cargo, worth 
 four hundred thousand dollars. Ours was a 
 side-wheel steamer, eighteen knots an hour, 
 painted lead color, paddle-wheels twenty-five 
 feet in diameter ; greased lightning was nothing 
 to her for speed. I was on the bridge when 
 the Osceola hove in sight, just coming around 
 a black point of rocks on the port bow. I 
 laughed, for I knew the Osceola an old tub, 
 built in East Boston ; never made more than 
 ten knots an hour. So we streaked it ahead, 
 the Yankee just about three points on our port 
 bow, and plunging ahead as if she would cut us 
 68
 
 The Apparition of Jo Murcb 
 
 off. We left her just as easy as lying, when, 
 all of a sudden, as she had fired a couple of 
 shots, just to show how mad her people were, 
 out runs, from the darkness, another gun-boat ! 
 It was the Kittywink. Where she came from, 
 the Lord only knows. I had Seth Grindle 
 with me. You remember Seth ? The same 
 fellow that used to steal apples and hide them 
 in the fire-buckets in the school-house when we 
 went to Cynthy Ann Rogers's school. Well 
 says I to Seth, ' Seth, if that's the Kittywink, 
 we are done for.' But Seth was clear grit. 
 Says he, ' We may have to throw some of the 
 cargo overboard, but we will never be taken 
 alive.' So I told him to get the hatches open 
 and everything ready to throw over the cargo, 
 and we cracked on all steam." 
 
 " It must have been exciting." 
 
 " Exciting ! I should say so. You should 
 have seen that vessel of ours fly. And abeam of 
 us, about two miles and a quarter away, the 
 Yankee gun-boat darted like a flash. Tell you 
 what ! she was a regular screamer. She bore 
 down on us, never firing a gun, still as death, 
 without so much as a light to be seen on board. 
 We had a straight line ; the Yankee had a long, 
 oblique one. But he was light, and we had a 
 heavy cargo. The little Adger just fairly trem- 
 
 69
 
 The Apparition of Jo Murcb 
 
 bled as her tremendous wheels went round and 
 round. The Kittywink seemed to gain on us : 
 she did gain on us. Then she fired a round 
 shot across our bow, as a polite invitation to 
 heave to. Of course we hove to ! Seventy 
 cases of Enfield rifles, the property of the Con 
 federacy, went overboard. Old Sumter hove 
 in sight, the stars and bars fluttering from its 
 ruined wall. The gun-boat gained on us, when 
 ' bang ! bang ! ' went a couple of guns from 
 Sumter. The Lord was kind to the Con 
 federacy that night ; for in three minutes more 
 we were under the guns of the fort. We 
 slackened steam, gave three cheers, and leisure 
 ly paddled up to the city, the Yankee going 
 off as mad as a wet hen, I've no doubt." 
 
 " So that was not the time you lost your ill- 
 gotten millions? " 
 
 " Ill-gotten millions ! Well, I like that ; 
 some folks are so prejudiced ! No, that wasn't 
 the time, but it was, for all that. You see 
 I was taken down with the infernal malarial 
 fever they have at Charleston ; couldn't go back 
 on the Adger when she returned, as she did 
 soon. Perhaps it was just as well, for she was 
 captured by the Kittywink bad 'cess to her 
 and was carried off as a prize to Fortress Mon 
 roe. I saw her after the peace, turned into 
 70
 
 The Apparition of Jo Murcb 
 
 a pleasure-yacht for the Secretary of the Navy 
 to go junketing around with. As I was saying, 
 my sickness prevented my going back for nearly 
 six months ; and when I got out by the way of 
 Savannah and Nassau, my precious partners 
 had vamosed the ranch. They had left Jacmel 
 with every dollar of company funds, and all I 
 had was a bill of exchange on London for five 
 hundred pounds. I never saw one of those 
 partners afterward, except Hernandez, a big 
 Spanish thief. I met him in Homburg two 
 years ago, playing the part of croupier at one of 
 the gambling tables. 'Why,' says I, with a 
 jump, ' it's Hernandez, the thief ! ' He never 
 so much as winked, but went right on with his 
 everlasting ' Faty voo le joo, Messers. ' But it 
 was Hernandez." 
 
 Jo lighted another cigar. Then he went on : 
 " By the way, Bill, who do you suppose I met 
 once in the Crimea? Why, Sidney Price ! 
 He was the worst boy at Old Man Potter's 
 school, I do believe." 
 
 " Oh, Jo, you do yourself injustice. " 
 
 Jo grinned, and replied : 
 
 " The fact is, we all overlooked Sid's fault 
 because he was a nigger. Niggers were scarce 
 in Fairport in our time ; none there but the 
 Prices and Leather-belly Richardson."
 
 The Apparition of Jo Murcb 
 
 Here Jo broke into a long laugh, during 
 which he fell into a fit of coughing, rolled off 
 the lounge to the floor, where he lay choking 
 and strangling, much to my alarm. I raised 
 him up and tried the old-fashioned remedy of 
 clapping him on the back. As soon as he re 
 covered his speech, he said, angrily : 
 
 " Don't do that ! You are slapping me on 
 my old wound." 
 
 "Your old wound, Jo?" I said. "How 
 should I know you had any ? ' ' 
 
 " Yes, that's where a Spanish devil of a 
 count ran me through with a small-sword. I 
 fought a duel with the dirty beggar in Seville. 
 Every time I catch a cold it settles on my 
 lungs, where the darned garlic-eater's toad- 
 sticker went through. That's what makes me 
 cough so." 
 
 " What was the duel about, Jo ? " 
 
 "About a woman, of course. What is any 
 duel about ? ' ' replied Jo, sitting up on the 
 floor and relighting his cigar with a match 
 which he had carefully scratched on the rose 
 wood framework of my sofa. 
 
 " Let me see, where was I ? " asked Jo, as 
 
 he scrambled back to his seat. " Oh, we were 
 
 talking about old Rich. Don't you remember 
 
 how we used to yell ' Leather-belly ! Leather - 
 
 72
 
 The Apparition of Jo Murcb 
 
 belly Richardson ! ' at him from behind a cor 
 ner ? How mad he used to get ! He would 
 drop his saw and saw-horse and go for us. I 
 recollect how he caught . you once and nearly 
 pounded the life out of you until ' Libby and 
 Snelgro ' came along. You remember we used 
 to call Charley Grindle ' Libby and Snelgro,' 
 because he used to tell that awful murder story 
 about Libby and Snelgro to us boys. Dear me ! 
 I remember one night when we were scooting 
 through the graveyard after we had been steal 
 ing apples out of Mark Hatch's orchard, and 
 Charley Grindle came along and made us sit 
 down on Captain Skinner's gravestone while 
 he told us that confounded story over again. 
 That was the night Jake Norton broke his front 
 tooth out trying to bite through an apple with 
 a pebble punched into it. Let me see, where 
 was I?" 
 
 " You were talking about old Richardson, 
 and meeting Sidney Price in the Crimea. 
 What were you doing in the Crimea, Jo ? " 
 
 " Yes, yes, so I was. Dear me ! how these 
 boyish reminiscences do come over a feller 
 once in a while. Why, one time when I was 
 in Norway, where I was after a cargo of lumber 
 but let me tell you about Sid Price. I had 
 command of a French transport in the Crimean 
 
 73
 
 The Apparition of Jo Murch 
 
 War, La Magicienne, they called her a per 
 fect old tub, about the size of the William and 
 Sally that old Snowman used to sail out of 
 Fairport. You remember old Snowman ? He 
 had a one-eyed boy. But, as I was saying, I 
 was discharging a cargo of shells and fixed am 
 munition at Kostenika, a little one-horse port 
 in the Crimea. The Allies were investing 
 Sevastopol, and the Turks were in a devil of 
 a hurry for the French to come up. The 
 French, you know, were always behindhand 
 with their ammunition " 
 
 " No, I didn't know that," I interrupted. 
 
 "Well, they were, and on this occasion a 
 big swell-headed Turk, a bashaw of some kind, 
 came off to the barque with a remonstrance or 
 something written in first-rate Turkish, but not 
 a word of which could I understand. Says I, 
 after turning the paper upside down and t'other 
 side up : ' You go see Admiral. He's boss. I 
 no sabe this manifest, or whatever the devil 
 it is. Go to Admiral. Sabe ? ' The Turkey 
 feller looked at me mighty hard, and says he 
 to me: ' Jo Murch, as sure's I'm a livin' sin 
 ner ! ' Says I to him, says I, ' Leather-belly ! ' 
 It was Porter Richardson's grandson, Sid 
 Price." 
 
 " Oh, come now, Jo, that's an old story, 
 
 74
 
 The Apparition of Jo Murcb 
 
 fixed over. Ever so many men have told that 
 of their old comrades, ' ' I remonstrated. 
 
 Jo put on an injured air and declared that it 
 was the truth. Moreover, he added that Sid 
 ney Price had been cast away on the coast of 
 Tripoli, in the bark Antioch, of Fairport, that 
 he had been sold into slavery, then taken to 
 Pera, where he saved the life of a son of the 
 Sultan by diving into the Bosphorus where the 
 young man was drowning in a leisurely manner, 
 after falling from a passing craft. Once free, 
 Jo continued, the young negro advanced very 
 rapidly in favor with the big-wigs, and, being 
 about half white, passed for a Turk. 
 
 " And he reflected great credit on the Fair- 
 port town school," added Jo, " although I 
 never shall forget how he used invariably to 
 bound the kingdom of Portugal by Norway and 
 Sweden, wiping out half of the map of Europe 
 at one lick. And, by the way, don't you sup 
 pose your landlady would send you up a bite 
 of something to eat if you were to ring for it 
 just a snack, you know? I'm devilish hun 
 gry. Hot weather always makes me hungry 
 does some folks, you know. I'm peculiar 
 about that." 
 
 I rang the bell, and Bridget, opening the 
 door, caught one glimpse of Jo, half undressed, 
 
 75
 
 The Apparition of Jo Mitrcb 
 
 with his heels in the air, as he lay on the sofa. 
 She gave a little shriek with a suppressed giggle 
 in it, and clapped the door to. Going out, I 
 found her blushing over the banisters. 
 
 " The likes of that ! " she said, severely. 
 
 Giving the needed orders, I went into the 
 room and found Jo laughing heartily. 
 
 " Just like those Irish girls ! They put on 
 more frills why, when I was in London 
 once " 
 
 But I never heard the rest of the story, for 
 Jo's eye catching sight of a water-color sketch 
 on the wall, he rose hastily, and shuffling across 
 the floor, gazed at it a moment in silence, and 
 exclaimed : 
 
 " Why, that's San Jose de Guatemala, by the 
 living jingo ! " 
 
 " Certainly," said I. " What of it, Jo?" 
 
 " Oh, nothing," said he, throwing himself 
 down again on the sofa. " Nothing. When 
 were you there for I suppose you sketched that 
 yourself? " 
 
 "Yes; I was there in 1867, on my way to 
 Panama from San Francisco, in a coasting 
 vessel. ' ' 
 
 "Well, I was there in '66. Don't you 
 remember that invasion they had from San Sal 
 vador that year ? Oh, my eye ! such a fight 
 76
 
 The Apparition of Jo Murch 
 
 I saw ! ' ' And Jo rolled back and laughed un 
 til he coughed again. 
 
 " You see," he continued, " there was first a 
 revolution one of those one-horse revolutions, 
 such as they get up in the Central American 
 States any day for the amusement of visitors. 
 See this nose ? ' ' asked Jo, sitting up and laying 
 his finger on that organ. " Well, this is how 
 it came about. One bright morning while I 
 was in Chicoroso that little town which, you 
 remember, is half-way between San Jose and 
 the border of San Salvador I was lying in bed, 
 wondering why Dolores did not bring my choc 
 olate. Mine was a little adobe hut, with an 
 oiled-paper window on the left of the bed, about 
 three feet away, and the adobe wall close on the 
 right. I was flat on my back, watching the 
 rats running over the cloth lining of the ceiling 
 overhead. Suddenly I heard muskets popping 
 away outside, as if in the plaza, as they call the 
 hole in the middle of the village where they 
 dump their rubbish. ' Aha ! a revolution ! ' 
 thinks I to myself. I began to speculate whether 
 it would be possible for me to make anything 
 out of it, for I had bills of credit on Dreyfus & 
 Co. for two hundred and fifty thousand reals, 
 and could have bought up the whole contemp 
 tible concern if there was anything in it. 
 
 77
 
 The Apparition of Jo Murcb 
 
 "While I was a -thinking, 'bang! ' came 
 a musket - ball through the window, crashed 
 through the bridge of my nose half an inch 
 lower, and it would have been good-by, Jo 
 Murch ! and buried itself in the adobe wall. 
 Here it is, you see ; picked it out afterward ; 
 I keep it for luck." 
 
 And Jo showed me a battered lump of lead, 
 bright with the constant friction which it had 
 received by being carried in his pocket. 
 
 "A narrow escape for you, Jo," I said, 
 handling the flattened bullet. "Was it much 
 of a revolution ? ' ' 
 
 " No ; I was the only man wounded. The 
 general-in-chief of the insurgents, a big, bare 
 footed greaser, with a ragged straw hat and no 
 clothes worth mentioning, was captured by the 
 government ragamuffins in the first rush. The 
 ' insurgents,' as they called them, made a raid 
 on the shop of a German Jew, the only foreign 
 trader in the place, and when both contending 
 armies had divided the plunder, the revolution 
 simmered down. By the way, that trader's 
 name was Snelgro. Queer, wasn't it ? Do 
 you remember whether Snelgro killed Libby, 
 or was it Libby who killed Snelgro, down in 
 Fairport, years and years ago ? Hokey ! I 
 just remember how I and you met Charlie 
 
 78
 
 The Apparition of Jo Murch 
 
 Grindle one day when we were out hunting 
 squirrels with bows and arrows, and how we sat 
 down on a flat rock in Hatch's back pasture, 
 while he told us over again the whole story 
 about how Libby killed Snelgro, or Snelgro 
 killed Libby, I've forgotten which it was ; and 
 when he got through he said, lifting up his 
 own, ' And that's the gun he killed him with ! ' 
 Golly ! how it scared me ! I was younger 
 then than I am now. That was the second 
 time he told us that yarn. But I believe he 
 lied. He was an awful liar, Charley Grindle 
 was." 
 
 Somehow, Jo's reminiscences of our boy 
 hood were not so entertaining to me as those of 
 his later adventures. I gently led him back to 
 Guatemala. 
 
 " Oh, yes ! Well, you see, that is how my 
 beautiful nose got damaged. 'Tisn't so bad, 
 though, do you think ? " And Jo went to the 
 mirror, turned around so that the light might 
 not spare his defective nose, smirked at himself, 
 and added: "Well, anyhow, I've been mar 
 ried twice since that damage was done, and 
 that's more than a good many handsomer fel 
 lows can say." 
 
 " Why didn't you bring a bill of damages 
 against the government, Jo ? " 
 
 79
 
 The Apparition of Jo Murcb 
 
 " Damages ! government ! " echoed Jo, with 
 disdain. " Why, you might as well sue a beg 
 gar as to sue one of them Central American 
 governments. There never is any government ; 
 and as for trade, why, a canoe-load of red pep 
 pers would swamp the market any day. Speak 
 ing of peppers, did I show you my sewing- 
 machine ? Here it is," and going to the table, 
 Jo opened the little case which I had observed 
 in his hand when he came in. It contained a 
 little polished brass machine, with two or three 
 wheels and pinions, and a needle. 
 
 " Look at her ! ain't she a beauty ? There's 
 cords of money in that. You can't begin to 
 think of the amount of time and thought and 
 money I've put into it. It does the work of one 
 of those rip-tearing, clumsy things of Grover 
 & Wilson, and in half the time, twice as 
 good, no fuss, no breakage, or the money re 
 funded. Any child can work it, takes up only 
 seven and a half cubic inches, and costs only 
 nine dollars. Say, old fellow, you ought to 
 buy one of 'em for your Aunt Priscilla, just for 
 a toy curiosity, you know. It costs nothing, 
 but, seeing it's you, I'll let you have it for the 
 net price, seven dollars, which is only thirty- 
 three per cent, above cost at first hands. Want 
 one?" 
 
 80
 
 The Apparition of Jo Murcb 
 
 I told Jo that my Aunt Priscilla hated sewing- 
 machines, and could not abide the sight of any 
 thing that saved labor. 
 
 " Well," said Jo, with a sigh, " I was carry 
 ing this up to One Hundred and Sixty-ninth 
 Street, where I have a large order pending, and 
 it's so bloody hot to-day that I thought I would 
 leave it on you and go up there some other day. 
 Why, while I was getting up this machine, do 
 you know that Grimshaw, Bagshaw, & Brad- 
 shaw, the great sewing-machine monopolists, 
 actually bribed my clerks and stole my plans 
 and models ? Oh, I was telling you about that 
 invasion of Guatemala, wasn't I now? By the 
 way, these are darn bad cigars. Thanks ! this 
 does look better. Let me send you a box of 
 Pumariegas, smuggled, you know. But we 
 Yanks do enjoy a thing more for its being a 
 leetle, just a leetle, unlawful, don't we ? " 
 
 Jo settled himself comfortably and took up 
 the thread of his discourse. Guatemala, he 
 said, had been invaded from San Salvador, and 
 both "armies," consisting of about fifty men 
 each, had encamped on opposite sides of the 
 little town of Chicoroso, just at night-fall. Dur 
 ing the night one of the Guatemalan sentries 
 accidentally discharged his musket. Instantly 
 both camps were in an uproar and the firing 
 81
 
 The Apparition of Jo Murcb 
 
 was incessant. In the confusion each party 
 imagined itself attacked, and each promptly 
 turned and ran. When morning broke, the as 
 tonished citizens of Chicoroso found themselves 
 without defenders or assailants. Both armies 
 had run away during the night. 
 
 " But you should have seen the reception," 
 continued Jo. " When the victorious army of 
 Guatemala returned to the capital, the President 
 went out to meet them with a guard of honor 
 sixteen tatterdemalions with bits of red flannel on 
 their shoulders by way of uniform. The only 
 casualty in the victorious army was one fellow 
 who had sprained his ankle by being chucked 
 off of a bucking mule. He wanted to get 
 home to his wife, but they put him on a litter 
 and covered him over with the Guatemala flag, 
 while the President made a speech congratulat 
 ing the brave defenders of the republic on their 
 glorious victory, and complimenting them for 
 their prowess. You should have seen the poor 
 devil with the sprained ankle. Two or three 
 times he would try to escape, groaning and 
 swearing horribly. But his comrades held him 
 on the litter and corked him up by cramming 
 the flag into his mouth, while the President went 
 on about their ' heroic wounded.' Oh, it was 
 as funny as a rag. ' ' 
 
 82
 
 The Apparition of Jo Murch 
 
 "Well, Jo, some of our own politicians or 
 ganize ' receptions ' and parades on the same 
 plan, you know. People are pretty much 
 alike, wherever you find them." 
 
 " That's so ! that's so ! " broke in Jo, who 
 excitedly took another cigar as he went on to 
 state the case. " Why, Bill, I've seen pretty 
 much all there is worth seeing in this world ; 
 been everywhere, seen all races, and there's just 
 two things that you can set down as fixed facts. 
 In the first place, this is a dreadful small world. 
 When you've been round the globe once or 
 twice, it's surprising how little it seems. Why, 
 when I was a boy, it was farther from Fairport 
 to Boston, to me, than it is around the world 
 now. The other thing is, that folks are pretty 
 much of a muchness, wherever you find 'em. 
 There's philosophy for you, Bill ; but I know. 
 I've been there." 
 
 "You mean to say that human nature is 
 the same in all countries and under all condi 
 tions ? ' ' 
 
 " Not only that, but folks are folks, whether 
 you find 'em in Kamschatka or under the equa 
 tor. I remember how I once laid under a babo- 
 tree in Senegambia and watched the little nig 
 gers at play native Africans, understand, not 
 the American improved patent nigger, but the 
 
 83
 
 The Apparition of Jo Murch 
 
 original article. I swear to you, Bill, those 
 young Africans were playing the same games we 
 used to play on the common in Fairport, years 
 and years ago. There was ' High -spy,' ' Long- 
 come-on/ ' Horam-a-goram,' and all the rest; 
 and they had a ball-game just like our old round- 
 ball, not the high-falutin base-ball they play 
 in this country. Base-ball hadn't been intro 
 duced into Senegambia when I was there," Jo 
 added, with a chuckle. 
 
 " What were you doing on the coast of Afri 
 ca, Jo?" 
 
 " Carrying passengers," replied my visitor, 
 with a quiet laugh. 
 
 ' ' Was the passenger traffic profitable ? " I 
 asked. I suddenly remembered Jo's bad repu 
 tation as a slave-trader. 
 
 " Just pass me that bottle, and I'll give you 
 an example. It's a long story," and here Jo 
 took a long drink, leaned over the sofa and care 
 fully tucked the bottle underneath, settled him 
 self comfortably, and began : 
 
 " I was commanding the Paul Jones, a square- 
 rigged brig, Baltimore built, and originally as 
 fast as chain-lightning, but rather dull then. 
 We had three hundred and sixty passengers on 
 board." 
 
 " Negroes? " 
 
 84
 
 The Apparition of Jo Murcb 
 
 " Niggers. Mostly black passengers on that 
 coast. The third day out of the mouth of the 
 Loando we sighted her Britannic Majesty's ship 
 Gorgon, hull down, but bouncing along with a 
 free wind and all sail set. I knew the old devil 
 the minute we raised her fore-to'-gallan'-s'ls ; 
 knew their cut. I laughed and said to Scotty 
 Scotty was my first mate, you see, born in 
 Dumfries, and a first-class sailor. ' Scotty,' says 
 I, ' that old tub is a sailer, but the Paul Jones 
 will leave her so far behind, before eight bells, 
 that you will never see that flat to'-gallan'-s'l 
 again. Now, you mind.' And I meant it. It 
 was a stern chase, you see, Bill." 
 
 " But why should there be any chase, Jo? 
 I don't understand." 
 
 " Well, you see, on them coasts the Britishers 
 have everything their own way, as it were. 
 They've made a set of laws about carrying pas 
 sengers which they enforce dreadful particular. 
 I tell you how. They allow so many passengers 
 to the ton ; more than that, when a feller's 
 found with too many passengers on board 
 of them, those meddling British frigates just 
 lay alongside and make things uncomfortable 
 with their blasted laws. Oh, they're just pizen, 
 I tell you. But, as I was saying, I guessed I was 
 all hunky, so we kept right on our course, hav- 
 
 85
 
 The Apparition of Jo Murcb 
 
 ing crowded on every stitch of canvas the old 
 brig could carry. When just as we were widen 
 ing the distance between us so that the Gorgon 
 began to sink below the horizon again, we struck 
 a dead calm ! You know how the wind flies in 
 them latitudes ? just goes and comes in streaks. 
 Here was the Paul Jones in a sea like a mill- 
 pond, scarcely a cat's-paw on the surface. And 
 there was the cussed Britisher with a seven-knot 
 breezer coming up hand over hand." 
 
 "And your passengers, Jo? " 
 
 " That was it. They were first-rate chaps, 
 those passengers. When the danger of our being 
 overhauled first dawned on them, they were so 
 much attached to me that they actually said 
 they'd sooner go overboard than get me into 
 any trouble. Fact ! they did. I said that that 
 would be a little too bad. Really, I couldn't 
 ask it of 'em. But matters grew worse very 
 fast ; and then, to think of the ingratitude of 
 niggers ! Do you believe it ! they changed their 
 minds and said they wouldn't go overboard ; no, 
 not for no money ! What could I do ? Of 
 course I got my back up at that, and they walked 
 the plank the whole kit and caboodle." 
 
 " You don't mean to tell me, Jo, that you 
 threw these people overboard ? ' ' 
 
 "Why, not exactly, you see. They had 
 86
 
 The Apparition of Jo Murcb 
 
 agreed to go over peaceably, of their own free 
 will and accord, man - fashion. It was their 
 own offer. I shouldn't ever have thought of it 
 if they hadn't suggested it first. So they went 
 over for'ard, as they might have been noticed 
 going over the side, and unpleasant remarks 
 might have been made in the frigate. But it 
 was growing dusk, and everything was serene 
 in an hour or two. When the calm struck the 
 Gorgon she was two miles away, and it was 
 almost dark. She kept by us all night, and when 
 old Fuss-and-Feathers, her commander, sent his 
 boat alongside next morning, at daybreak, I 
 showed him my papers, my cargo of palm-oil 
 and ivory just a little stock, of course, but 
 all regular and he had nothing much to say." 
 
 ' ' So you actually threw those three hundred 
 and sixty negroes overboard, Jo ? " 
 
 " Oh, no, don't say that. You exaggerate," 
 said Jo, deprecatingly. " I don't think there 
 was so many ; not more than three hundred and 
 fifty odd, I'm sure. Besides, didn't I tell you 
 that they agreed to go of their own free will and 
 accord ? Que voulez-vous ? as the Frenchman 
 says. ' ' 
 
 Here Jo picked himself up in a leisurely man 
 ner, drew on his trousers, and, looking toward 
 the little box on the table, said : 
 
 87
 
 The Apparition of Jo March 
 
 "So you won't take one of my machines 
 to-day? " 
 
 I told him that I really did not want it ; 
 whereupon he dressed himself in a slow, musing 
 manner, put on his hat, took his box under his 
 arm, told me that it was like seeing a play to 
 meet me again after so many years, bade me 
 adieu and went out, shutting the door after him. 
 
 I was straightening out the linen sofa-cover 
 where he had lain, and reducing the scattered 
 disorder of the room, when the door suddenly 
 reopened and Jo, with a brisk and business-like 
 air, came back. 
 
 " Say, Bill," he said, "I find I haven't got 
 any change about me for my car-fare. Came 
 away and left my wallet in my other breeches. 
 Give me a little change now, and I'll drop in on 
 you to-night and pay you." 
 
 " All right, Jo," said I. " How much do 
 you want ? ' ' 
 
 " Oh, I guess a couple of dollars will do." 
 
 " But isn't two dollars a good deal for car 
 fare? " I asked, with sudden surprise. 
 
 " Well, you see it's such a deuce of a ways, 
 away up to One Hundred and Fiftieth Street, 
 you know," replied Jo, smiling ruefully. 
 
 " Day-day ! " said he, cheerily, as he put the 
 bank-note into his pocket. "I'll drop in on
 
 The Apparition of Jo Murcb 
 
 you at the Clarion office to-night, and bring 
 you a box of those cigars, besides. So glad I've 
 seen you ! " 
 
 He went softly down-stairs, opened the street 
 door, looked out into the hot street, now grow 
 ing yellower in the declining sunlight, looked 
 back at me with a ghastly smile, and closed 
 the door behind him. As I never have seen 
 or heard of him from that day to this, or knew 
 of anybody who saw him after I did, I am not 
 at all certain but what this was the apparition 
 of Jotham Murch, hanged for piracy in Ports 
 mouth harbor. 
 
 89
 
 The Hereditary Barn
 
 THE HEREDITARY BARN 
 
 THE old Joslin farm is on the road from 
 Fairport to Penobscot, near the head of 
 the Northern Bay. It is a ragged and hilly 
 piece of upland, yielding good grass, and cap 
 able of great possibilities in the way of potatoes. 
 But the Joslins never did stick to farming as a 
 sole means of getting a living. The old-fash 
 ioned, gambrel-roofed house, mossy as to roof 
 and dark red as to its front, overlooked the 
 Northern bay ; and it was a pretty dull time 
 when at least one coaster could not be seen 
 lazily creeping up to Penobscot with the tide 
 in her favor ; or it may have been a hay -sloop 
 that dropped down, equally lazy, with the ebb. 
 And it was part of the domestic economy of the 
 farmers of the Bay, that a goodly share of the 
 winter's provisions should consist of codfish, 
 caught on the Grand Banks by some younger 
 member of the family, or ' ' traded for ' ' by the 
 head of the house with some more adventurous 
 neighbor. The population of the region around 
 
 93
 
 The Hereditary Barn 
 
 the Doshan shore and the head of the Northern 
 Bay is largely amphibious. Fishing, coasting, 
 and kindred seamanlike pursuits fill in the 
 chinks of the dull life of the tillers of the soil. 
 
 It is not an inspiring landscape that the eyes 
 of the Joslins were used to look on from the 
 door-stone of their ancient homestead. From 
 the little pinched-up flower garden, where mari 
 golds, hollyhocks, love-lies-bleeding, and China 
 asters disputed the ground with balm, sweet 
 marjoram, and mother-wort, the land sloped 
 steeply off to the bluff overhanging the river. A 
 tidy rail-fence skirted the lower edge of the 
 place, and the Penobscot road, yellow with 
 golden-rod and ox-eyed daisies in autumn, and 
 gullied with heavy rains in spring, crept along 
 under the fence, half-hidden from the house 
 and dangerously near the crumbling bluff of the 
 river-bank. 
 
 From the house, overlooking road and bluff, 
 the eye fell on a long and narrow bay, or es 
 tuary, of the broader bay of Penobscot. The 
 farther shore was well wooded, and the sombre 
 spruces and firs, never very cheerful, were black 
 and mournful indeed in winter. The waters 
 of the bay were never vexed by many keels, and 
 the few farming settlements on the farther side 
 of the water were so hidden by the woods that 
 
 94
 
 The Hereditary Barn 
 
 one might almost fancy it an untrodden wilder 
 ness, if it were not for the glimpses given, here 
 and there, of bits of ploughed land. Beyond the 
 woods that rose upward from the shore was the 
 distant serrated range of the Mount Desert hills, 
 blue and cold in the eastern sky ; and farther 
 to the north, the honest face of Blue Hill, rug 
 ged and seamy, reposed against the horizon. 
 The picture might have been transferred to can 
 vas, and shown to a northern traveller as a view 
 of a Norwegian fiord, so dark and cold and 
 stern was it. 
 
 The red-fronted house looked unwinkingly 
 on the scene from two Lutheran windows in its 
 roof; and an open woodshed, that terminated 
 in a hen-house, stretched itself from the house 
 almost over to a big barn, black with age, but 
 substantial and more suggestive of wealth and 
 comfort than even the old farm-house itself. It 
 was a well-shingled and glass-windowed barn, 
 ample with its hay-mows and stalls for cattle, 
 and affording refuge for colonies of barn-swal 
 lows that built their mud-nests under its hospi 
 table eaves. It had a homely look that time- 
 blackened barn ; but far up in the northern 
 gable an eye-shaped aperture for the martens 
 which nested among the rafters within, looked 
 over the waters of the bay with a fixed and 
 
 95
 
 The Hereditary Barn 
 
 sinister stare. Seen from the road, at the 
 height of a summer noon, when all hands were in 
 the fields, and the cat kept house on the sun 
 drenched window-sill, the place seemed forlorn 
 and lonely. It might have been a lost farm 
 a farm dropped by accident by some giant 
 peddler passing that way with a load of build 
 ings and fences for sale. 
 
 Very gloomy and poverty-stricken did the 
 Joslin place appear to old man Joslin in the 
 winter of 1807, when, an embargo having been 
 declared by the United States Government, a 
 blight fell on every industry of the New Eng 
 land seaboard States. There was Elkanah Jos- 
 lin's hay waiting to be sold and shipped ; in 
 the cellar were fifty bushels of good, sound po 
 tatoes that would rot before a customer could 
 be found for them. And even the five shares 
 which Elkanah owned in the John and Eliza 
 were worthless as so much driftwood ; and 
 there was the schooner " eating her head off," 
 as the farmer sourly expressed it, in Portland 
 harbor, idle and useless as long as the embargo 
 lasted. Smuggling from the Provinces was the 
 only thriving industry in the time of the em 
 bargo ; but Elkanah Joslin was an uncompro 
 mising church-member. He would sooner 
 starve than break the law of the land. 
 
 96
 
 The Hereditary Barn 
 
 " 'Pears to me that there ain't no sort of 
 use tryin' to make a cent, nowadays," said El- 
 kanah, complainingly. He sat down heav 
 ily on the blue-painted settle that shut off the 
 draught from the door, and drawing back 
 from the fire his lumbering and leaden feet, 
 gazed at his loosely locked hands, that rested 
 between his knees. " 'Tain't no use," he re 
 peated. 
 
 Brisk Marm Joslin, having carefully boxed 
 the ears of young Amzi, who was filching an 
 apple from the wooden bowl she held in her 
 lap, said, as she added one more to the heap of 
 peeled fruit, " Wai, Elkanah, you are the beat- 
 enest critter to git diskerriged in no time that I 
 almost ever saw. It's morally sartin that the 
 dimbargo will be declared off airly in the 
 spring. We've got enough in the house to 
 last us through till the frost comes out o' the 
 ground; hogs to kill, a calf comin' in in 
 March, and clothes fit to kerry us through. 
 Land sakes alive ! what does the man want ? 
 the hull airth?" 
 
 Old man Joslin made no reply, except in a 
 long-drawn sigh that seemed to come up labori 
 ously from the very depths of his homespun 
 garments. He looked fixedly at his stubby 
 finger-nails and toil-worn hands, and his watery 
 
 97
 
 The Hereditary Barn 
 
 blue eyes filled with unaccustomed moisture as 
 he revolved in his mind the desolateness and 
 the poverty of his lot. It was true that he had 
 enough to eat and drink for himself and his ; 
 but it irked him to think he had properties 
 lying idle, deteriorating with disuse, and liable 
 to perish utterly. Besides, Jotham, his eldest 
 and his hope, had come home from Boston with 
 a hacking cough, and the doctor said that it 
 looked as if he might go into a decline. Most 
 of the Philbricks Marm Joslin was a Philbrick 
 had gone off in declines ; so Elkanah sat and 
 brooded over his troubles until the short De 
 cember day was ended, and the twilight fell 
 quickly around the gambrel-roofed house, in 
 vesting its sombreness with a yet deeper mel 
 ancholy, and leaving all the outer landscape 
 vague and weird in the ghostliness of the 
 approaching winter night. 
 
 Old Elkanah rose stiffly, resting his horny 
 hand on the top of the settle to help bring 
 his rusty frame into a perpendicular. Saying 
 "Guess I'll tend to the critters," he shambled 
 out of the door, and was lost in the shadows of 
 the barn. Her bowl of apples pared, Marm 
 Joslin also rose, but with a quick alertness 
 strikingly in contrast with the movements of 
 her husband, wiped her hands, pulled out the 
 98
 
 The Hereditary Barn 
 
 tea-table with a prodigious clatter, and began 
 laying the cloth. But pausing in her work 
 for a moment, before she lighted the whale- 
 oil lamp that stood on the mantel-piece, she 
 went to the window, and watched the droop 
 ing form of Elkanah as he plodded toward the 
 barn. 
 
 " Poor Elkanah," she sighed to herself; " he 
 don't look like the spry young feller he was 
 forty year ago. ' ' Then she paused, as if recalling 
 the memory of the young Elkanah who courted 
 her in Prospect, before the British evacuated 
 Fairport, and while the colonists were not cer 
 tain whether they were to be citizens of a re 
 public or subjects of a king. 
 
 ' ' But he is the beatenest critter, ' ' she mur 
 mured, impatiently. Then she lighted her 
 lamp, set the bowls and the pewter in due order 
 on the board, hung the samp-kettle over the 
 rising blaze, and briskly forwarded preparations 
 for supper. 
 
 Meanwhile, old man Joslin slouched into the 
 big barn, and hearing Jotham's hacking cough 
 in the hay-mow, mildly said : " You'd better 
 go into the house, Jotham ; I expect your Ma 
 wants you, for she's nigh out of firewood. I'll 
 tend to the stock, and when Cal'line gits back 
 from school (and it's nigh time), you tell her 
 
 99
 
 The Hereditary Barn 
 
 she needn't bother about the milkin'. I'll tend 
 to that." 
 
 Jotham, lean, long, and lank, slid down from 
 the hay-mow, coughed his acquiescence in the 
 plan laid out by his father, and went into the 
 house, from whose keeping-room windows now 
 streamed forth a ruddy light. 
 
 Elkanah watched the youth as he went across 
 the dabbled snow. Then, leaning in the barn 
 door, he gazed with dry and glassy eyes up 
 ward to the wintry sky, across which masses of 
 cloud were driven. He marked the pale white 
 moon, riding as if frighted, in the flying scud 
 that hurried by. He looked with unconcern at 
 the twinkling light of the sloop at anchor in 
 the bay, and he thought to himself that she 
 must have an icy berth over there under the 
 lee of Orphan Island. Then, his face growing 
 pale and ghastly as he turned from the dim and 
 lonesome nightlight reflected from the snow, 
 Elkanah felt his way along the familiar board 
 ing of the barn, reached over and took from 
 the cow-stall a halter that hung there, mounted 
 to the hay-mow, threw himself upon his knees 
 as if in silent prayer, climbed painfully and 
 with many a half-uttered groan to the beam 
 that crossed the barn from eaves to eaves, made 
 fast one end of the rope around that timber,
 
 The Hereditary Barn 
 
 slipped the noose over his head, fitted it care 
 fully around his neck, and, with firm-set lip, 
 swung himself off into space. 
 
 The news that Elkanah Joslin had hanged 
 himself in his barn travelled around the head of 
 the bay in a leisurely manner. The discovery 
 of Elkanah was not made by the family until 
 some hours had passed. When Caroline came 
 home from her distant school-teaching, she had 
 taken the milking pails and had gone directly 
 to the barn. Not seeing or hearing her father, 
 she stood on the barn-floor, and cried " Oh, I 
 say, Pa ! " but there was no response ; and it 
 did not occur to the mind of this healthy and 
 honest young woman that there was anything 
 fearsome or weird in the utter stillness and 
 darkness of the place. Only the grinding of 
 the cows at their feed and the occasional grunt 
 of the swine that were housed beneath the barn, 
 disturbed the silence of the hour. So, tucking 
 up her skirts, and singing a fragment of a camp- 
 meeting hymn, like any modern farmer's girl, 
 she went to work milking the three cows, one 
 after the other. 
 
 Her mother, however, when Caroline re 
 turned with her brimming pails to the house, 
 was more uneasy. Turning it over in her mind, 
 she calculated that Pa had gone down the road
 
 The Hereditary Barn 
 
 a piece, to mend the fence where one of Robin 
 son's cattle Robinson's cattle were always 
 straying up from their place had broken 
 through and had got at the fodder. She won 
 dered what possessed him to go out on such an 
 errand so late at night. He had had all day 
 for that job. And she postponed taking up the 
 supper, until Amzi, who was the youngest, and 
 enjoyed his privileges as the spoiled child, made 
 so great ado that she was fain to " dish up." 
 
 It was unusual for the head of the house to 
 be absent from the evening meal. Jotham 
 sighed as he looked at his father's empty chair. 
 Caroline chatted about her day's experience in 
 school. Amzi noisily absorbed mush-and-milk 
 and fried mush deluged with New Orleans 
 molasses, enjoying himself very much. The 
 mother looked anxiously out of the window 
 from where she sat, expecting to see the bent 
 form of her husband trudge by on his way to 
 the end door. But he never came. It was 
 late in the night when Caroline went flying 
 down the road to Captain Robinson's, with her 
 white lips too tremulous to tell the doleful tid 
 ings to the frightened old man, who came and 
 looked out at her as she pounded her small fists 
 against the window-panes of his bedroom. He 
 was speedily joined by Mrs. Robinson, also just 
 
 102
 
 The Hereditary Barn 
 
 awakened from her early sleep. Thence the 
 news was carried up to Watson's by Will 
 Robinson, the Captain's burly son. And Sally 
 Watson, before she ran to comfort her be 
 reaved friend Caroline, fled, trembling with 
 cold and fear, still farther up the road to the 
 Sellers' s place, woke up the family, and be 
 sought Jim Sellers to go with her down to the 
 Joslins. It was commonly reported in the 
 neighborhood that Jim was keeping company 
 with Sally Watson. 
 
 And so it came to pass that by two o'clock in 
 the morning a small, but excited group of neigh 
 bors was assembled in the keeping-room of the 
 Joslin place, each new recruit coming in with 
 silent and cautious tread, as if afraid of waking 
 the dead man, who lay in the best room on the 
 other side of the front entry. The tea-things 
 were taken up and put away by the first woman 
 who came in. The family, in their terrified 
 search for Elkanah, had let the supper- table 
 stand untouched, after they rose to look for the 
 missing man. 
 
 In those primitive days there was very little 
 ceremony observed in the disposal of the dead. 
 Before a week had passed, the snow was blowing 
 dryly over the hillock of icy clods that marked 
 the spot where the mortal part of the owner of 
 103
 
 The Hereditary Barn 
 
 the farm had been laid, just outside of the till 
 able land, where, with New England thrift, the 
 family bury ing-ground had been fenced off. 
 The suicide was a nine days' wonder in the set 
 tlement ; yet Elkanah was not readily forgot 
 ten, for, after that night, the few incidents in 
 the uneventful history of the community were 
 dated from the time " when Elkanah Joslin 
 hung himself. ' ' 
 
 Ten years afterward, that is to say, in 1817, 
 after " the last war " was over, and peace had 
 returned to the distracted country, the sluggish 
 surface of life around the head of the Northern 
 Bay was once more stirred to its depths by the 
 story that sped from lip to lip. Jotham Joslin 
 had hanged himself from the identical beam 
 from which his father swung ten years before. 
 Yet it was not altogether surprising that Jotham, 
 hopeless of life, brooding over his father's tragic 
 end, and struggling hard to keep up his droop 
 ing spirits, should have finally succumbed to the 
 depressing influence of the big barn in which he 
 spent so much of his time. There was much 
 sympathetic comment on Jotham's provocations. 
 Some murmured that it was mighty queer that 
 two " professors " should have thus flown in the 
 face of Providence. For Jotham was a consist 
 ent church- member, as his father had been. 
 104
 
 The Hereditary Barn 
 
 Others said that the son was certain sure to go 
 in the way his father went. " Sorter runs in 
 the family," the aged Captain down the road 
 remarked. 
 
 Very soon the people began to say that the 
 Joslin barn was haunted. Not that anybody 
 had ever seen or heard anything supernatural 
 about that time-stained building. It was an 
 honest-looking and commonplace barn. It even 
 had two glass windows in it, which, in those 
 times and in those parts, was an uncommon 
 architectural vanity in a barn. But the neigh 
 borhood, with common consent, decided that it 
 ought to be haunted, if any building ever should 
 have been. And passers-by began to notice that 
 the diamond-shaped opening in the gable next 
 the road had a peculiarly wicked and sinister 
 expression. " Looks like an evil eye," was 
 what one of the Penobscot men said. And the 
 remark was popularly approved. 
 
 It was in 1825 that Amzi Joslin, after having 
 gone down to Ellsworth on a prolonged spree, 
 returned home one hot August night, and with 
 out entering the house, softly let himself into the 
 barn by the back entrance, and hanged himself 
 from the now historic timber that crossed the 
 edge of the hay-mow. Amzi had buried his 
 mother and sister in the stony plot where his 
 105
 
 The Hereditary Barn 
 
 father and Jotham reposed under the gloomy and 
 scanty turf. He was lonely, and his complain 
 ing wife and sickly baby did not enlighten the 
 morbidness of his life. He had taken to drink, 
 as many another poor fool does, hoping that in 
 this he might drown his sorrows, none of which 
 was very weighty or very unique. 
 
 "It's a sickly, pindling little critter," said 
 the neighbors, of Amzi's only baby Amzi 
 junior. " 'Twon't live to grow up. It's like 
 ly that it'll be the last of the Joslins in these 
 parts." 
 
 But the infant Amzi lived to disappoint the 
 croaking prophets by coming to manhood a 
 hale, blithesome, and strapping young fellow. 
 There was no trace of morbidness in the youth 
 ful Amzi's disposition. And when he married, 
 and his buxom wife an importation from Deer 
 Isle bore him a quiver- full of happy, hearty 
 children, the old folks who had predicted the 
 dying out of the Joslins slunk away to their 
 appropriate burying-grounds, leaving the Jos 
 lins in contented possession of the homestead. 
 
 Nevertheless, the barn, with its tragic recol 
 lections clinging around it, stood, a perpetual 
 reminder of the fateful ending of the career of 
 three of the Joslins. Amzi often stood and 
 looked at the fatal beam with a curious feeling 
 1 06
 
 Hereditary Bam 
 
 of inquiry in his heart. If he had not been of 
 a cheerful and sunny disposition, he would have 
 dwelt with misgivings on the possibility of his, 
 at last, coming to end his days on that timber. 
 The thought sometimes flashed through his mind, 
 but was quickly put away. Younger members 
 of the family, to whom the gossips of the region 
 had dutifully told the tale of the haunted barn, 
 snatched a fearful joy in peering upward to the 
 tragical beam in the darkness of the winter 
 night, imagining that they saw a ghostly ances 
 tor hanging there. But the young Joslins, as a 
 rule, dreaded being in the barn alone after 
 dark. Amzi never forgot what had happened 
 there ; and he often thought, as he plodded 
 about his work in the cow-bay, or in the mow, 
 that it would be a mercy if the old barn should 
 be struck by lightning and burnt to the ground. 
 It was a sort of reminder, so he thought, to the 
 children that might come after him. They 
 would think of the three men who had taken 
 violent hands against their own lives in that an 
 cestral barn. He even asked himself if it were 
 possible that, in his old age, with mental facul 
 ties dimmed and life a burden by reason of in 
 firmities, he might not be enticed to his doom 
 by the evil influences of the place. 
 
 But Amzi Joslin lived to a good old age, 
 107
 
 The Hereditary Barn 
 
 and died as a Christian should, in his own bed, 
 surrounded by wife and children. All but one. 
 His oldest son, Rufus, went before his father. 
 The unhappy Rufus, inheriting a strain of the 
 " old Joslin blood," as the old women said, 
 followed after the ill example of Elkanah, 
 Jotham, and the first Amzi. No need for us to 
 tell how the good man wept over the sorrowful 
 tragedy of the young life snuffed out so need 
 lessly, untimely. The old man aged swiftly 
 after this happened, and not a few of the com 
 munity roundabout began to shake their heads 
 and whisper that old Amzi would go the way of 
 the other self-destroyers. But the farmer lived 
 on patiently and trustfully, dying, as we have 
 said, at a good old age and in a Christian 
 manner. 
 
 In 1 88-, after more than one generation of 
 Joslins had come and gone, the old barn had 
 acquired a name and repute throughout the 
 region altogether unenviable. It is not neces 
 sary nor desirable to tell here how two other 
 men of the Joslin family, as they grew up and 
 were old enough to take in the full significance 
 of the doleful story of the hereditary barn, be 
 came fixed in their belief that other suicides 
 must follow. Suffice to say that, in course of 
 years, but at long intervals, the historic timber 
 1 08
 
 The Hereditary Barn 
 
 across the hay-mow bore evil fruit twice more. 
 Something ailed the place, men said. There 
 were strange lights about the farm o' nights. 
 Sobs and whispering murmurs drifted down 
 from the uplands on the wild March winds, or 
 sighed in the snow-squalls that whirled around 
 the place as the December gales came on apace. 
 
 No wonder that strangers, passing along the 
 road, stopped and looked curiously at the barn, 
 whose tragedy had been told at so many coun 
 try firesides and in so many solitary wayside 
 inns. It was the custom for every passenger 
 along the road to turn his head and look at the 
 old barn, now black with age, hoary with the 
 gray lichens that clung to its roof, and still 
 winking with its single evil eye in the gable. 
 And when the Blue Hill stage drove that way, 
 as it did when the upper road was heavy with 
 the winter's snow, the passengers all craned 
 their necks from the side of the wagon, and 
 stared at the Joslin barn as long as it was in 
 sight. 
 
 These things annoyed Mrs. Joslin, widow of 
 Stephen, who had died in an honest and respect 
 able manner. She knew that Stephen had wor 
 ried a good deal over the /<?/<? de se of his father, 
 and that he had had a fight within himself to 
 keep back from the path which had brought so 
 109
 
 The Hereditary Barn 
 
 many Joslins to the fatal beam. She knew that 
 her Stephen had sometimes thought that the 
 evil one was in that barn, and that he pursued 
 him the oldest representative of the Joslin 
 name, continually suggesting that this was the 
 way out of the world for him. And so, although 
 her husband had never yielded to these wicked 
 thoughts, she had the family history so burned 
 into her very soul, that it fretted her to see the 
 gossiping people of the neighborhood whispering 
 and nodding their wise heads among themselves. 
 "If I was a Joslin, instead of a Gardner," she 
 would say, ' ' I just believe that these everlasting 
 tattle-tales would drive me to hanging myself." 
 Not so thought Charlie, the widow's hand 
 some and only son. Charlie was a prime favorite 
 through all the country-side. None so stalwart 
 and lithe as he. To see him swinging his scythe 
 as he strode down the mowing - field with 
 rhythmic step, levelling a mighty swathe, was as 
 good as a heroic poem on canvas. His melo 
 dious voice resounded like a trumpet when he 
 called to his oxen or chanted a rural ditty as he 
 came from a-field, hearty and fresh as if he had 
 not passed a long and toilsome day at the plough 
 or with the hay-rake. And many a country 
 lass, never quite unmindful of the tragic story of 
 the old barn, forgot it all when she looked into
 
 The Hereditary Barn 
 
 Charlie Joslin's brown and handsome face. His 
 dancing blue eyes, full of fun, and mild with the 
 light of a cheery disposition, sent the tell-tale 
 blush to many a coy young maiden's cheek, as 
 she " passed the time o' day " with the young 
 and thriving heir-apparent of the Joslin place. 
 
 But of all the girls that looked with a little 
 thrill of rapture after Charlie's lithe and graceful 
 figure, and marked the crisp brightness of his 
 wavy hair, none seemed to have the power to 
 arrest long his roving eye. It was a pity, too, 
 the neighbors said, that Charlie should put off 
 marrying. There was no knowing what might 
 happen. The Joslins were a cur'ous family. 
 There had been many mighty sing'lar things 
 happening at the Joslin place. And Charlie 
 was the last of the name. If he should live to 
 be an old bachelor, he might get a twist into his 
 mind, just as so many of the Joslins had afore 
 him. Not that Charlie was the least bit tetched. 
 He was as sound as a dollar. But there's no 
 telling. And the wise ones shook their heads 
 apprehensively. 
 
 If any of these croakings reached Charlie's 
 ears, he gave them no heed. To him the blow 
 ing of the wind or the twittering of the swallows 
 under the eaves of the old barn were just as 
 worthy of a second thought as the idle gossip he
 
 The Hereditary Barn 
 
 heard among his mates, about the spell that so 
 many thought rested on the Joslin farm. It was 
 a wholesome place, he thought. The sun poured 
 down its fulness, ripening the early harvest ap 
 ples that hung in the dark green leaves of the 
 little orchard, yellowing the grain that rose and 
 fell in the upper field to the wanton-straying 
 wind from the head of the bay, and giving the 
 thick grass in the mowing-field a more intense 
 emerald, day by day. It was a cheerful place, 
 withal, in spite of the dark frown of the historic 
 barn and the evil eye that twinkled in its gable. 
 The hollyhocks and sunflowers drank in and 
 yielded again, with a rapturous gladness of life, 
 the warm sunshine and the languorous summer 
 air. The very bees that kept up their murmur 
 ous song, as they filled themselves along the 
 clover tops, and hied to the warm hives at the 
 edge of the meadow, buzzed a cheery and satis 
 fied hymn of peace and comfort. There was no 
 room in Charlie's merry heart for foreboding of 
 dark shadows of what might yet come. And 
 if the thought of what had gone before ever 
 crossed his mind, it was when, sinking into the 
 tranquil slumbers of healthy and careless youth, 
 he whispered to his innocent self that the jocund 
 world was too good to leave. 
 
 Nevertheless, Master Charlie would not listen
 
 The Hereditary Barn 
 
 to any suggestion that the barn should be torn 
 down. There were timorous spirits in the vi 
 cinity, who regarded the ancestral barn as a 
 blot on the landscape, a rallying point, per 
 haps, for the phantoms and hob-goblins of the 
 air and earth. It is in the semi-farming and 
 seafaring life of a region like that around the 
 head of the Northern Bay that one must look 
 for a sturdy survival of all the old English pro 
 vincial traditions and superstitions. Here it is 
 that one is told of death-warnings, omens, signs 
 in the sky or on the waters, strange noises in the 
 woods, charms, love-potions, and occult devices 
 of various sorts. No wonder that the ghost- 
 dreading folk who passed the Joslin place many 
 times in the year, looked at the barn in which so 
 many tragedies had been enacted, as something 
 quite too uncanny and unwholesome to be left 
 standing ; a standing invitation, so to speak, for 
 the last of the Joslins to come in and hang him 
 self. But the jovial master of the place would 
 not listen to reason. He was not only sure that 
 he wouldn't take the fatal leap from the tradi 
 tional beam, but that nobody else ever would. 
 "He just thinks the world-and-all of that 
 barn," grumbled one of the neighbors, surly 
 Major Payne, who, having come home from the 
 wars minus one leg and plus a pension, had set
 
 The Hereditary Barn 
 
 himself up as oracle of the Northern Bay and 
 Penobscot country. 
 
 " No, he wouldn't have a single board taken 
 off that ere barn, 'cept it rotted off, for no 
 money. I just think that Charlie Joslin con 
 siders that barn as a sort of ancestral tomb. So 
 many of his relations have ended their days 
 there, that's it's got to be a sort of sacred place 
 to him. It may be sacred to him, but it's an 
 infernal nuisance to the rest of the neighbor 
 hood. And that's a fact." 
 
 But there was one member of the Joslin fam 
 ily who really did wish that Charlie would tear 
 down the fateful barn; and that was Nellie 
 Webber. Now Nelly was only a hired girl in 
 the Joslin place. Local usage forbids that we 
 should call her a servant. She was emphati 
 cally one of the family, as all native-born family 
 helps are in the region of which I am discours 
 ing. The handmaid and the farm-hand are 
 part and parcel of the household as long as 
 they stay, sitting at the same board and re 
 spected as the children of the house, provided 
 they are worthy of respect. They are, in fact, 
 the children of other families, whose social 
 standing in the widely scattered community is 
 as high as that in which they temporarily serve ; 
 and of such was Nelly Webber. 
 114
 
 The Hereditary Barn 
 
 Nelly's head was well filled with a goodly as 
 sortment of ghostly and supernatural lore. She 
 could tell the stage of the tide by the cat's eyes ; 
 knew the best time for pig-killing by the phase 
 of the moon ; had heard drowned men's voices 
 in the tide-rips hailing each other ; was certain 
 of the quality of the hay- crop when she had ex 
 amined a bumble-bee's nest, and found signifi 
 cance in every incident of daily routine, from 
 the dropping of a dish-clout to the color of the 
 hen that had stolen her nest away. 
 
 And yet Nelly was not a sour and cross old 
 maid, who took a savage pleasure in revenging 
 on her fellow-beings the disappointments of her 
 own life. Nelly was a merry and winsome fresh- 
 faced country girl, from Blue Hill. She " lived 
 out" because she did not like her step-mother, 
 and because she had views in life that included 
 the Normal School at Fairport, and the expen 
 diture of more money than her second -wife- 
 ridden father would allow her. Nevertheless, 
 Nelly was strongly infected with superstitious 
 notions, and she had a morbid aversion to the 
 Joslin barn, and that aversion feebly extended 
 to the Joslin family. But as her present en 
 gagement was the most eligible that had offered 
 when she set out to "hoe her own row," as she 
 was wont to express it, she waived the Joslin
 
 The Hereditary Barn 
 
 family ghosts, and accepted the situation with a 
 lively sense of danger, which was not wholly 
 without its charm to her adventurous spirit. 
 And the cruel thing about this was, that Char 
 lie loved Nelly. It was a long time before 
 this awful yet pride-compelling fact dawned on 
 Nelly's mind. For the shrewd girl was well 
 aware that Widow Joslin had other views for 
 her only son than a marriage with a portion 
 less girl with a step-mother. Matilda Sellers, 
 heir-presumptive to a farm on the other side of 
 the river, and the ferry -right into the bargain, 
 was a more eligible match for the handsome 
 heir of all the Joslins. 
 
 It was in secret, and in fear of his mother's 
 wrath, that Charlie carried on his wooing of the 
 coy Nelly. Her birthday present from the 
 young man was a " Friendship's Offering," 
 gorgeously bound and gilt-edged, and bearing 
 on its fly -leaf, in hastily pencilled secrecy, 
 " Keep this dark." Sly Master Charlie meant 
 to win the consent of Nelly, and then, secure 
 in the possession of her love, brave the opposi 
 tion of his mother. But the fair maid was ob 
 durate. She vowed and protested that she was 
 " keeping company with no feller; " that she 
 would " have nothing to do with beaux," and 
 that until she had been through at least one 
 116
 
 The Hereditary Barn 
 
 term of the Normal School, when she should be 
 fit to teach, she would have nothing to do with 
 love or lovers. 
 
 "You're a hard-hearted and calculating 
 thing," said Charlie, regarding her with new 
 admiration, kindled by her very refusal to listen 
 to his suit. "You'd be a regular tearer on a 
 farm of our own. Gosh ! how you'd make the 
 help stand round ! ' ' 
 
 But compliments and hints were wasted on 
 the matter-of-fact handmaid. She had laid out 
 her career, and it did not include an early mar 
 riage with anybody, least of all with one of the 
 haunted Joslins. So she shook her dancing 
 curls at Master Charlie, and merrily defied him 
 to come on with the allurements which he 
 promised to add to those already set forth. 
 The saucy beauty was a little pained, perhaps, 
 to be obliged to say ' ' no " to so handsome and 
 likely a young fellow as Charlie. But Nelly 
 had put her foot down, and when that remark 
 ably well-shaped member was in an attitude of 
 figurative determination, it was immovable. 
 She loyally kept from the suspicious mother the 
 secret that the young man had enjoined upon 
 her ; but she inwardly burned to let the gossips 
 know that Charlie Joslin and the well-tilled 
 farm could be hers for the taking. 
 117
 
 The Hereditary Barn 
 
 Nellie's obstinacy only strengthened the de 
 termination of the wilful young man to win 
 her heart. A more observant woman than 
 Widow Joslin would have detected the court 
 ship, vain as it was, that went on under her 
 eyes. But she saw nothing. With a fierce re 
 pression, Charlie went about his round of 
 homely tasks, laying out the work of the farm 
 with a master's hand, and inspiring his helpers 
 with his own cheery and lively temper, and 
 enlivening the old place with his unfailing 
 good -humor and blitheness. But the poor 
 lad's heart was often heavy. Sometimes, when 
 he caught a glimpse of the coldness that shone 
 in Nelly's dark eyes, or was ravished anew by a 
 sudden vision of her beauty, he made a half- 
 choked excuse, and hurried away from the 
 house, to forget his sorrows, if possible, in a 
 long and impetuous walk over the wind-swept 
 hills. 
 
 Many of the sharp - eyed women of the 
 neighborhood noted Charlie's not unfrequent 
 moodiness, fleeting though the clouds were on 
 his sunny face. But they never suspected the 
 cause of his disquiet. Even the loving vigil 
 ance of the mother failed to see that any serious 
 grief moved the young man to behavior un 
 usual; and nobody, not even the cause of all 
 118
 
 The Hereditary Barn 
 
 this perturbation, could know the anguish with 
 which the rejected suitor, bent on gaining a rev 
 ocation that seemed hopeless, buried himself 
 in the hay of that fatal mow, and communed 
 savagely with his fate. If Nelly could, at such 
 times, have seen the exceeding great sorrow of 
 her lover, mayhap she would have been moved 
 to relenting. More likely, she would have been 
 confirmed in her dread of the suicidal Joslins. 
 
 But there was no fear of Charlie. He con 
 templated his future with unclouded eyes, and 
 his wholesome nature, hard though his lot 
 might be, could not play tentatively on the 
 verge of self-destruction. Nothing short of a 
 blow that would be heavy enough to overturn 
 his reason, could tempt the light-hearted 
 Charlie to take a desperate step. And he yet 
 had hope. He believed that Nelly was only 
 trying him. She knew that he had a right to 
 look higher for a wife. She would run no risks 
 of dissatisfaction after marriage. She would 
 not risk any possibility of having a difference in 
 fortune " thrown up at her " when it should be 
 too late to retrace her steps. And without tak 
 ing so low a view of the case, Charlie revolved 
 all these things in his heart, listening ever to 
 the siren that sung of distant but possible bliss. 
 
 Master Charlie had a rude awaking. It was 
 119
 
 The Hereditary Barn 
 
 in haying time, and the last load had that after 
 noon been hauled into the barn, and pitched to 
 lofts and mows. The day's work was done, 
 and silence and peace reigned over the Joslin 
 homestead, save where the heir of the farm 
 lightly leaned at the window and talked with 
 the girl who stood dawdling within the keeping- 
 room. The widow had gone down the road to 
 visit a sick neighbor. The tired farm-hands 
 had sought their unusually early rest. Only 
 Nelly and her persistent lover were left to 
 whisper together in the fast gathering darkness. 
 Great masses of black cloud were rolling up in 
 the westward, and a greenish crepuscular light 
 was filtered over the opposite shore of the 
 Northern Bay, suggesting a thunder-storm and a 
 summer rain. 
 
 No matter ; the hay was all under cover, and 
 everything was made trim and snug for any 
 change that might come in the weather. But 
 this was not in Charlie's mind as he stood 
 there pleading by turns, and by turns bantering 
 the sorely beset young girl. He would not 
 take " no " for an answer, he said, and so he 
 foolishly rushed on to his fate. 
 
 " I should think you might give a man a de 
 cided answer," he said, half pettishly. 
 
 The girl's eyes flashed in the deepening
 
 The Hereditary Barn 
 
 gloom as she tartly replied. "What do you 
 want for an answer, Charlie Joslin? " she cried, 
 with rising anger. " Haven't I told you fifty 
 times that I wouldn't have you, nor any other 
 man, for that matter? And what's more, I 
 wouldn't marry a Joslin if he was to get down 
 on his bended knees ; and you know the reason 
 why. So there, now ! ' ' 
 
 Master Charlie had got his answer. He went 
 away half stunned, for the first time realizing 
 in the cruel speech of the girl the depth that 
 separated her from him. The flash of lightning 
 that suddenly illumined the darkness in the 
 western sky was not more vivid than the beam 
 of light that had laid bare to the young man's 
 mental vision the utter hopelessness of his lot. 
 And, the face of nature changed to eyes that 
 looked without seeing, he stumbled aimlessly 
 and with sluggish step down through the or 
 chard, whose fragrant fruit was brushed by his 
 beautiful bare head as he passed beneath. 
 
 Big drops of rain were falling when Charlie, 
 having mounted the highest upland swale on 
 the farm, turned aimlessly and made his weary 
 way back to the homestead. Reaching it he 
 hesitated to go in, stood wondering which way 
 he would turn next to be rid of the night 
 mare which pressed him down, and then wan- 
 
 121
 
 The Hereditary Barn 
 
 dered away again into the darkness like a lost 
 man. 
 
 The Widow Joslin was scant of breath when 
 she came hurrying home, scolding because the 
 chamber- windows were not closed, although 
 there was a smart shower coming over, and be 
 cause Charlie had not come down the road after 
 her, and she an old woman poking along in the 
 dark. The rain fell in such sheets as it falls in 
 a New England thunder-shower, or in the trop 
 ics, with a whirring and seething sound. The 
 widow was always fidgety in a thunder-storm ; 
 her brother had been killed by lightning, and 
 she never could abide thunder from that day to 
 this. And she went complainingly to the rear 
 of the house to make all fast, for the rain was 
 pelting on the western windows. 
 
 " Land sakes alive ! " she screamed. " What 
 a flash and crash ! I just believe that that struck 
 somewheres nigh here. Did you ever, Nelly ? ' ' 
 and the frightened woman began to drag out a 
 feather-bed, by way of shelter from the electric 
 storm. 
 
 Just then, Nelly, whose face was turned away 
 from the windows, saw a bright red light on 
 the opposite wall of the room. She quickly 
 turned her head, and, with a throbbing heart, 
 cried, " Oh, Mis' Joslin, the barn's all afire ! " 
 122
 
 The Hereditary Barn 
 
 The fatal hour for that ancestral edifice had 
 come. It had been struck by lightning. 
 
 The Widow Joslin's fright vanished at the 
 awful sight of the haunted barn in flames. With 
 something like calmness, she looked, and only 
 said, " I calculate that Charlie is out there 
 fighting the fire." 
 
 The two women snatched such outer cover 
 ings as came to hand, and, while the widow 
 went to the stair-door to waken the men with 
 her shrill call, Nelly rushed out into the rain, 
 crying " Fire ! " with all her small might. It 
 was needless. The bright flames flashed far 
 and wide the signal of a great calamity. The 
 neighbors ran breathlessly to the rescue, bearing 
 the few buckets which formed the only appliance 
 for extinguishing the fires that the region boast 
 ed. It was too late to save the haunted barn. 
 Possibly, the men worked with less enthusiasm 
 than they would have if the structure had been 
 more highly valued in their eyes. They con 
 tented themselves with trying to save the house. 
 The barn, with its stores of hay and grain, 
 must go. 
 
 There was something awesome in the sight. 
 A fire in the country is always more terrible 
 than in the city. The flames are uncontroll 
 able. The best that can be done, usually, is 
 123
 
 The Hereditary Barn 
 
 to confine the destruction to the building in 
 which it has seated itself. But this fire raged 
 on, while the rain fell hissing into the red ruin 
 which it could not check. The thunderous ar 
 tillery of the sky never ceased its booming vol 
 leys as the leaping fires sprang upward into the 
 inky blackness of the night. And as the coun 
 try-folk saw the charred framework of the old 
 barn stand out with startling distinctness in the 
 lurid light, they shivered to think of the trag 
 edies that had taken place under the roof now 
 flying from its place in red cinders, and had 
 crept along that square stick of timber now 
 blazing and crumbling before their eyes. 
 
 Were those fiery ghosts, or only shuddering 
 flames, that went so swiftly off to the eastward, 
 momently lighting up the gloom into which 
 they vanished ? Was that a cloud of burning 
 hay that was swirled upward by the eddying 
 draft of air? or was it some dreadful shape, 
 some image of a dead and gone Joslin, hurry 
 ing away to a new rendezvous ? and the fatal 
 beam, would it never burn quite through and 
 drop, an accursed thing ? Nelly Webber wept 
 as she looked ; wept, she knew not why. And 
 her lively imagination saw dreadful things in 
 numerable in the burning of the barn. And 
 when the reddened skeleton fell in with a crash, 
 124
 
 The Hereditary Barn 
 
 and the volleying tumult of smoke and flame 
 ascended on high, a suppressed shout that might 
 have been a mighty sigh, and was very like a 
 cheer, went up from the awe-stricken throng 
 huddled on the rain-drenched slope before the 
 house. 
 
 But where was the masterful Charlie while 
 all this ruin was being wrought ? The widow 
 missed his voice cheering on the men. The 
 men, even as they hurried about their arduous 
 work, whispered ominously among themselves. 
 And when the fire had died down, the other 
 buildings saved, the horrible brightness quenched 
 in an angry and sullen glare, and the widow 
 had time to recover something of her scattered 
 carefulness for other things than the ruined 
 barn, she cried, with motherly anguish, " Where 
 is that boy ? ' ' 
 
 And where was he? Returning, filled with 
 rage and disappointment, to the group of build 
 ings of which the homestead was one, he had sul 
 lenly opened a side-door of the big black barn 
 and looked in. Its great, darksome interior was 
 filled with the fragrance of new-mown hay. The 
 vivid flashes of lightning that illumined its mys 
 terious depths showed rafter, mow, beam, and 
 bay for an instant with startling distinctness, 
 and then left the gloom deeper than before. 
 125
 
 The Hereditary Barn 
 
 Twitterings of uneasy swallows nesting far up 
 in the roof were the only sounds he heard, save 
 when the thunder-peals rattled overhead. 
 
 " Curse the place ! " It looked more cursed 
 than ever as the young man muttered this mal 
 ediction. He recalled Nelly's scornful answer 
 to his last proposal ; and now, as his eye wan 
 dered vaguely over the solid darkness within, 
 he cursed the day that the barn had been built 
 to stand a mute warning to all of the name of 
 Joslin. 
 
 He stooped, drew a match across a plough- 
 beam with a quick and nervous hand, threw the 
 bit of lighted wood from him at random, darted 
 out of the door, and fled breathlessly up the 
 orchard-covered slope behind the house. Un- 
 minding the pelting of the storm, he sat long 
 on the wet and mossy stone wall that divided 
 the hill-top, watching the flames that lighted 
 all the sky, touched the gables of the farm 
 houses far and near, and glittered on the fast- 
 falling sheets of rain. 
 
 When, all the awkward efforts of the amateur 
 firemen having failed to check the fire, the roof 
 of the old barn fell in and a great fountain of 
 flame spouted up into the heavens, Charlie re 
 covered his spirits, and laughed loud and long. 
 Standing up under the sky, now clearing after 
 126
 
 The Hereditary Barn 
 
 the rain, he cried : " Good-by, old barn ! No 
 more Joslins will hang themselves from your 
 rafters. ' ' Flame had purged the hereditary barn 
 at last. 
 
 The fire was all over. The weary neighbors 
 had been regaled in the farm-kitchen by the 
 hospitable dame and had gone home, leaving 
 two lonely women to their unwonted vigil ; 
 for the mother would sit up until her boy's 
 return, and the maid would fain bear her com 
 pany. It was very strange, they thought, that 
 the tumult of the fire, which had alarmed the 
 country roundabout, from Fairport to Blue 
 Hill, had not recalled the wanderer homeward. 
 Neither of the women dared to confess the sus 
 picion that haunted their thoughts. The hor 
 rible suggestion was unspoken, although each 
 knew what was in the other's mind. 
 
 "You don't s' pose that Charlie went down 
 to the barn to look after things when the storm 
 came up ? " finally asked the widow as she set 
 a candle in the window to guide the coming of 
 her absent son. 
 
 "Deary me, no," replied the startled girl, 
 her voice breaking as she spoke, and her heart 
 contracting with a pang as when the dread 
 possibility was forced upon her. Dame Jos- 
 lin dropped, a forlorn and limp heap, crushed 
 127
 
 The Hereditary Barn 
 
 by a weight of woe, into the corner of the set 
 tle that stood by the chimney-piece. Nelly, 
 for the first time giving voice to her fear, 
 cried, " You don't think Charlie was in the 
 barn, do you ? ' ' There was no answer, and the 
 girl, on her knees by the settle, threw her arms 
 around the sobbing mother, both wordless in 
 their grief. 
 
 Thus they were huddled together in their 
 loneliness as the storm went muttering off down 
 the horizon and the stars came out. Nelly's 
 quick young ear detected a stealthy tread on 
 the door-stone. She raised her tear-stained 
 face. The door swung open, and a shape stood 
 limned against the misty night without. With 
 a wild cry, "My darling Charlie! " the girl 
 flew to him, flung herself against his broad 
 bosom, and clutched at his beautiful head with a 
 wild caress. In that supreme moment of joy 
 she had confessed her love. 
 
 Needless to tell of the thankful mother's wel 
 come, of her willing blessing on the twain, or 
 of her sudden recognition of the tie that bound 
 them all together. Any country-side gossip 
 will tell you of these things if you journey along 
 the Doshan shore and care to ask questions con 
 cerning the dwellers around the head of the 
 bay. These are matters of local history now ; 
 128
 
 The Hereditary Barn 
 
 and the summer-boarder from Fairport, as he 
 saunters along the grassy lanes, or climbs the 
 breezy uplands overlooking the Narrows and 
 Orphan Island, will find berry-pickers and 
 herb-gatherers glad to narrate once more the 
 story of the haunted barn, and how it was struck 
 by lightning the year that the Helen Mar was 
 launched and Zeke Witham's cow fell down the 
 well. 
 
 129
 
 The Phantom Sailor
 
 THE PHANTOM SAILOR 
 I. 
 
 ONE sunny afternoon in October, just after 
 the village school had been dismissed 
 for the day, a sailor-like young fellow, appar 
 ently about twenty-five years old, sauntered 
 down the main street of Fairport, Maine. The 
 town, an old-fashioned seaport, now dead and 
 dull, but in those far-off days tolerably active 
 and bustling, is nestled on the side of a prom 
 ontory which slopes to the bay on the east 
 and to a series of coves and inlets on the west. 
 The promontory is joined to the mainland by 
 a narrow isthmus in the midst of a marsh, and 
 the only highway from the town to the rest 
 of the world passes over a narrow bridge built 
 on the aforesaid neck of land, a canal having 
 been cut across it by the British troops during 
 the occupation of the place in the war of the 
 Revolution. So, when the townsfolk beheld 
 the stranger walking down their main street, 
 they knew that, unless he had dropped from 
 
 133
 
 The Phantom Sailor 
 
 the skies, he must have come into the village 
 over the neck and up the hill. 
 
 He was a handsome young fellow, with curly 
 hair, and with a face tanned and roughened by 
 the winds of many seas. He wore canvas trou 
 sers, once white, a checked shirt with a wide- 
 rolling collar, and a blue jacket cut and trimmed 
 in what is known as the "man-o'-war" style. 
 On his head, jauntily cocked over his dark 
 curls, was a flat knit cap without a visor, and 
 of the pattern known as Scotch. He was in 
 light walking trim, this seafaring stranger, 
 carrying over his shoulder, lightly swinging 
 from a stout stick, a bundle of ' ' dunnage ' ' 
 tied in a bandanna handekrchief. 
 
 Into the back of his right hand had been 
 pricked with a needle a female figure in red, 
 presumably the Goddess of Liberty, leaning on 
 a blue anchor. In the middle of his left hand 
 was a cruel scar, that looked as if it might have 
 been made by the thrust of a cutlass or a board 
 ing-pike. 
 
 We boys had just been let out of school, and, 
 whooping and racing down the common in 
 very ecstasy of animal spirits, we were con 
 fronted by this somewhat unusual apparition. 
 For, since the steam-frigate Missouri had made 
 a call at the old port, several years before, 
 
 134
 
 The Phantom Sailor 
 
 nothing like a man-o' -war's man had been seen 
 in town. The sailors of the fishing fleet, which 
 was then wont to flit in and out of the port, 
 were untidy and rough, and were clad, for the 
 most part, in odds and ends of garments which 
 were, as one might say, amphibious, since they 
 were worn in farming time as well as on their 
 short sea voyages. An occasional ship from Ca 
 diz, or Liverpool, with a cargo of salt, brought 
 only a gang of sailors who never stayed in Fair- 
 port long enough to show any shore clothes, if 
 they had them. This alert young stranger, with 
 his rolling gait and seaman-like rig, instantly 
 arrested and fascinated our boyish attention. 
 We seemed to be brought face to face with the 
 romance of the seas. Here was a bronze- 
 cheeked man who brought with him from dis 
 tant shores the odor of spices and the briny 
 wave. He had seen strange countries, perhaps 
 had fought pirates, nay, had possibly been cast 
 away on coral reefs or in the maelstroms of the 
 northern seas. 
 
 " Hullo, youngsters ! " he said, with a flour 
 ish of his hand and an indescribable roll in his 
 voice, as if it, too, partook of the undulating 
 motion of the sea. So saying, he turned from 
 Main Street into elm-shaded and grassy Court 
 Street, followed at a distance by a small and 
 
 135
 
 The Phantom Sailor 
 
 curious mob of boys. Village boys have a cer 
 tain frank inquisitiveness which cannot be re 
 pressed by any conventional notions and which 
 is very different from the curiosity of all other 
 boys beneath the heavens, so far as my obser 
 vation goes. A stranger in their village is like 
 a new planet swimming into the ken of an 
 astronomer. He must be watched, studied, 
 and assigned his place in the phenomena of 
 nature. So, when the seafarer turned the cor 
 ner by the town -house, and walked down 
 Howe's Lane, every boy within sight ran after 
 him and watched him until he unhesitating 
 ly entered the cottage of old Mother Hub- 
 bard. 
 
 Lest I do despite to the memory of an esti 
 mable old mother in Israel, now long since 
 departed this life, let me say that Mrs. Hub- 
 bard was the widow of the captain of a fishing- 
 smack, the John and Eliza, wrecked on the 
 Banks, with all on board, in 1841, during the 
 gale which is even now remembered with ter 
 ror by the people of the New England coast. 
 One of the Hubbard boys, Elkanah, was lost 
 in the wreck of The Chariot of Fame, off the 
 Bermudas, five years after, and the widowed 
 woman, left with but one son, had vainly tried 
 to keep the young man at home. But Lafayette 
 
 136
 
 The Phantom Sailor 
 
 Hubbard ran away to sea in the bark Tonquin 
 six years before the sailor of my tale walked 
 down the village street ; and he had never been 
 heard of from that day to this. 
 
 Mother Hubbard grew gray, wrinkled, and 
 sad. She took in washing, went out among 
 the neighbors in times of sickness and death, 
 doing such chores as are most likely to fall to 
 the needy and willing hands of a lone and 
 childless widow. If she sometimes paused in 
 the wringing of her clothes to wipe a salt tear 
 that trickled down her nose, or if she turned 
 her face hungrily toward the shining sea, while 
 walking to and fro with some other woman's 
 sick baby, it was because she was thinking of 
 the absent and long-wandering boy. But be 
 yond this, she made no sign of the mourning 
 mother-love that slept within her aged breast. 
 The neighbors, kindly belying their own con 
 victions, would sometimes tell her that Lafay 
 ette might be alive and well in some far-off 
 corner of the world, and that he would yet 
 come home to make her old age happy. But 
 there were too many places in the family circles 
 of Fairport made vacant by wrecks that had 
 never sent a token of the lost ones, for Mother 
 Hubbard to cherish any hope. Her sorrow 
 was common enough ; and so she said, as many
 
 The Phantom Sailor 
 
 another bereft one said, " I shall see him again 
 when the sea gives up its dead." 
 
 In front of Mother Hubbard's door grew 
 clumps of hollyhocks red, white, and yellow. 
 A few of these lingered yet on their tall steins, 
 although the frosts had come. Standing afar 
 off, we saw the sailor pluck one of the bright 
 flowers, look into it with a smile, and cast it 
 from him. Then he knocked on the door 
 sharply with his brown knuckles, and, as soon 
 as it was opened, he strode in and shut it 
 behind him. Drawing nearer, we heard a cry 
 ing and a sobbing within, mingled with the tones 
 of a deep, manly voice. Mother Hubbard, as 
 if she had heard the childish murmurs outside, 
 came to the window and let down the green- 
 slatted shade. But we saw that there were 
 tears on her cheeks. 
 
 From lip to lip the rumor spread : Lafayette 
 Hubbard had come home. He had brought a 
 handkerchief full of gold, and gems, and pre 
 cious things. He had been captured by a 
 pirate, and had served on a slave-trader. He 
 had also been on board of a man-o'-war, and 
 had seen and heard all that belonged to a wan 
 dering sailor's life. It was as delightful as a 
 story-book. Long time we boys hung around 
 Mother Hubbard's cottage, waiting for the fas- 
 
 138
 
 The Phantom Sailor 
 
 cinating sailor to come forth and show himself. 
 Some of the smaller boys grew tired of the long 
 suspense, and went home to their bread-and- 
 milk ; for the short autumnal day was waning 
 apace. 
 
 What went on in that weather-beaten little 
 cottage none of us ever knew. But, as we 
 whiled away the time with knuckle-down and 
 mumble-the-peg, there grew a feeling that this 
 might not be Lafayette Hubbard, after all. 
 Perhaps he was only a wayfarer who had met 
 him at sea and had come to bring tidings of 
 the lost one. Perhaps awful thought ! he 
 had seen Lafayette die in a distant foreign 
 land, and had mercifully come to relieve the 
 poor mother of all uncertainty of her boy's 
 fate. As these speculations grew, the door 
 opened, and the young sailor settled all our 
 doubts by saying, "I won't be gone long, 
 mother." Then he kissed her withered cheek, 
 and we knew that Lafayette Hubbard had come 
 home at last. 
 
 The abashed boys slunk away from the 
 stranger, who smiled cheerily and kindly at 
 them as he lightly swung out of the little front 
 yard, and so down Howe's Lane to Water 
 Street. Good Mother Hubbard, with a shining 
 face, looked after the sailor as he went down 
 
 139
 
 The Phantom Sailor 
 
 the steep lane, smiling and whispering to her 
 self. 
 
 "Is that 'Fayette?" asked three or four 
 boys at once. 
 
 " Yes, that's my boy," said the widow, with 
 a little thrill of pride in her voice. "And I'm 
 sure I'm dreadful thankful to the Lord that he 
 has come home ag'in to his poor old mother. 
 Thank the Lord for all His mercies ! I give 
 him up long ago. But it's him ! It's him ! " 
 
 Mother Hubbard did not commonly encour 
 age the approach of the village boys. We all 
 felt that she was happier when no boy was near 
 her clothes-line laden with snowy linen. She 
 seemed to think that a boy was a destructive 
 and a soiler of all that was bright and clean. 
 Bad boys stoned her hens, and other boys, not 
 so bad, had sometimes trampled down her 
 southernwood and camomile. But her joy now 
 was great. She took us into her little cottage 
 and showed to our wondering eyes a whale's 
 tooth, elaborately carved and etched with de 
 signs of sea-monsters and mermaids. There 
 was likewise a marvellous handkerchief, as it 
 seemed to us, rainbow-tinted and sheeny in 
 the sun. 
 
 "Almost too gay for his poor old mother's 
 neck," said the widow, pensively, as she held 
 140
 
 The Phantom Sailor 
 
 it up to the light. " Then there is a bunch of 
 coral, the rale red coral, boys, not the common 
 white stuff," said the old woman. "Wai, now, 
 I just wonder what has become of that coral," 
 said she, musingly, looking around. " Wai, I 
 guess Lafayette put it away somewheres." 
 
 And she mentioned the name of her long- 
 lost boy with a certain unction which even we 
 youngsters could not help noticing. 
 
 Sammy Hodgson, who always was a forward 
 chap, asked the dame where Lafayette had 
 been so many years. Mother Hubbard took 
 a pinch of snuff, and said, as if addressing some 
 far-off person : 
 
 " I s'pose six years seems like an etarnity to 
 these younkers but, dear me ! dear me ! it 
 don't seem long to an old woman who has 
 seen so many days and full of trouble. ' ' Then 
 rallying herself, as it were, she explained. 
 "Wai, you see, boys, Lafayette was took a 
 prisoner on board one of them pirate ships 
 'that trade and plunder off the coast of Mada 
 gascar. He was sold into slavery somewheres 
 onto the mainland ; Afriky, I s'pose, and he 
 didn't get a chance to get away until about a 
 year ago, and ever since that he has been ex- 
 pectin' to come home to his poor old mother. 
 Thanks be to the good Lord, he's come at 
 
 141
 
 The Phantom Sailor 
 
 last ; and I'm too glad to ask any more ques 
 tions, just now. He's goin' to overhaul his 
 log, as he calls it, and reel me off the whole 
 story, as soon's he gets rested." 
 
 This was delightful. We should hear "the 
 whole story," too, some of these days. Mean 
 while, the sailor who had been in the hands of 
 the pirates, and had been sold into slavery on 
 the coast of Africa, had gone down the lane, 
 so his mother said, to see some of his old 
 friends who lived on Water Street. He stayed 
 at home only long enough to be sure that his 
 mother was alive and well, and to assure her of 
 his being the identical Lafayette Hubbard who 
 had been gone away to sea for six years. There 
 was the scar on his left hand, the scar of a 
 cruel wound ; how well she remembered it ! 
 and how well he remembered it ! that scar 
 made by a fish-hook fastened by some ma 
 licious boy in the backstay of the ship St. Leon, 
 so that when 'Fayette slid down that way to 
 escape the ship's keeper, he was caught by his 
 hand. 
 
 "Dear suz me!" mused the old woman, 
 "that seems only a day or two ago, and it's 
 going on fourteen year ! " 
 
 The sailor-man, turning to the left at the 
 bottom of Howe's Lane, had walked along the 
 142
 
 The Phantom Sailor 
 
 street which skirted the bank overhanging the 
 old wooden wharves of the port. Under the 
 bank were cooper-shops, blacksmith-shops, and 
 the like, and along its upper edge was a row of 
 shabby cottages, the homes of fishermen, 'long 
 shoremen, and people who constituted the lower 
 stratum of Fairport society. Into the house of 
 the Drinkwaters the young sailor walked with 
 out so much as saying " by your leave." 
 
 The head of the Drinkwater family was the 
 wife of old Bill Drinkwater, a dissolute and 
 worthless elderly man, who lounged about in 
 the sunshine, on the wharves, and under the 
 fences, in the summer-time, and who often 
 found his way into the poor-house in the win 
 ter. He was a ne'er-do-weel, but harmless, 
 the butt of the mischievous boys of the port, 
 and an object of contempt to everybody else, 
 including even his wife, a shrill-voiced terma 
 gant, who was the terror of the neighborhood. 
 The eldest boy of the family, Bill, was one of 
 the absent lads of the town who had gone to 
 sea and never had been heard of more. Bill, 
 restive under the lashing of 'his mother's tongue, 
 and ashamed of his father's vagabond habits, 
 had shipped on board an English bark that 
 had put into port, nine years before, with a 
 cargo of salt. Beginning as a cabin-boy, when 
 
 143
 
 The Phantom Sailor 
 
 he had last been heard from he had worked his 
 way up to be able seaman. But this had been 
 four years before, and, in the meantime, news 
 had come that he was on board the United 
 States frigate Preble, which, as the reader may 
 remember, was wrecked in the Bay of Biscay, 
 in 1842. 
 
 Two of the boys who had attended the sailor 
 to the door of Mother Hubbard's cottage had 
 also followed him afar as he walked down the 
 lane. Lafayette had gone to see the Drink- 
 waters. He had undoubtedly brought tidings 
 of the missing William ! He had possibly seen 
 him in foreign lands ! Perhaps Bill and 'Fay- 
 ette had been in captivity together ! The 
 thought was too enchanting to be seriously 
 entertained. 
 
 While Nathan Dyer and Sylvanus Crawford 
 stood and watched the shabby and dirty old 
 house into which 'Fayette had disappeared, the 
 door opened, and four or five of the numerous 
 white-headed brood of Drinkwater children 
 came tearing out and ran, a confused mob, 
 toward the cooper shop, where old Bill chanced 
 to be employed for the day. 
 
 " Our Bill's got home! " shrieked the big 
 gest of the train, Sal Drinkwater, a long-legged 
 girl of nine years. She had heard of her absent 
 
 144
 
 The Phantom Sailor 
 
 brother Bill, but never until this day had she 
 laid eyes on him. " Our Bill's got home! " 
 she cried to the neighborhood, as she sped 
 down the bank, followed by five or six tow- 
 headed infants of assorted sizes. 
 
 " Why, Vene, he's an impostor ! " said Na 
 than, looking at Sylvanus, with distended eyes. 
 An impostor, I think, was really more novel 
 and more captivating to the boyish imagination 
 than a sailor who had been shipwrecked, taken 
 by pirates, and sold into slavery. There was 
 something horribly fascinating about an im 
 postor. But why should we think that 'Fayette 
 Hubbard, otherwise Bill Drinkwater, was an 
 impostor ? Perhaps there was a mistake some 
 where. 
 
 By the time that old Drinkwater, rather the 
 worse for liquor, had unsteadily scrambled up 
 the bank, attended by a band of gabbling in 
 fants, several of the boys who had been inspect 
 ing the premises of Mother Hubbard arrived 
 on the scene and learned from Nathan and 
 Sylvanus all that had been said and done. 
 An excited company of lads accompanied old 
 Drinkwater to his door. The aged vagabond 
 was snuffling and sobbing. 
 
 " Yes," he said, " my pore Bill's come home 
 to his pore old father. I hope's he's brought
 
 The Phantom Sailor 
 
 means with him so's t' keep his pore old father 
 out of the pore-house, come winter." 
 
 " 'T' ain't Bill Drinkwater no more than I 
 am," said Sammy Hodgson, stoutly. "It's 
 'Fayette Hubbard, if it's anybody. He's just 
 been up to Mother Hubbard 's, and she told us 
 it was 'Fayette." 
 
 " Hey ! what's that, you young bunch of 
 oakum ? ' ' cried Bill Drinkwater, senior. ' ' Not 
 our Bill? Shet your head! I tell you, it's 
 our Bill come home to his pore old father." 
 And so, grumbling and wiping his eyes on the 
 cuff of his tarry shirt-sleeve, old Bill stumbled 
 into his own door. Marm Drinkwater, as she 
 was generally called in the town, appeared on 
 the threshold, and, with an angry face, assisted 
 old Bill into the house, saying as she did so : 
 
 " Drunk ag'in ! it's jist what Bill said he 
 expected to see when he got to see you to 
 home." 
 
 The door was closed on the excited family 
 group, and the boys, standing at a safe distance 
 from the house, held a discussion as to what 
 should be done. Some of the bolder ones were 
 for going to Mr. Woods, the town constable, 
 to lodge a complaint against "the impostor." 
 Others thought the selectmen were the most 
 proper persons to be waited upon. But Jo 
 146
 
 The Phantom Sailor 
 
 Murch, making a speaking-trumpet of his 
 hands, in the sailor fashion which was appro 
 priate to the occasion, shouted at the house, 
 " Impostor ! Come out and show yourself! " 
 
 At this, the greater portion of the boys turned 
 and ran a little way to await developments. 
 Marm Drinkwater, scowling, came to the door. 
 Shaking her fist at the panic-stricken huddle of 
 boys, she cried : 
 
 " It's my Bill who has come home, ef you 
 want to know. He's no impostor, I say. Ef 
 any on you boys stay 'round here insultin' 
 decent people, I'll break every bone in your 
 bodies. Don't I know my own flesh and 
 blood ? Now, you jest clear out o' this ! " 
 
 Greatly puzzled, and not without reasonable 
 fears of Marm Drinkwater, the boys reluctantly 
 sauntered off toward the village stores, which 
 stood all in a row at the foot of Main Street. 
 Others of the smaller lads went home, for it 
 was nearly sundown, and the hour for supper 
 was at hand. 
 
 While we were eagerly telling to those who 
 would hear our strange tale of the sailor-man, 
 Sal Drinkwater, the long-legged daughter of 
 the family before mentioned, trotted along 
 the dusty street with a yellow pitcher in her 
 hand.
 
 The Phantom Sailor 
 
 " Hullo ! " cried Sammy Hodgson, "you've 
 got an impostor down to your house ! ' ' 
 
 " I don't know what you mean by an im- 
 positor," said the girl. "It's our Bill. He's 
 come home from Hijero, or some such place, 
 and Pa has sent me over to Stearns's for a pint 
 of rum. So, now ! And there's the money 
 that our Bill give me to pay for it." And the 
 child, crossing the street, exhibited in the palm 
 of her dirty hand, but with evident suspicion 
 of the boys, a big silver dollar of Spanish coin 
 age. "Now, then, I guess you're satisfied. 
 Impositors don't sling 'round big silver dollars 
 like that, do they ? ' ' And, so saying, Sal 
 pranced away, proud of being the sister of a 
 sailor who had come home from strange coun 
 tries, after many years. 
 
 Mother Hubbard, getting out her slender 
 stock of best china, and drawing from its re 
 treat her only jar of preserved quinces for 
 'Fayette had always had a sweet tooth had 
 made ready as inviting a supper for the returned 
 prodigal as could be furnished forth from her 
 stores. The pickles and the quinces were on 
 the table, with the thin slivers of dried beef, 
 and the brown loaf of Saturday's baking. Be 
 fore the open fireplace was a tin of hot biscuits 
 neatly covered with a towel, and the mingled 
 148
 
 The Phantom Sailor 
 
 and delightful odors of Young Hyson tea and 
 toasted red herrings were diffused around. 
 
 The sun had set behind the fort, the revenue 
 cutter in the harbor had hauled down her flag, 
 and old Fitts, the barber, who never allowed a 
 lighted lamp inside his shop, was closing his 
 shutters. In Marm Drinkwater's house, a swarm 
 of hungry children hung around a table on 
 which unwonted luxuries were spread. The 
 Drinkwater children were always hungry, but 
 they had not been so expectant as now since 
 last Thanksgiving Day, when they had had a real 
 turkey for dinner. This was a festal occasion. 
 Bill had come home. There was cake on the 
 table, likewise white bread ; and ham and eggs 
 were frying on the stove. Bill had gone out to 
 see some of the neighbors, leaving behind him 
 a painted snuff-box of radiant colors, brought 
 from foreign parts for his mother, who was 
 always fond of snuff, as Bill well knew. And 
 he had not forgotten to fill the box with the 
 finest Maccaboy, a small bottle of which was 
 also included in his modest kit of gifts. For 
 Sal, born since he went to sea, he had brought 
 a handful of shells love-shells, they were called, 
 delicate pink and white, with a golden tint 
 through the same. 
 
 And, while Mother Hubbard's supper waited 
 149
 
 The Phantom Sailor 
 
 and the biscuits grew cold, and while Marm 
 Drinkwater, having carefully covered the ham 
 and eggs to keep them from the eager fingers of 
 her young ones, gazed down the street and 
 scolded to herself, Lafayette Hubbard, otherwise 
 Bill Drinkwater, sat happily smiling in the poor 
 and tidy room of Aunt Sukey Morey. We all 
 called her Aunt Sukey, although she was neither 
 aunt nor mother to anyone living in Fairport. 
 Her "old man," as she used to call him, was 
 lost at sea, years before, when her only child, 
 Obadiah, was a baby. Obe Morey had grown 
 up, and, not finding congenial work on the 
 land, had gone to sea. He had come and gone 
 on many a safe and prosperous voyage, until 
 one dark and fatal year, when many a young 
 life had been sucked down into the treacherous 
 wave. It was while fishing on the Grand Banks, 
 seven years before, that the Two Sisters was 
 run down by a full-rigged ship, staggering along 
 under double-reefed top-sails ; for a gale was 
 blowing, and the night was thick where the 
 little " bankers " were riding on the fishing- 
 grounds. Adam Bridges, the boy of the 
 schooner's company, was picked up, sole sur 
 vivor of the crew, and was brought into Thom- 
 aston by one of the fleet a few weeks afterward. 
 Aunt Sukey heard the dread news with calm- 
 150
 
 The Phantom Sailor 
 
 ness. She was "used to sorrer," she said, 
 and, in the hearing of the town-folk, she made 
 no lamentation. Her straw bonnet had been 
 decked with bits of black for many a long 
 year, and the only sign of her newer grief was a 
 narrow slab of gray marble in the burying- 
 ground, on which was cut a suitable inscription, 
 ending simply with " Lost at Sea." 
 
 And now, in the old Morey house, which 
 stood at the far end of the village street, the 
 last one in the straggling row, the young sailor 
 sat smiling, while Aunt Sukey stroked his 
 cheek, softly crying, under her breath, " My son, 
 my son, who was dead and is alive again ! " 
 
 In that strange and inexplicable way^in 
 which news gets about a little village, it was 
 speedily known at the other end of the street 
 that Obe Morey had returned from sea. At 
 least, a sailor who resembled Obe had been seen 
 going into the widow's home. He had also 
 been seen chopping wood in the little shed 
 where Aunt Sukey stored her fuel, and when he 
 went into the house carrying an armful of stove- 
 wood, Mercy Mullett, unable longer to re 
 strain her curiosity, made an errand into Aunt 
 Sukey's house. While the old woman was 
 filling a tea-cup with the molasses, to borrow 
 which Mercy pretended to have come, the sly
 
 The Phantom Sailor 
 
 young girl had kept her eyes about her. On 
 the table was a bunch of bright red coral and 
 a bandanna handkerchief, which, as Mercy 
 Mullett well knew, had never before been in 
 Aunt Sukey Morey's possession. 
 
 " This is my boy Obed, Mercy. You don't 
 remember my boy Obed, do you ? No ? Well, 
 I thought not. Land sakes alive ! it's a long 
 time since he was lost to me. Well, Mercy, 
 this is Obed. The good Lord has sent him 
 back to me." And the old woman beamed 
 over the cup of molasses, which the girl nearly 
 spilled on the floor as she stared at the hand 
 some young sailor, who sat and smiled only 
 smiled as if amused by Mercy Mullett's con 
 fusion. 
 
 Alonzo Mullett, a contemporary of Obed 
 Morey, hearing this report from his sister, re 
 fused to go into the cottage of the Morey 
 family, now happily reunited. He straightway 
 went over to Hatch's store and told all that he 
 had heard. Four boys, lingering around the 
 store, drank in with eager ears the tale narrated 
 by Alonzo. It was not possible that this fas 
 cinating young sailor could be the long-lost son 
 of three several women, although each had lost 
 a son at sea, and each had acknowledged him as 
 her own. It was too much for human belief. 
 152
 
 The Phantom Sailor 
 
 It was also too much for the patience of four 
 honest boys. Something must be done to un 
 mask the impostor, for such it was now decided 
 that the stranger must needs be. And so, as 
 the sea-fog was creeping over the town, this 
 volunteer police force proceeded to Aunt 
 Sukey's. The light of a tallow-candle shed its 
 little ray from the window of the house as the 
 boys drew near. The sky beyond was gray with 
 night and fog, and no sound was heard but 
 the ceaseless murmur of the tide upon the beach. 
 
 A hurried council being held, four boys set 
 up a shrill and incoherent yell. There was no 
 reply. Then Sammy Hodgson, throwing into 
 his piping voice as much manliness of tone as 
 he could command, cried, "Bill Drinkwater ! 
 come out and show yourself ! ' ' There was 
 something awesome and uncanny in this irrev 
 erent invocation of the name of one who had 
 long since been numbered with the dead, and 
 when the door was thrown open and the sailor 
 rushed forth into the darkness and the fog, 
 each individual boy took to his heels and ran 
 as if for his life ; nor did they stop until each 
 was safe at home, where he told his tale. 
 
 Aunt Sukey had been bustling about her nar 
 row room, making ready a late supper, for 
 she had partaken of an early and frugal tea be-
 
 The Phantom Sailor 
 
 fore her long-lost Obed had shown himself at 
 her door. While she chatted with him, learn 
 ing of his -strange adventures on the Spanish 
 Main, where he had been cast away twice, and 
 where he had been severely ill with the Panama 
 fever, she toasted a bit of salt codfish, pounded 
 it soft with a mortar-pestle, buttered it, and put 
 it by the fire ; and, while she was carefully 
 measuring off a drawing of tea, using the top of 
 the tea-caddy for a measure, smiling to think 
 that she need not be so economical now that 
 Obed had come home, a shrill cry, as in de 
 rision of her joy, rose on the evening air with 
 out. 
 
 " Land sakes alive ! " she cried. " What's 
 them pesky boys up to now, I wonder ? " 
 
 Then, as she wondered, she heard, with a 
 chilly shiver creeping over her, Sam Hodg 
 son's demand that Bill Drinkwater Bill Drink- 
 water who had been drowned at sea should 
 come forth. 
 
 She put down the tea-caddy, dropping some 
 of the precious grains of her Souchong as she 
 did so, and looked at the young sailor. With 
 something that sounded like an oath, he seized 
 his cap and dashed out of the door ; and he 
 never was seen in Fairport from that day to 
 this.
 
 II. 
 
 ELEVEN years afterward, I had completed 
 my education in school, academy, and 
 college, and was at work, with all the kindling 
 ambition of a tyro, on the great New England 
 newspaper, which my readers will recall (at least 
 the elder ones will), when I mention the name of 
 The Palladium. It was my ambition, secretly 
 confided only to my own heart and to Angelina, 
 to be the editor-in-chief of The Palladium. 
 But that consummation, so devoutly wished, 
 was very far off, even to the most sanguine of 
 young reporters ' ' working on space ' ' and paid 
 at a very low rate indeed. But nothing is im 
 possible to a young fellow who has his fortune 
 to carve out for himself, and who has a strong 
 imagination and vigorous health. Moreover, 
 Angelina's father, who was employed in the 
 custom-house, under a Whig administration, 
 had promised us that we should be married 
 when I should be promoted to a " regular sit," 
 which meant that this desired event could only 
 take place when I was on a weekly salary. So,
 
 The Phantom Sailor 
 
 of course, a great deal was possible ; for a great 
 deal was to be done. 
 
 The ' crisis came for me most unexpectedly 
 one wild and stormy March evening. I had 
 planned to help Charley Whiting on the musi 
 cal and dramatic that night, for that would give 
 me a chance to take Angelina to see Warren, and 
 I had promised to call for her if Charley would 
 only agree to my proposition. 
 
 At half-past six, just as Charley came panting 
 up the stairs that led to the editorial rooms, old 
 Sanger came out of his den with a bit of ship 
 news in his hand. Sanger was usually known 
 as "Old Salt," for he was the shipping-news 
 editor, and knew, or thought he knew, more 
 about ships, shipping, and navigation than any 
 other living man. Seating himself carelessly 
 on one corner of the musical and dramatic desk 
 (and only Old Salt and the editor-in-chief were 
 allowed this familiarity), Mr. Sanger asked : 
 
 " Does anybody in the city-room know any 
 thing about the reported fall of the Sargent's 
 Ledge light-house ? ' ' 
 
 Of course, nobody knew anything of the kind. 
 If he had, it would have been his duty to tell of 
 it as soon as he could run to the office. For 
 The Palladium prided itself on being ahead of 
 every other newspaper in the United States, 
 156
 
 TJ)e Phantom Sailor 
 
 not to say the world. Jerry Collins did say, 
 however, that there was a rumor down among 
 the wharves and docks that Sargent's Ledge 
 light had gone down in the March gale that had 
 prevailed for three days past. But Jerry, who 
 was a born newspaper man, and who, poor fel 
 low ! was killed at Port Hudson years afterward, 
 while in General Banks's command, had not 
 been content to abandon this as a rumor until 
 he had run the thing down to what seemed to 
 have been merely the statement of an ancient 
 mariner that " if this here gale continnered, 
 Sargent's Ledge light would hev to go." 
 
 Then Old Salt read, with great deliberation, 
 from his slip as follows : " Herm. brig William 
 & Sally, from Fairport, Maine, with a cargo of 
 codfish to Hemmenway and Sons, February 27, 
 reports heavy weather outside ; shipped a sea in 
 N. W. Channel, and lost one able seaman, 
 Timothy Holbrook, overboard ; also deck-load 
 of lumber. The light on Sargent's Ledge was 
 not burning. Snow flying thick at the time, 
 and heavy sea running. ' ' 
 
 " The skipper of the William & Sally may 
 have been deceived," said Mr. Sanger, shaving 
 his cheek with the edge of his right hand, as 
 was his wont, while he scrutinized the bit of 
 paper before him. " He may have been de-
 
 The Phantom Sailor 
 
 ceived, for the snow was blinding, and it must 
 have been dusk when he passed Sargent's Ledge, 
 off Sequansett. ' ' 
 
 The old man, solemn with importance, 
 passed into the Chief's room, from which there 
 presently came a summons for Jerry Collins to 
 appear. There was a long and anxious consul 
 tation, at the end of which the Chief came 
 forth, followed by Old Salt and Jerry. 
 
 " There is a reasonable ground for believing 
 that Sargent's Ledge light-house has been swept 
 away by the gale," said the editor-in-chief, 
 " and it is very important that The Palla 
 dium should have the facts. I have decided to 
 send one of you young gentlemen to Sequansett 
 to ascertain the facts. Mr. Guild, what time 
 does the next train for Sequansett leave the 
 Old Colony depot ? ' ' 
 
 Mr. Guild consulted the time-table and said : 
 
 " Half- past six, sir." 
 
 "Half-past six!" said the Chief, with a 
 faint show of excitement. " Half-past six ! 
 Why, zounds, sir, it is now twenty-seven min 
 utes past ! ' ' 
 
 Guild bowed his head meekly, as if he were 
 responsible for the lateness of the hour, and 
 murmured : 
 
 "True, sir." 
 
 158
 
 The Phantom Sailor 
 
 "And this is the last train to-night, I take 
 it, Mr. Guild?" 
 
 " No other train out until eight-twenty to 
 morrow morning, sir," answered Guild, sadly. 
 
 A solemn stillness prevailed in the office, 
 and we could hear the ticking of the old clock 
 in the tower far above our heads. It was, in 
 deed, a crisis. In those days there were no 
 telegraphic wires ramifying through every part 
 of the country. One line connected two or 
 three of the largest cities on the Atlantic sea 
 board, and over this we received, every night 
 while Congress was in session, at least two hun 
 dred words, giving the fullest summary of all 
 the important news from the national capital. 
 There were very few railroads, and many queer 
 devices, unknown in these modern days, were 
 resorted to by the news-gatherers. Our Euro 
 pean advices were sent from Cape Race by 
 carrier-pigeons, and the arrival of an ocean 
 steamer mail, with a new part of one of Charles 
 Dickens' s stories, was an event to be celebrated 
 by the issue of an extra edition of The Palla 
 dium. 
 
 But here was a bare possibility that Sargent's 
 Ledge light-house had been destroyed, and The 
 Palladium would be obliged to come out in 
 the morning with nothing more than a para- 
 
 159
 
 The Phantom Sailor 
 
 graph beginning with that hateful phrase, " It 
 is rumored." It was not to be thought of. 
 Sargent's Ledge light-house was one of the 
 wonders of modern engineering and architect 
 ure. It was built on a set of iron stilts, so to 
 speak, the iron bars being sunk deep into a 
 ledge of rock, and the light-house perched at 
 the apex of the structure, like a martin-box at 
 the top of a pole. There must be a light on 
 Sargent's Ledge, and the contriver of this 
 structure had offered to show his faith in its 
 power to endure the storms of the Atlantic by 
 taking up his permanent residence in the house. 
 But there were reasons why this handsome offer 
 could not be accepted. And now to think that 
 the famous light-house should be swept away 
 and The Palladium not be able to say any 
 thing about it next morning ! The thought 
 was madness. 
 
 " We'll have a special engine ! " cried the 
 Chief. 
 
 It was as if we had had an electric shock. 
 Every man started, and each was only restrained 
 by the severe discipline of the office from crying 
 "hurrah!" In those far-off days, newspapers 
 did not run special trains or have special de 
 spatches, and the determination of our illus 
 trious Chief to hire a special locomotive to go 
 1 60
 
 The Phantom Sailor 
 
 to Sequansett for the verification of a rumor 
 was Napoleonic. 
 
 " What is the run to Sequansett, Mr. Guild ? ' ' 
 asked the Chief. 
 
 "An hour and forty minutes, sir," said 
 Guild. 
 
 ' ' An hour and forty minutes will give us 
 time to spend two hours in Sequansett gather 
 ing the news, if there is any (and let us hope 
 there is none)," said the Chief, reverently, 
 ' ' and time to get back to the office at one 
 o'clock in the morning. Mr. Gay, you may 
 keep back the forms until two-fifteen not one 
 minute later. We shall be back in time to 
 have the facts, whatever they may be, in every 
 edition of the paper. ' ' 
 
 This was decisive and to the point. But the 
 Chief had not intimated who was to go on the 
 expedition of high emprise. I thought of An 
 gelina and of Angelina's father's promise, and 
 perhaps I showed in my expression my eager 
 ness to go. Looking around the office, with a 
 queer air of searching for somebody, the Chief 
 said : 
 
 " We will give this task to the youngest man 
 on the paper. Mr. Rivers, take your instruc 
 tions from Mr. Gay. Go to the publication 
 office for money to pay your incidental ex- 
 161
 
 The Phantom Sailor 
 
 penses. I shall send Mr. Oliver at once to the 
 station to engage the locomotive to carry you 
 on your journey, and I wish you great success 
 and as pleasant a trip as can be expected under 
 the circumstances." So saying, the Chief 
 turned and re-entered his private office. 
 
 To say I was delighted at my unexpected 
 good luck, even transported, would faintly de 
 scribe my elation. My associates crowded 
 around me with hurried congratulations, wish 
 ing me success, and expressing their envy of 
 my great good fortune. I felt like a young 
 Columbus, fitted out with a fleet and gifted 
 with all the means for a voyage of discovery. 
 
 " What if there is nothing in the rumor ? " 
 Of course it was Guild who threw this damper 
 on my spirits. Guild was always saying un 
 pleasant things. 
 
 "Then The Palladium will be the only 
 paper to say to-morrow morning that there is no 
 truth in the rumor that Sargent's Ledge light 
 has been destroyed," said Old Salt, proudly. 
 
 "Good for you, Old Salt!" cried Jerry 
 Collins. " Spoken like a true newspaper man. 
 We will have a display head, whatever happens. 
 It will be a big sensation, anyhow ; and the 
 old Palladium as usual, will lay over all the 
 other papers." 
 
 162
 
 The Phantom Sailor 
 
 But there was no time for idle talk. I must 
 be away from the station by seven o'clock, at 
 the very farthest, and every minute now was 
 precious. I had no time to go to see Angelina, 
 but I scribbled a line to her on the back of a 
 visiting-card as I rumbled and rolled in an om 
 nibus that took me within a half-square of my 
 lodgings. I informed Angelina that I had 
 been sent out of town on a most important 
 errand, and that we must give up seeing War 
 ren, for that night, at least. My landlady's 
 son, a freckled-faced urchin of tender years, 
 was glad to run with this message, stimulated 
 by a promise of handsome reward. With joy 
 and excitement I hurried on a few extra wraps, 
 for the night was bitter cold, and I was soon 
 rushing out of the Old Colony depot on a loco 
 motive bound for Sequansett. 
 
 There is no need to tell of the flying and ex 
 citing trip to the south shore. The engine 
 rocked from side to side, unbalanced as she 
 was by any weight of train. The snow flew 
 over the roof of the little cab in which we were 
 ensconced, the engineer and the fireman taking 
 turns at keeping a lookout ahead. But there 
 was no danger of a collision ; we had the road 
 to ourselves until next morning at eight-twenty. 
 There was no telegraph wire, however, to warn 
 
 163
 
 The Phantom Sailor 
 
 of our coming, and it was within the bounds 
 of possibility that some other special engine 
 might be out in the thick, dark night on a 
 mysterious errand. Breathless we sped along, 
 plunging into the darkness, shooting through 
 quiet and sleeping villages, or anon rushing 
 past a red light in the storm which showed 
 where tavern-tipplers were lingering over their 
 hot toddy, loath to go home. 
 
 I dozed in a corner of the cab, even the ex 
 citement of the trip failing to keep me awake, 
 for I had been up late the night before, and 
 the monotony of the rattle of the locomotive 
 lulled me to sleep. The hour and forty min 
 utes stretched to two hours before the engineer, 
 shaking me by the shoulder, cried, ''Look 
 sharp, young feller, we're coming into Sequan- 
 sett medders." 
 
 Sure enough, I recognized the long stretch 
 of salt meadows, now dimly seen through the 
 driving snow, which skirt the ancient town of 
 Sequansett. The engine was slowed up as we 
 rumbled over the bridge that spans Smith's 
 Run, when the fireman, turning his gaze sea 
 ward for an instant, cried, " By Jehoshaphat ! 
 the light's gone out on Sargent's Ledge ! " 
 
 The village of Sequansett was as quiet as the 
 grave when we rattled into the engine-yard 
 164
 
 The Phantom Sailor 
 
 near the station, to the great amazement of the 
 only watchman on duty. To this man, rough 
 and amphibious in appearance, I at once ad 
 dressed myself. 
 
 "Tell me," I said with an anxious feeling 
 that my errand might, after all, be bootless, 
 " how about Sargent's Ledge light? Has any 
 thing happened to it ? " 
 
 " Happened to it? " said the cynical half- 
 salt, half-farmer, "Wai, yes, she's gone to 
 pieces, slick and clean ; nothin' left but a passel 
 of crooked braces. But you can't see 'em 
 too thick to see anything." 
 
 Then it was true ! My journey had not 
 been undertaken for nothing. The Palla 
 dium would have the only account of the loss 
 of Sargent's Ledge light, to-morrow morning. 
 But how to get that account ! The Amphibious 
 could not tell me anything about it. He only 
 knew that the light-house was gone, and that 
 the people in the village could not have seen 
 it go, even if they had been watching for 
 the catastrophe. The weather had been thick 
 for two days. "As thick as all possessed," 
 the Amphibious said. It had been reported, 
 however, that Dan More, "a lobsterer," who 
 lived at the edge of the shore, "just be 
 yond the ma'sh," knew something of the affair. 
 
 165
 
 The Phantom Sailor 
 
 It was said that he had seen the light-house 
 fall. 
 
 ' ' Was not anybody saved from the people 
 in the light?" 
 
 " Nary one. Seven on 'em. Not one ever 
 heerd on since the storm set in. Pore critters ! 
 They all went together. ' ' 
 
 From the Amphibious I learned the way to 
 Dan More's hut, a lonely habitation where lived 
 a recluse, in ill repute with the villagers, who 
 seemed to resent his solitariness as something 
 like a personal slight upon the whole body pol 
 itic. He was "sort of shaky in his upper 
 story," the Amphibious said, plainly meaning 
 that he was different from all the rest of the 
 villagers in his non-communicativeness. Here 
 was an unpromising subject for an enterprising 
 reporter. But the difficulty of the situation 
 only inspired me with new zeal as, leaving di 
 rections with the engineer as to our future 
 movements, I pushed my way across a dreary 
 waste of snow. 
 
 After a long struggle with the blasts that 
 blew across the shore and marsh, and with the 
 uneven and half-obliterated road to the beach, 
 breathless and tired, I reached the door of a 
 cabin, one half of which had been adapted from 
 a ship's caboose and the rest from the spoil of 
 1 66
 
 The Phantom Sailor 
 
 farmer's fences, and all of which was as black 
 and forbidding as a witch's hovel. A vigorous 
 knock on the door of the hut brought no re 
 sponse. A few kicks and thumps were no more 
 successful. All was darkness and silence. Per 
 haps the old man was not at home. And he 
 was the only person who could give The 
 Palladium the account that must be printed 
 to-morrow morning ! 
 
 I tried the latch of the door. It was fast, 
 but the rattle of this primitive contrivance evi 
 dently aroused the solitary inmate, for he called 
 out : 
 
 " Hullo, there! " 
 
 " Does Mr. Daniel More live here? " was my 
 answer. 
 
 " No, but old Dan More lives here," was the 
 surly reply, and I heard the creaking of boards, 
 as though somebody was getting out of bed and 
 shuffling over the floor. Then there was an un 
 barring of the door, and, by the reflected light 
 from the snow, I caught a glimpse of a shaggy 
 figure half-clad and evidently just aroused from 
 sleep. 
 
 ' ' I have come down from the city, Mr. 
 More," I said, "to get the particulars of the 
 destruction of the Sargent's Ledge light. I un 
 derstand that you saw it ? " 
 
 167
 
 The Phantom Sailor 
 
 " Yes, I seen it go, and an everlastin' shame 
 it was ; but how did you come from the city at 
 this time o' night ? The last train got in more'n 
 half an hour ago. Don't b'lieve you." And 
 the man looked at me with an unpleasant ex 
 pression of suspicion, perceptible more in his 
 tone of voice than on his face, for it was too 
 dark to see that. 
 
 " I came down on a special engine," I ex 
 plained. " I belong to The Palladium, and we 
 want to print an account of the disaster in the 
 paper to-morrow morning." 
 
 " Wai, I swan to man ! " said Daniel More. 
 "Come in." 
 
 Once inside, and in the presence of the man 
 who had seen the light-house go to wreck, I 
 felt my spirits rise. More struck a light, and, 
 as the feeble rays of the candle illumined his. 
 face, I saw a handsome though sea-beaten vis 
 age, black curls plentifully mingled with gray, 
 and a full gray beard that swept his naked and 
 hairy breast. There was something familiar 
 in his manner, as if he were someone whom I 
 had met in a previous and far-off state of exist 
 ence. 
 
 Holding the candle close to my face, as if to 
 scan every lineament of it, he looked me care 
 fully all over, from the fur cap on my head to 
 1 68
 
 The Phantom Sailor 
 
 the snow-covered boots on my feet, and said 
 again, ' ' Wai, I swan to man ! ' ' 
 
 Then, placing the light on a table made from 
 a flour-barrel, he stirred open the fire from the 
 ashes and embers, threw on an armful of drift 
 wood, and said : 
 
 "Wai, youngster, begin." 
 
 "But I want you to begin," I said, with 
 some impatience, for the precious time was fast 
 slipping away, and this ponderous old fellow 
 showed no sign of being ready to communicate 
 anything. " Now then, lie down in your bunk 
 there, and tell me what you know about the de 
 struction of the light-house ; that's a good fel 
 low ; when did it happen ? ' ' 
 
 Daniel More deliberately tumbled into his 
 bunk, looking curiously at me, and making once 
 more his remark of astonishment. Then, slow 
 ly settling himself for a chat, he asked : 
 
 ' ' Be you one of them reporters one of them 
 fellers that write for the papers ? ' ' 
 
 I told him that I was, and that I should be 
 very much obliged if he would tell me his story 
 as soon as possible, as I must get back to the city 
 by one o'clock at the very latest. With that I 
 whipped out my note-book and pencil, seated 
 myself on a box near the side of the bunk, and 
 waited for Dan to begin. 
 
 169
 
 The Phantom Sailor 
 
 " It was a wild and stormy day nigh the end 
 of March when an oncommon gale from the nor- 
 nor-east " he began. 
 
 " Hold on ! hold on ! " I cried, in dismay. 
 " That's not the way. Tell me just what you 
 saw, in your own language. I'll put in the big 
 words afterward." 
 
 " What, young man ! " said Dan, raising 
 himself on his elbow and looking incredulously 
 at me. " Do you mean to say that my story 
 isn't a-goin' into the paper? " 
 
 " Certainly it is, but not in that way. Can't 
 you understand ? I shall put in your story and 
 not your talk." 
 
 With some difficulty I impressed on the puz 
 zled man the idea that he was to tell me all he 
 knew in as simple language as possible. Then 
 he settled himself, and went on with his tale. 
 
 It is not necessary that I should retell the old 
 and tragical story of the wreck of Sargent's 
 Ledge light-house. Daniel More was the only 
 witness who beheld from the shore the fearful 
 disaster wrought by that wild March storm. His 
 tale has become, in the lapse of years, a sea-side 
 classic. And I am proud to say that the narra 
 tion first found publication in the columns of 
 The Palladium. 
 
 But Dan had been out all day, and during 
 170
 
 The Phantom Sailor 
 
 the night before, doing what he could to find 
 the bodies of the lost and wrecked from the 
 light-house. I did my best to write down his 
 exact words, but he repeated himself so often, 
 and so doubled on himself, and used so many 
 localisms, that it was difficult for me to keep the 
 run of his talk. Every now and then, after try 
 ing to straighten out what I had written, I would 
 raise my eyes from the fish-box which served as 
 a writing-table and cry, " Now go on, Mr. 
 More ! ' ' only to find him fast asleep. The night 
 was wearing away, and I would fly at him, shake 
 him vigorously. Then he would cry, " Avast 
 heavin' ! " and begin again with a sleepy igno 
 rance of all that had gone before. 
 
 Once, with the perspiration oozing from my 
 forehead, as I began to fear that I might fail, 
 after all, I was aroused by a tremendous snore. 
 I looked at the mariner with something like an 
 guish. Here was this unfeeling wretch fast 
 asleep, and everything depended upon his story 
 being printed in The Palladium next morning. 
 I thought of Angelina, of Angelina's father in 
 the custom-house, of the fellows in the office 
 who would envy or deride me, according to my 
 success or my defeat, and of the Chief, who 
 could make or unmake me. And there was that 
 aged ruffian fast asleep. 
 
 171
 
 The Phantom Sailor 
 
 In his sleep he looked more than ever like 
 the handsome young fellow whom I must have 
 met in some previous state of existence. As I 
 shook him again, my eye fell upon his right 
 hand, on the back of which was tattooed the 
 device of a red lady leaning on a blue anchor. 
 Like a flash, it all came back to me. For an 
 instant I forgot the light-house on Sargent's 
 Ledge, The Palladium, and even Angelina and 
 Angelina's father. I saw a bronze-cheeked 
 and handsome young sailor sauntering down 
 the green lanes of Fairport, swinging his bun 
 dle and stick as he walked into Mother Hub- 
 bard's door-way. 
 
 Turning heavily, the old impostor muttered, 
 "It's all along o' them blasted cables that the 
 lubbers rigged out for braces. If it hadn't been 
 
 for them, Sargent's Ledge light " The 
 
 rest of the sentence was lost in an inarticulate 
 gurgle. 
 
 Shaking him once more, I bawled into his 
 ear: 
 
 " Halloo, there ! how are you, 'Fayette Hub- 
 bard?" 
 
 Mr. Daniel More struggled feebly into wake- 
 fulness, and said, peevishly : 
 
 ' ' Le' me alone ! I thought you had got 
 through." 
 
 172
 
 The Phantom Sailor 
 
 And he was sinking off to sleep again when I 
 cried : 
 
 " How are you, Bill Drinkwater? How are 
 you, Obe Morey? " 
 
 The aged sinner sat up, wide awake. 
 
 " Oho ! " he laughed with glee. " I guess 
 you're a Fairport boy." 
 
 I acknowledged that I was, and, although the 
 pressure of my errand came back upon me with 
 redoubled force, and the time was fast flying, I 
 could not help asking him why he had been 
 tempted to personate three missing men, and 
 thus to cheat three poor women into the re 
 newal of an old grief. 
 
 " Wai, you see, youngster," he explained, 
 " I was a-voyagin' with all three on 'em. They 
 was smart boys. I met 'em, one after another, 
 in them wild days of mine. We was chums, 
 we was. That is to say, we was messmates, at 
 odd times, and friends allus. When I heerd 
 tell that 'Fayette Hubbard was lost on the 
 coast of Afriky, I felt mighty bad. And, three 
 year afterward, when I was told that Bill Drink- 
 water and Obe Morey, all from the same place, 
 had gone to Davy Jones's locker, it seemed 
 kind o' like a special providence. Yes, it 
 did." 
 
 " And so you thought it would help things 
 
 173
 
 The Phantom Sailor 
 
 along if you went to Fairport and lied to the 
 poor old women ? ' ' 
 
 " Avast heavin' there, young feller ! I didn't 
 do no such a thing. I was in Belfast, dis 
 charged sick, and was to be sent to the Chelsea 
 Hospital. But I was took in hand by a clever 
 old lady. She kep' a sailor boardin' -house, 
 and set me on my pins ag'in. Just then the 
 Old Nick happened to put it into my head that 
 I might take a run over to Fairport and see the 
 old folks. I had never be'n there, and I 
 thought I would go over and see what it was 
 like. The Fairport boys as you hev mentioned 
 was allus a-braggin' about the place. So I 
 made a bargain with a lumberman to set me 
 ashore as he went up the Penobscot to Bangor. 
 I had be'n to Bangor before." 
 
 " And you walked down and across the Neck 
 to Fairport ? ' ' 
 
 " Exactly. I walked down to Fairport, and 
 on my way I thought it might be a good joke 
 to see if I couldn't pass myself off as one of 
 them missin' boys. But Lord! young feller," 
 and here the old scamp cackled loud and long, 
 "I didn't think to play this off on the very 
 mothers that bore 'em. But I did, though 
 blow me if I didn't ! " 
 
 There was no longer any need to shake Mr.
 
 The Phantom Sailor 
 
 Daniel More in order to keep him awake. 
 Even his surliness melted away. He sat up in 
 his bunk, told me his tale as connectedly and 
 lucidly as he could, and, while I labored with 
 my pencil, he diverted himself, in the intervals, 
 with looking at me and grinning silently. Once 
 or twice he roared with laughter, and then, 
 checking himself, cried : 
 
 " But I fooled 'em, all three blow me if I 
 didn't ! " 
 
 Perhaps he felt a pang of remorse, too, for he 
 once put on a serious look, and said : 
 
 " Wai, youngster, if it's any favor to you, 
 a Fairport boy, like my mates as was, I'll give 
 you the best I've got by way of story. But, 
 Lord ! young feller, I can't spin a yarn like I 
 used to could ! But I did fool them old ladies 
 all three on 'em." 
 
 Daniel went on with his story, bit by bit, 
 and I had it all in hand. I knew that Jerry 
 Collins was hard at work in the office over 
 hauling the files of The Palladium and get 
 ting into shape all of the collateral branches 
 of the subject in anticipation of whatever I 
 might bring back from Sequansett. I could 
 give the finishing touches to my manuscript 
 as we bowled along in the engine, homeward 
 bound.
 
 The Phantom Sailor 
 
 I gathered up my notes with feverish haste. 
 Daniel assisted me with my Avraps, with rough 
 officiousness. Stroking down my coat-skirts 
 with a bear-like familiarity, he said : 
 
 "Wai, I'm dretful glad to hev seen ye, 
 young feller, and, if you ever come this way 
 ag'in, jest drop in and see a feller." 
 
 I shook him heartily by the hand, assured 
 him that I would send him two copies of 
 The Palladium next morning, and would come 
 again and see him, some day, and get all of his 
 marvellous tale of the sea. 
 
 I had solved two mysteries, and I felt my 
 self repaid for years of waiting and for much 
 anxiety and labor. With something of the 
 thrill of a conqueror I ran across the howl 
 ing waste of snow and marsh, and Daniel 
 More, with his hands at his mouth, speaking- 
 trumpet-fashion, bawled after me: "I say, 
 shipmet, give my love to my three mothers 
 when you go to Fairport ag'in." The con 
 victed impostor had no pangs of contrition, 
 after all. 
 
 My return to The Palladium office, bur 
 dened with the tale of the destruction of Sar 
 gent's Ledge light-house, was like a triumph. 
 I was in time for the morning edition, and 
 Old Salt received me with genuine enthusiasm. 
 176
 
 The Phantom Sailor 
 
 Even Guild relaxed a little from his stately 
 professional dignity, and Jerry fairly danced 
 with joy. The Chief had gone home, leaving 
 minute directions as to the use to be made of 
 my news, whatever it might be. When all 
 was done, and the paper had gone to press, 
 with extra precautions taken against the pur 
 loining of our news from an early copy of 
 The Palladium by some wicked rival, I sought 
 my lodgings, and, proud and happy, sunk 
 into the sleep of the just, my last thought 
 being of the elation with which the Chief would 
 read next morning, in the old Palladium, the 
 exclusive account of the destruction of Sar 
 gent's Ledge light-house. It all came true. 
 We had the news to ourselves, and took the 
 town by storm. 
 
 When I think of those unhappy creatures 
 who perished in the wreck of the light-house, 
 and remember that their fate was so closely 
 linked with mine, I cannot suppress a feeling 
 of sadness. Perhaps I might have gained my 
 promotion and Angelina in some other way. 
 But all that is conjectural. It always seemed 
 to me that if the fall of the light-house had 
 not come just as it did, and if I had not 
 been sent just as I was, and I had not found 
 that impostor of the sea just as I did, every - 
 177
 
 The Phantom Sailor 
 
 thing in life would have been very different 
 with me. 
 
 And that is the reason why I proposed to 
 Angelina, a year or two afterward, that Sar 
 gent's Ledge should be perpetuated in the 
 family. But Angelina said, with a great show 
 of merriment, that Sargent's Ledge was not a 
 proper name for a child. She had her own 
 way, of course ; but, somehow, the youngster 
 is always known about the house as the Phan 
 tom Sailor ; and this is the reason, I suppose, 
 why he declares that he will go to sea as soon 
 as he is big enough. 
 
 178
 
 The Honor of a Family
 
 THE HONOR OF A FAMILY 
 
 <<r I ^HREE lights a-burnin', and nary ship 
 
 JL at sea ! " So saying, the mistress of 
 the poor-house blew out one of three candles, 
 all in a row. 
 
 Three old women looked up from their sew 
 ing, and the least aged said : 
 
 "Land sakes alive, Mis' Rogers! don't the 
 taown find us in candles ? What's the use of 
 bein' so pesky stingy abaout light? " 
 
 " The town finds you poor folks in candles, 
 but not to waste," said the matron, with sever 
 ity. "And 'wilful waste makes woful want' 
 which is the reason why some folks is in the 
 poor-house instead of bein' to home and under 
 their own ruff." 
 
 This pointed rebuke silenced the old woman, 
 who resumed her sewing, which was on a 
 long white garment, ghastly and cold. One of 
 the old women who was sewing on the other 
 end of the work spoke up and said : 
 181
 
 The Honor of a Family 
 
 " This shroud is e'enamost done, and I cal'- 
 late it'll be wanted to-night. I looked at 
 Emmy a little while ago, and she seems to be 
 failin' fast. Don' t you think so, Mis' Rogers ? ' ' 
 
 The poor-house mistress, with a shade of im 
 patience in her voice, replied : 
 
 " Wai, I s'pose so. It's low tide at two in the 
 mornin', and I rather guess she'll go out on the 
 ebb tide. They mostly do. Goodness knows 
 she's been long enough a-gittin' ready. The 
 town of Fairport had no call to throw her onto 
 us ; and if I had been one of the selectmen of 
 Murchville I'd have kerried it into the county 
 court afore I'd have stood it." 
 
 The idea of Mistress Rogers carrying an ap 
 peal into the court seemed to awe the three old 
 women ; and one of them, dropping her voice 
 to a low whisper, and looking toward a half- 
 open door, through which could be seen a 
 dimly lighted sleeping-room, said : 
 
 " Can't you get her to tell the name of the 
 father of that child of her'n before she goes? 
 She's dretful particular, seems to me, to carry 
 that secret into the grave with her. ' ' 
 
 "'Tain't no use not the least bit. I've 
 
 coaxed and coaxed," rejoined the mistress, 
 
 " but it don't do the least mite of good. I 
 
 should admire to know who was the father of 
 
 182
 
 The Honor of a Family 
 
 that child ; but she holds onto it like grim 
 death, and she'll kerry his name, whatever it is, 
 down in sorrer to the grave with her." 
 
 A low moan from the next room attracted the 
 attention of the mistress, and, removing the 
 candle which she had just extinguished, she 
 betook herself to the side of poor Emmeline 
 Kench, who lay a-dying in the Murchville 
 poor-house. 
 
 There had been a long dispute betwixt the 
 towns of Fairport and Murchville as to which 
 of the two should be held responsible for the 
 support of Emmeline Kench, a pauper. There 
 was a time when the woman who now lay wait 
 ing for death was a bright, winsome, and giddy 
 girl. Hers was that delicate and fragile beauty 
 which, among the inhabitants of the Maine sea- 
 coast, too often betokens a tendency toward con 
 sumption. She was the daughter of 'Siah 
 Kench, an old vagabond, who maintained him 
 self by doing odd jobs about the wharves of the 
 " Port," as the village of Fairport, on the other 
 side of the harbor, was called. 'Siah had been 
 left a widower when his wife gave birth to Em 
 meline, and the child grew up in the houses of 
 those of the charitable who were willing to re 
 ceive her, after she had been duly nursed into 
 girlhood at the poor-farm of Fairport. As soon 
 
 183
 
 The Honor of a Family 
 
 as she was old enough Emmeline went out to 
 service, and adopted the calling of ' ' hired gal ' ' 
 as her own. 
 
 People wondered whence the girl got her 
 remarkable beauty ; she seemed as frail and fair 
 as a lily. Her delicately moulded face was 
 tinged with the color of a cinnamon-rose ; and 
 her golden hair, usually flying in the wind, to the 
 great scandal of the staid townsfolk, was of that 
 silken fineness which poets rave of and seldom 
 see. Nobody remembered her mother's looks. 
 She had left behind her only a vague memory 
 of a faded, unkempt, ill-clad woman. But there 
 was her father, slouching about the wharves 
 every day a hard-featured, frowsy fellow, with 
 a battered sou'wester on his head, and wearing 
 garments that had been so often patched and 
 darned by his own weather-beaten hands that 
 no man could tell what was their original color 
 or material. Old 'Siah did not look as if his 
 was the parent stock from which this delicate 
 flower had sprung. 
 
 But, notwithstanding her apparent fragility, 
 Emmeline was by no means a feeble creature. 
 Wherever she went among the families of Fair- 
 port and Murchville and she changed her 
 place full often she made herself welcome as 
 "a masterhand to work." She could milk, 
 184
 
 The Honor of a Family 
 
 make butter, and do the general housework of a 
 large family; get out a big week's washing 
 before most other girls were astir in the morn 
 ing ; and could, on a pinch, sally forth to the 
 wood-pile and chop her own fuel. Once, when 
 some of the curious neighbors who lived on the 
 Fairport common heard somebody loading a 
 wheelbarrow with chips, night after night, at 
 the new school-house, and go whistling down 
 the path, they discovered that it was Emmy, who 
 took this method of providing her kindlings. 
 And once, when Bob Booden, a rough fisher 
 man of the Port, attempted to kiss the wilful 
 girl, at an apple-pearing-bee, she cuffed his 
 ears so soundly that the water stood in his eyes 
 as he groaned, " Gosh ! the gal's got a fist like 
 a man-o' -warsman. ' ' 
 
 Fickle, unstable, and hard to please, Emily 
 flitted from family to family, but oftenest hired 
 her services to the Grindles, a staid household 
 of Murchville. This village is an old-fash 
 ioned one, opposite Fairport, inhabited by a 
 few scattered dwellers by the sea-shore, who 
 earn a livelihood by tilling the ungrateful 
 ground, fishing in the bay, and chopping, with 
 sparing hands, the scanty growths which cover 
 the hills back of the village. The Grindle 
 family were said to be " forehanded." It was 
 185
 
 The Honor of a Family 
 
 commonly reported that they had money out at 
 interest ; and it was a matter of public concern 
 that they owned a sixteenth of the ship St. Leon, 
 trading to foreign parts, and returning once a 
 year to Fairport with a cargo of Cadiz salt. 
 
 The Grindles lived in one household, after 
 the good old patriarchal fashion, in a big, 
 gambrel-roofed house, on a bluff that over 
 looked the harbor and the village of Fairport 
 on the further side. "Old man Grindle," as 
 he was called by his neighbors, kept as many of 
 his boys at home as possible. Two of them 
 went away to sea, and seldom returned to the 
 Port. The old man was the head of the house 
 hold, dividing his sway with none. His wife 
 had died when she was yet a young woman, 
 leaving behind her ten children, the eldest of 
 whom, Priscilla, now served in her place, with 
 her husband, Nathan Sawyer, who was perpet 
 ually "at loggerheads" with the rest of the 
 family. Nathan was a stingy man, much given 
 to quarrelling with his fellow-men, and so ad 
 dicted to litigation of various kinds that it was 
 a common saying in the two towns that ' ' Nath 
 Sawyer was so terrible fond of lawing that he'd 
 rather go without a meal's vittles than be with 
 out a lawsuit." 
 
 His easy-going brother-in-law, Isaac Grin- 
 
 186
 
 The Honor of a Family 
 
 die, fond of his violin and his comfortable seat 
 by the fireside, could not abide the pragmatic 
 and alert ways of Nathan ; and he told his 
 sisters that he could feel his flesh creep when 
 ever he heard Nathan scolding the hired help 
 about the place. The Grindles usually kept at 
 least two hired girls, which was one evidence 
 of forehandedness. And the management of a 
 growing brood of grandchildren for there were 
 three married daughters in the house gave 
 employment to many hands. 
 
 Isaac steadily refused all advice from his 
 sisters on the subject of marriage. He was 
 what is known in the region as "a likely 
 man," in spite of his easy-going ways. He 
 was as handsome as a young viking, blond, 
 brawny, supple of limb, and gifted with a 
 voice which, when he sang old-fashioned bal 
 lads to the music of his violin, moved the 
 hearts of those who heard. Nathan, alone of 
 all the family, could not praise Isaac's melo 
 dious strains. And he never could see what 
 good there was " in wastin' so much time over 
 an everlastin' squeakin' fiddle." 
 
 But Isaac played and sung serenely on, con 
 scious that he was his father's favorite, and 
 that Nath's growling never came to aught. 
 He did his full share of the work allotted to 
 
 187
 
 The Honor of a Family 
 
 the various members of the family ; and, as the 
 old man proudly said, "kept his end up," 
 whenever there was any laborious task to be 
 gone into by the men on the place. But no 
 rustic gathering was complete without Ike Grin- 
 die and his violin. Many a girl renowned for 
 her beauty through all the country-side, where 
 there are not a few beautiful women, had vainly 
 "set her cap" for Isaac. And when it was 
 noised abroad that " Emmy Kench was castin' 
 sheep's-eyes at Ike Grindle," there was indig 
 nation and incredulity in many homes where 
 there were pretty and marriageable girls, who 
 never forgot that the Grindles were "fore 
 handed." 
 
 Poor Emmy vainly tried her blandishments 
 on Isaac. The handsome young giant smiled 
 on the little coquette, romped with her when 
 the elder people were not looking on, and then 
 turned away to his beloved violin, and straight 
 way forgot her. 
 
 If Emmy had any real fondness for Isaac, 
 she concealed it so deep down in her shallow 
 little heart that nobody ever suspected it. 
 And when, after flitting about from house 
 hold to household, in the widely scattered 
 village of Murchville, Emmy flitted quite away 
 and went off to Camden, the more staid and 
 1 88
 
 The Honor of a Family 
 
 demure girls of the neighborhood were really 
 glad that she had gone. In those old-fash 
 ioned days it was the custom of the country 
 for servants, or "help," to mix much more 
 freely with their social superiors than is now 
 the rule. In the rural villages, especially, hired 
 men and hired women sat at meat with their 
 employers ; and this social custom indicated 
 the general freedom with which the two classes 
 mingled on terms of partial equality. So, when 
 Emmy Kench betook herself and her pretty 
 face to Camden, without a word of explana 
 tion, the rustic belles of Murchville said they 
 were glad of it. The young fellows, as they 
 came and went about their fishing and farming, 
 said that it was a pity that "gals were so all- 
 fired envious of each other," 
 
 Emmy disappeared from the gossip of Murch 
 ville and Fairport ; old man Grindle died and 
 was buried ; Nathan tightened his grip on the 
 household ; and then, as if in sheer defence, 
 Isaac married Ruby Ray, a masterful, capable, 
 and managing woman from Bangor. 
 
 There was great commotion in Murchville 
 when Isaac brought home his wife; and it is 
 quite possible that many of the younger women 
 fancied that they had been somehow cheated 
 of their rights. But Ruby made friends for 
 189
 
 The Honor of a Family 
 
 herself. Though she was a strong and ruling 
 woman, she had a tender heart and an open 
 hand. She dominated Isaac, and she loved 
 him with all the tenderness of a great nature. 
 New England women are not given to much 
 demonstrativeness. It is not a New England 
 trait to wear one's heart upon the sleeve. But 
 even grim Nathan Sawyer could not help seeing 
 that Ruby adored her husband, in the reticent 
 and self-possessed manner which is peculiar to 
 the people of the region. 
 
 Emmy had been gone from Murchville nearly 
 two years, when Captain Parker, of the schooner 
 Two Brothers, arriving from East Thomaston 
 with a load of lime, brought a report that Em- 
 meline was living at Owl's Head, but very near 
 to death's door, and with a child of her own, 
 although she was still unmarried. This news 
 was discussed over many a village tea-table. 
 Captain Parker said, in answer to many in 
 quiries, that the child was "about a year and 
 a half old, and as pooty as a pictur'." This 
 was all he knew about it, except that Emmy, 
 hearing that a Fairport captain was in port, 
 had sent to ask if he would take her back with 
 him. This he could not do ; he had no room 
 in his little cabin for a woman passenger with a 
 baby ; besides, he was to put in to Northport 
 190
 
 The Honor of a Family 
 
 on his way up the bay, and that would detain 
 him at least a day and a half. 
 
 There was much virtuous indignation ex 
 pressed against Emmy on the part of the vil 
 lagers; and this broke out afresh, when, one 
 cold November day, as the sloop General 
 Washington hauled up to Tilden's wharf, in 
 Fairport, poor Emmy Kench, looking more 
 dead than alive, was seen huddled in a sun 
 ny corner of the deck, with her baby under 
 her shawl. She had come home to die ; and 
 the hacking cough, which came now and again 
 from the faded heap that she had made of her 
 self, told of the gradual wasting of the disease 
 which has laid low so many victims to the 
 capricious climate of the coast of Maine. 
 
 But where was Emmy's home ? The friend 
 less and orphaned girl (for old man Kench had 
 gone the way of all the earth) had no abiding- 
 place anywhere. Then began a dispute as to 
 which of the two towns in which she had lived 
 should be responsible for her support. She 
 was born in Fairport, but she had chiefly dwelt 
 in Murchville. It was from Murchville that 
 she went into another county ; so, after much 
 disputation among the selectmen of the two 
 villages, in which the townspeople actively 
 shared, Emmy was "thrown onto" the town 
 191
 
 The Honor of a Family 
 
 of Murchville, the taxpayers of which felt that 
 they had not only been worsted in a wordy 
 duel, but had been imposed upon into the 
 bargain. 
 
 And so, to the scene of her former flirtations 
 and triumphs, Emmy had come back to die in 
 the poor-house. Often, when a gay young girl, 
 Emmy had passed by the cheerless poor-farm 
 with a little pang, which she laughed away 
 with her birdlike blitheness. She had half- 
 scoffed at and half-pitied the aged crones who 
 basked on the weather-beaten platform in front 
 of the house in the sunny weather ; and she 
 had shivered when she had passed that way in 
 winter, and a thin column of smoke from the 
 chimney bespoke the comfortlessness within; 
 and now she lay dying in the cold north bed 
 room of the poor-house. 
 
 The old clock on the wall ticked solemnly, 
 measuring off in the stillness the last minutes of 
 poor Emmy's life. One old woman, a solitary 
 watcher, nodded over her sewing at the work 
 house table, on which a candle guttered in its 
 iron candlestick, slowly forming a "winding- 
 sheet" as it died down into darkness. The 
 wail of a child from the bedroom startled the 
 woman, who hastily arose, relighted one of the 
 candles, and hurried into the next room. 
 192
 
 The Honor of a Family 
 
 " Ma's all cold," whimpered the little one; 
 "and she won't speak to me any more." 
 
 The old woman glanced at the clock, and 
 muttered : 
 
 " Half an hour yet to dead low-water, and 
 she's clean gone ! " 
 
 Taking the child in her arms, and stilling its 
 murmurs, as if afraid to disturb the mother, 
 whose ear would never more be thrilled on 
 earth by the cry of her child, the old woman 
 looked steadfastly on the face of the dead. In 
 the awful silence of the night, even to this 
 hardened old creature, who had, in her younger 
 days, "gone out to nuss," the rigid form be 
 fore her put on a strange pathos. Emmy had 
 rest, at last, from trouble and from sin. She 
 had entered into the mystery of the undis 
 covered country. The old woman regarded 
 the figure before her with a chilly awe and re 
 spect. Death clothes the humblest with sudden 
 dignity. 
 
 " The poor cre'tur' died without so much as 
 makin' a sign to tell us who that man was," 
 she whispered to herself. " But I just expect 
 it was somebody in these parts." 
 
 So saying she laid the child, now sleeping 
 tranquilly, on the wooden settle in the kitchen, 
 covering him with a ragged quilt. Then she 
 
 193
 
 The Honor of a Family 
 
 stealthily, and looking around with guilty fears, 
 turned back the bed-covering, and, with shak 
 ing hand, took from the dead woman's breast a 
 worn package of letters. These she had often 
 noted when engaged in offices for the sick; 
 and these she rightly guessed contained the 
 jealously guarded secret of poor Emmy. There 
 were only two or three letters, and the watcher 
 had barely time to hide them in her faded 
 gown when the mistress of the poor-house 
 entered. She gave one swift glance at the bed, 
 and said, in a half-whisper : 
 
 " So she's gone? And didn't she say any 
 thing before she dropped off? " 
 
 " Nothin', nothin'," said the other. " She 
 just died as quiet as a lamb. Pore thing ! 
 She's gone where there ain't no more sorrer. 
 S'posin' we see if there ain't suthin' hid about 
 her clothes," she added, craftily. 
 
 " I hope I know what belongs to my posi 
 tion, Almira Sellers," said the mistress, severe 
 ly. " Ef there's any s'archin' to be done, it's 
 my business. I'm mistress here." 
 
 With a scared look the other drew back 
 and watched the poor-house matron searching 
 carefully through the dead woman's scanty 
 clothing. Nothing was found; and, with a 
 sigh of disappointment, the old woman said : 
 194
 
 The Honor of a Family 
 
 "Wai, it's died with her. That brat'll 
 never know who his own father was. And I 
 s'pose we may as well lay her out. It's mighty 
 lucky you shif'less old cre'turs got that shroud 
 done in time. And, I declare for't ! it ain't 
 two o'clock yet. Wai, the town's rid of one 
 more pauper ; and the next thing is to see 
 what'll be done with that everlastin' boy." 
 
 And, as if to emphasize this remark, the 
 child on the settle gave forth a prolonged roar. 
 
 " Dear suz me ! " cried the matron ; ''do 
 hush that child ! He's enough to wake the 
 dead." 
 
 But the dead slept on ; and the old nurse 
 crooned to the nameless boy a song which told 
 him that he was a "baby buntin' " and " his 
 father had gone a-huntin'." 
 
 Emmy's death had solved the difficulty about 
 her maintenance by the town of Murchville. 
 As soon as she was decently buried, proclama 
 tion was made through the village that there 
 was a proper man-child at the poor-farm to be 
 adopted by any benevolent or thrifty person 
 who might wish to assume this responsibility, 
 with a view to relieve the town, or to rear up a 
 family drudge. Ruby Grindle, a childless 
 wife, heard of the death at the poor-house with 
 a thrill of satisfaction. She had not wished 
 
 195
 
 The Honor of a Family 
 
 any harm of the poor girl, to whose latest wants 
 her generous bounty had ministered. But she 
 had coveted the child, a wonderfully handsome 
 boy. Even though she ever had her own will 
 with her easy-going husband, she had not 
 dared to breathe to him anything of the plan 
 which was slowly forming in her mind. But 
 now that the poor waif must be cared for she 
 spoke out. 
 
 At first Isaac pooh-poohed the scheme of 
 adoption which Ruby proposed. His brother- 
 in-law, Nathan Sawyer, opposed the suggestion 
 with what seemed unnecessary violence. He 
 would not live in the house which sheltered a 
 beggar's brat, he said. But this opposition 
 only intensified Ruby's determination. 
 
 " Nath Sawyer hopes that Ruby' 11 never 
 have no children," said the shrewd gossips, 
 when his angry words were repeated, with ad 
 ditions, through the neighborhood. "And, 
 then, if anything should happen to Ike, Ruby '11 
 only get her thirds ; but if they adopt that 'ere 
 young one, ship-shape and accordin' to law, 
 it's as good as if it was reely their own." 
 
 No mercenary motive influenced the tender 
 heart of Ruby. Her long-pent motherliness 
 went out to the beautiful and friendless boy. 
 Isaac smiled with a certain mannish stolidity, as 
 
 196
 
 The Honor of a Family 
 
 Mistress Rogers, in the poor-house kitchen, re 
 garded Ruby fondling the child, and said, 
 " Now don't they make a pooty pictur' ? " 
 
 It was a pretty picture. Ruby's hair was 
 black, and her solidly moulded face wore that 
 variety of complexion which some call " straw - 
 berries-and-cream," but which envious and 
 faded matrons said was " Injun-like." The 
 rosy, flaxen-haired boy, nestling against her 
 cheek, looked like a cherub out of one of 
 Murillo's pictures. The mature beauty of the 
 woman, her face suffused with a newly awak 
 ened affection, glorified the tender grace of the 
 child's head, now pillowed on her cheek. 
 
 For once Isaac had sided with his brother- 
 in-law. He did not approve of Ruby's plan 
 for adopting the child. He thought it would 
 ' ' only be a pesky bother about the house ; ' ' 
 besides, if Nathan disapproved of the scheme 
 he would dislike the boy, and would make 
 trouble for him in the house as he grew up. 
 
 " I can defend the child, if you can't," said 
 Ruby, with flashing eyes. " Let Nath Sawyer 
 ever lay a finger on my child, and I'll make 
 him sorry to the end of his life." 
 
 So, with the arguments which a strong- 
 hearted and loving wife can use, Ruby had her 
 way. The boy, unconscious of the great change 
 
 197
 
 The Honor of a Family 
 
 in his destiny which was taking place, was 
 adopted into the comfortable household of the 
 Grindles. The elder sister of the family looked 
 coldly upon the new-comer. Nathan took no 
 pains to conceal his disgust. Isaac, bland and 
 yielding, said, "I hope you'll never be sorry 
 for it, Ruby. ' ' But the child throve apace. 
 
 198
 
 II 
 
 WINTER melted into spring, and the short 
 New England summer gave place to an 
 other winter. It was a cold and wintry night 
 when Ruby and Isaac sat on the side of the bed 
 in their plainly furnished room in the Grindle 
 mansion. All day long the snow had fallen on 
 the rocky land and into the angry sea. Now 
 the icy edges of the harbor were grinding 
 against the shore, and the black water was 
 streaked in long patches by the moonlight. 
 The spruces and firs stood grim and dark against 
 the pallid hills over which the snow blew in 
 thin drifts. Across the icy tide of the Baga- 
 duce the town of Fairport gleamed white in the 
 light of the moon. It was a typical New Eng 
 land winter night a study in black and white. 
 It was a contrast of the deepest darkness and 
 the most ghastly whiteness of light. 
 
 In-doors, the farm chamber was cheery and 
 
 dim. A drift-wood fire burned low on the 
 
 brick -laid hearth, reddening the old-fashioned 
 
 andirons and shedding a glow on the whitened 
 
 199
 
 The Honor of a Family 
 
 wall. The child slept in a crib near the only 
 window, through the green paper shade of 
 which an irregular row of pinholes let in small 
 rays of moonlight, which dazzled from the snow 
 without. On the bedstead, covered with a 
 patchwork quilt of blue and white, sat Isaac, 
 his handsome blond face wet with tears, and 
 his arm half-clasping Ruby's waist. 
 
 " Oh, Isaac, Isaac ! " she sighed. " This is 
 dreadful, dreadful ! I wish you had never told 
 me. I'd sooner have died thinking that the 
 baby's father was dead and gone, like poor 
 Emmy ; or that he had wandered off into 
 foreign parts, and never would come back any 
 more ; and now to think that he is really and 
 truly your own child. Oh, Isaac, why did you 
 ever tell me ? ' ' 
 
 There were no tears in Ruby's eyes, and she 
 placed her hands, toil-worn and yet shapely, 
 on her husband's shoulders, and pushed him 
 away from her. 
 
 " I thought you ought to know, Ruby," the 
 husband answered, as he tried vainly to look 
 into her face, now coldly averted from him. " I 
 thought you ought to know. Nobody in the 
 world had a better right to know than you ; 
 and I'd sooner that nobody in the world should 
 ever know but you. Can't you forgive me,
 
 The Honor of a Family 
 
 Ruby ? I should have been a better man if I'd 
 'a' known you then. I never was wild. Even 
 Nath wouldn't say that of me." 
 
 He had caught a glance from her eyes. She 
 had not dared to look him in the face that 
 handsome face which she had so long admired 
 and loved; the handsomest face, as she had 
 often secretly whispered to herself, that there 
 was in the world. She did not trust herself 
 to look into those wonderful blue eyes. 
 
 " Say you'll forgive me, Ruby, dear. I've 
 made a clean breast of it. Few other fellows 
 would have done as much. But I could not 
 have you trust me so when I felt that I did not 
 deserve it. So I up and told. And now you 
 won't forgive me. I 'most wish I'd never told 
 on myself." 
 
 Ruby turned on him a reproachful glance, and 
 then silently gazed into the smouldering fire of 
 drift-wood. 
 
 ' ' What will the neighbors say ? ' ' 
 
 " Why, you wouldn't tell them, would you? 
 Why, Ruby ! ' ' and the man seemed to forget, 
 for the moment, that he was a suitor for par 
 don. 
 
 " No ; but I didn't know but that you would 
 think it your duty to tell the minister ; and 
 you know the parson is dreadful leaky. No ; 
 
 201
 
 The Honor of a Family 
 
 I shouldn't want the minister to know, nor the 
 neighbors to know, that I have been coaxed 
 into adopting my own husband's child. Oh, 
 Isaac, Isaac ! what a shameful thing ! ' ' and 
 the wife's face grew darker in the lessening fire 
 light. 
 
 " Ruby ! Ruby ! How can you have the 
 face to say you were coaxed to adopt the baby ? 
 Didn't I stand out agin it ? Didn't Nath say 
 you were so dreadful set in your way that you 
 would have that child if all creation was agin 
 you? And now you say you were coaxed to 
 take him in. Oh, Ruby ! " 
 
 " But you might have told me that he was 
 your baby, Isaac. ' ' 
 
 " I should have told you, Ruby, if I had 
 known you as well then as I do now." And 
 Isaac dropped his eyes and drew her closer 
 toward him. Ruby resisted, turning her face 
 away. She was obdurate. Her husband, he 
 in whom she had trusted, had deceived her, 
 had concealed his sin from her. 
 
 " Oh, I can't ! I can't ! " she cried. Then, 
 holding her head in her hands, she added, " It 
 has come on me so sudden-like. You must give 
 me time to think." 
 
 "All right," said Isaac, still grasping her 
 tightly. " We can send the boy away some-
 
 The Honor of a Family 
 
 where, and nobody '11 ever know anything about 
 what's happened, or what's the matter." 
 
 There was a slight stir in the crib by the 
 window, and the child, turning in his dreams, 
 uttered a low cry and lifted his hands. 
 
 With the motherly instinct strong upon her, 
 Ruby hastily disengaged herself from her hus 
 band's embrace and ran to the child. His 
 little dream had passed, and he lay smiling in 
 his sleep, his golden hair gleaming on the pil 
 low, and one chubby hand half-open on the 
 coverlet which Ruby had wrought for him, put 
 ting into its innumerable stitches and patches 
 innumerable loving prayers. Now she stood 
 over the unconscious boy, clasping her hands 
 and gazing into his face, wherein she traced, 
 for the first time in her life, his father's like 
 ness. 
 
 " How like him he is ! " she moaned to her 
 self. And her heart went out to the sleeping 
 child. " How like him he is ! Why didn't I 
 see it before ? ' ' 
 
 Isaac sat meekly and in silence on the bed 
 side, watching the waves of emotion chasing 
 each other over the face of his wife. Wringing 
 her hands, sighing, and almost groaning, Ruby 
 stood over the boy, her heart torn with an 
 guish. 
 
 203
 
 The Honor of a Family 
 
 " Poor innocent ! " she whispered to herself, 
 and the tears gushed from her eyes ; which 
 Isaac, perceiving, took courage to himself. She 
 stooped and pressed a passionate kiss upon the 
 lips of the child, dashed the tears from her eyes, 
 ran swiftly to her husband, fell upon his neck, 
 and cried, " For his sake, my darling, I forgive 
 everything. ' ' 
 
 A gusty blast roared up the chimney, whirl 
 ing the fire of drift-wood into a cheery blaze. 
 The nine-o'clock bell rang out from the Fair- 
 port steeple, its waves of sound rising and fall 
 ing across the wintry tide. Ruddy shadows 
 crept up the whitewashed wall, and the firelight 
 flickered over the child's crib, by the side of 
 which man and wife stood talking far into the 
 night. 
 
 204
 
 III. 
 
 AGAIN the spring had come ; and drinking 
 in the balmy fragrance of opening buds 
 of beech and birch, and enjoying the luxury of 
 being out of doors without discomfort, the 
 Grindle family, their day's work done, were 
 grouped on the wooden platform which covered 
 the space betwixt the house and the down- 
 shelving edge of the bluff. The air was humid 
 with warmth and moisture ; and in the hollows 
 of the planks, warped by the suns of many sum 
 mers, stood little pools of water from a recent 
 shower. The sky was white and tender, and 
 gave little reflections in the narrow pools on 
 the platform. The waters of the bay, gray and 
 white in the gathering twilight, their outer rim 
 hidden in the mist, were flecked with flocks 
 of sea-fowl ; and clouds of these birds flew 
 noisily from inland over the heads of the 
 group on the platform, and, with much discus 
 sion and debate, dropped upon the placid 
 wave. 
 
 " Are they coots, Ike? " asked Ruby, follow- 
 205
 
 The Honor of a Family 
 
 ing with her eyes the graceful flight of the birds 
 from land to sea. 
 
 " Coots, Ruby," replied Isaac. " And it's 
 a sure sign that the heart of winter's broke. 
 The last of the wild geese, I rather guess, went 
 over yesterday. I heard 'em honking in the 
 air all day. ' ' 
 
 So saying, the strong man lifted the child in 
 his arms, tossing him in the air, telling him to 
 fly with the coots, and light in the water for 
 the night. Nathan looked blackly at the big, 
 joyous man and the laughing boy. " Such 
 nonsense ! " he muttered to himself. 
 
 The gate in the tall board-fence which sepa 
 rated the yard of the Grindle house from the 
 village road was opened, and Elkanah Woods, 
 town constable, entered, with an air of mingled 
 importance and uneasiness. 
 
 " What luck fishing, to-day ?" cried Isaac, 
 heartily. " They say the first run of mackerel 
 may be in the bay in a week or two ; but I 
 don't think it; it's too early." 
 
 "I've got suthin' more important for you 
 than fishin', Ike Grindle," said the constable, 
 with preternatural solemnity. " Suthin' that'll 
 hurt me wuss than it will you, to hand out. 
 But dooty's dooty, and I can't go agin the 
 law." 
 
 206
 
 The Honor of a Family 
 
 " Why, what in all natur' have you got ? " 
 said Isaac, in a daze. 
 
 Taking a long paper from his pocket, El- 
 kanah said, " I've got a warrant for you to ap 
 pear before Squire Bakeman, to answer a per 
 fectly dreadful charge. ' ' 
 
 "And what is the charge?" asked Isaac, 
 with a sudden shaking of his heart. 
 
 " Bein' as there's ladies present," said Elkan- 
 ah, with a perceptible blush mantling his weather- 
 beaten cheek, " you'll excuse me from namin 1 
 it. But the complaint says that there's proofs 
 in writin', signed by your own name, that you 
 hev acknowledged yourself to be the parent of 
 poor Emmy Kench's child. It galls me awful 
 to say as much, Ike ; but thet's what the com 
 plaint sez." And Elkanah mopped his honest 
 brow in sheer desperation and discomfort. 
 
 "Who brings this complaint?" demanded 
 Isaac. 
 
 " Wai, ez near as I can make out, it's your 
 brother-in-law Nath," replied the constable. 
 
 Nathan Sawyer had slunk back into the hud 
 dled group of the family when this dialogue 
 began; but now, elbowing his way out, he 
 advanced, and said, sullenly, " Yes, Ike, I made 
 the complaint. Somethin' had to be done for 
 the honor of the family, you see. It wouldn't 
 207
 
 The Honor of a Family 
 
 do, you see, to have a motherless brat in the 
 house, and nobody knowin' who he belongs 
 to." And the man shamefacedly turned away. 
 
 Isaac, without looking at his wife, whose eyes 
 had all this time been fixed on the restless face 
 of Nathan, said to Elkanah, as if resignedly, 
 " Well, go on ; I'll follow you." 
 
 The child ran gleefully out of the knot of 
 people in which he had hidden, and cried, 
 "Me, too, papa." At this, Nathan's wife 
 threw her apron over her head and sobbed 
 audibly. 
 
 Ruby had not taken her indignant and wrath 
 ful gaze from Nathan Sawyer's face. When the 
 child ran to his father and clutched him by the 
 skirt of his coat, Ruby swallowed a great sob, 
 and, with one swift step toward Nathan, shook 
 her finger at him, and cried : 
 
 " What do you care for the honor of the 
 Grindle family you, the leavings and empty 
 ings of the Sawyers? What do you care for 
 the honor of the family you, who have just 
 gone and blazed abroad the only thing that 
 could have done any dishonor to this family, in 
 which you are no better than an interloper? 
 If anybody's dishonored in this family, I am ! 
 If anybody's to be unforgiving, I am that one ! 
 But I have known of this thing for months and 
 208
 
 The Honor of a Family 
 
 months. If anybody has been outraged, I am 
 that one ! And yet, I forgave Ike long ago, 
 long ago. I forgave Ike when I first knew of 
 his fault. I bear him no ill thought." And 
 here she choked with an involuntary sob. 
 
 Isaac looked on with tears standing in his 
 great blue eyes. The group on the platform 
 was hushed as death. Even the child stood 
 dumb. She went on : 
 
 "And you dare to denounce my husband! 
 the husband of my love, whose most secret 
 thought is known to me ; you dare to talk about 
 the honor of a family ! the family whose 
 only disgrace you are trying to publish far 
 and wide. Get down upon your cowardly 
 knees, Nath Sawyer, and beg the pardon of 
 a man whose shoes you are not worthy to 
 touch ! If there was anything to forgive, I for 
 gave it. Get down, I say, and ask him to for 
 give you you, the meanest thing that crawls 
 an informer ! ' ' 
 
 She paused, and the hot blood that crim 
 soned her face ebbed and flowed in waves that 
 chased each other from forehead to chin. Na 
 than hung his head, and muttering something 
 about the fury of a woman's tongue, sidled into 
 the house. Turning to the constable, Ruby 
 demanded of him if it was necessary that her 
 209
 
 The Honor of a Family 
 
 husband should go with him, then and there, to 
 the office of the justice. Elkanah, evidently re 
 lieved by anything that would change the tone 
 of the moral atmosphere, said : 
 
 " Land sakes alive, Mis' Grindle ! there ain't 
 no manner of haste. Let Ike come down to- 
 morrer and see the Squire. I'll go bail for Ike, 
 that he ain't a-goin' to run away." 
 
 " Run away ! " repeated Ruby, scornfully; 
 "run away! If anybody runs away, it'll be 
 that sneak Nath Sawyer. He looks scared 
 enough to run and hide himself anywhere." 
 And Ruby smiled grimly. 
 
 " Wai, I reckon he's scared enough to with 
 draw his complaint," said Elkanah. "And ef 
 I was he, I'd rather do that than hev another 
 such a dressin' daown as you just gi'n him. 
 Land sakes alive, Mis' Grindle ! but you did 
 peel him ! ' ' And Elkanah gazed admiringly at 
 Ruby. Possibly he thought of Mrs. Elkanah 
 Woods, whose sharp tongue was the terror of 
 Murchville, and the one thing of which Elkanah 
 stood in awe. 
 
 The sun went down in the clouds and mists 
 of evening, and a chilly breeze was blowing up 
 the bay when the family went indoors. The 
 village constable, as he slowly descended the 
 hill, said to himself: 
 
 210
 
 The Honor of a Family 
 
 " She's the all-firedest smartest woman on 
 Penobscot Bay, I swan to man." 
 
 Then, as if alarmed lest some wandering 
 sprite might hear his profane soliloquy, Elkanah 
 glanced furtively around and hastened his steps 
 toward home. 
 
 Within, Isaac and his wife sat on the bed 
 side, as they had often sat before, and a fire of 
 spruce brush crackled in the low fireplace, for 
 the air of the lagging spring was damp and 
 chill. The boy slept in his crib by the window. 
 The " rote " of the sea came up dreamily from 
 the shores of the bay, and the low wash of 
 waves murmured against the rocky beach below. 
 Heavy footsteps sounded along the entry and 
 up the stairs. The chamber door swung open, 
 and Nathan Sawyer, without ceremony, strode 
 into the room. He was in his shirt-sleeves, and 
 his face bore marks of recent mental conflict. 
 
 " I have been havin' it out with Priscilla," 
 he said, doggedly. " Priscilla, she thinks that 
 I ought to withdraw that complaint. Wai, you 
 see it wasn't exactly a complaint, but it was 
 a sort of an information. I thought it my 
 bounden duty, as a member of the family, let 
 alone bein' a member of the church, to have the 
 thing fixed up accordin' to law. Priscilla, she 
 thinks no; you two, I s'pose, think no. Wai, 
 211
 
 The Honor of a Family 
 
 I don't want any hard feelin's in the family." 
 And here the man paused awkwardly. 
 
 " Go on," said Ruby, calmly; "go on, Na 
 than Sawyer, and tell us what you propose to do 
 next. ' ' She turned to her husband, who looked 
 gloomily into the fire. 
 
 "Wai," replied Nathan, "I was thinkin' 
 that if Ike was willin' to give up that note that 
 he holds agin me, I'd drop this business, and 
 say no more about it. ' ' 
 
 Ruby's eyes snapped an instant, and she said : 
 
 " So you'll hush up the honor of the fam 
 ily for the handsome sum of ninety dollars, 
 which you owe Isaac? " And she smiled with 
 bitterness. 
 
 " As I said before," replied Nathan, " I don't 
 want any hard feelin's in the family ; and I 
 gave Ike that note, you know, for my share of 
 the medder lot, which was Priscilla's, anyhow." 
 
 " Pshaw ! " cried Ruby, " that's an old fam 
 ily quarrel, and one of your own making. My 
 husband may do as he pleases ; but if I were in 
 his place, I would not be party to any such 
 bribery to keep silence." 
 
 Nathan turned his eyes upon Isaac, who, with 
 a heavy sigh, rose from the bedside, went to a 
 chest that stood in the corner of the room, un 
 locked it, and, taking out a leathern pocket- 
 212
 
 The Honor of a Family 
 
 book, selected from its contents Nathan Saw 
 yer's note. Then, standing before the fire, he 
 said : 
 
 " Nath, I don't know whether you can do 
 any harm to me and to Ruby and to the boy," 
 and here his voice trembled, and he looked 
 toward the crib. " But seeing that you have 
 made this offer, man-fashion, I'll take it. 
 Here's the note; and you'll drop the whole 
 thing?" 
 
 " I'll go down to the Squire's to-morrow 
 morning, bright and early, and tell him to tear 
 up the papers. ' ' So saying, Nathan slowly tore 
 up the note into little bits, which he carefully 
 put into the fire. 
 
 " If I had supposed, Ruby, that you knew 
 anything about this," said Nathan, and here 
 he glanced furtively at the sleeping child, " I 
 wouldn't have said a word ; but how could I 
 have ever supposed that you had found it out, 
 and you and Ike living right on together just as 
 if nothing had ever happened ! " 
 
 " So you thought to make trouble between 
 my husband and myself, did you, Nath Saw 
 yer? Well, I never 'found this out,' as you 
 call it. Ike told me, like an honest man, as he 
 is," and the wife's voice faltered a little " like 
 an honest man, as he is," she repeated, in a 
 
 213
 
 71)e Honor of a Family 
 
 clearer tone, noticing the look of surprise that 
 came into Nathan's face. 
 
 Nathan clumsily backed out of the room, 
 latched the door behind him, and went down 
 stairs, saying to himself, as he went : " She beats 
 all natur' ! He told her, and she kept it to her 
 self! Wai, that gets me everlastingly." 
 
 Only a faint gleam of light pervaded the 
 humble chamber, and the fragrant fire of brush 
 wood died down into ashes, as husband and 
 wife, locked fast hand in hand, stood by the 
 side of the sleeping child. 
 
 " I suppose poor Emmy's secret will be all 
 over the village to-morrow," said Isaac, gloom- 
 ily. 
 
 Ruby drew her husband closer to her side ; 
 then touching the child's fair forehead with her 
 fingers, as if she found exquisite enjoyment in 
 contact of her hand and his flesh, she whis 
 pered : 
 
 " This is my child, Ike ; my boy, my boy; 
 and I will die rather than any harm shall ever 
 come to him." 
 
 And so they stood, whispering with each 
 other, while the last red sparks died out in the 
 ashes of the fire of brush-wood, and the cease 
 less murmur of the sea rose and fell in the quiet 
 night. 
 
 214
 
 The Waif of Nautilus Island
 
 THE WAIF OF NAUTILUS 
 ISLAND 
 
 " T AND sakes alive! Miah Morey, I'd as 
 J * live sleep with a log ! " And Aunt 
 Thankful sat up in bed, listening to the howling 
 of the storm and the booming undertone of the 
 breakers on Man-o'-War Reef. " I'm sure I 
 hearn a yell," added the irate dame, as she shook 
 her sleepy husband by the shoulder. She peered 
 about the dingy room, which was lighted only 
 by the smouldering coals on the hearth, and 
 listened anxiously for a repetition of the sound 
 which she fancied she had heard in the wild 
 tumult of the March gale that sobbed and 
 shrieked about the island. 
 
 With her double-gown over her shoulders, 
 Aunt Thankful opened the door and looked out 
 into the night. Sheets of rain drenched the 
 soggy turf; far out in the watery blackness 
 patches of melting snow gleamed ghastly on the 
 rocky ledges ; giant breakers, white with foam, 
 flashed up into sight along the shore, like strange 
 217
 
 The Waif of Nautilus Island 
 
 wild shapes, and then sank suddenly down again. 
 The angry ocean smote the island with a thun 
 derous hand, and along the reef the hungry 
 waves showed their white teeth in the blackness 
 of the night. The air was raw, and drenched 
 with spume and flying scud ; and through the 
 thick drift the feeble gleam of the light-house 
 across the harbor struggled like a yellow stain 
 in the darkness. 
 
 " I haven't seen a wuss night sence we lived 
 on Nautilus," said the old man, who had joined 
 the good wife at the door. " The gulls flew low 
 yesterday, and arter sundown I hearn the loons 
 hollerin' over to the Cape ; I knowed there wuz 
 a gale a-brewin' . ' ' 
 
 "Hold yer clack, can't ye? I can't hear 
 nothin' for your jaw. Hearken ! ' ' And, as 
 she spoke, a cry of distress came faintly on the 
 gale from Man-o'-War Reef. 
 
 "It's a human critter's cry, as sure as I'm 
 a' livin' sinner," said Aunt Thankful; and 
 almost before the words were uttered, she and 
 her husband, hurrying on their garments, were 
 struggling against the storm as they ran down 
 to the reef which made out into Penobscot Bay 
 from the little island where they had their soli 
 tary home. 
 
 A huge black hulk loomed out of the sea drift 
 218
 
 The Waif of Nautilus Island 
 
 when they reached the rocky shore, its black 
 sides relieved against the yeasty waves which 
 broke all around. 
 
 "It's an East Injiman, out of her reckon 
 ing," muttered Miah Morey, when he saw the 
 unwieldy craft, fast wedged upon the outer 
 extremity of the reef. 
 
 " God help 'em all," whispered Aunt Thank 
 ful ; "we can't, in such a sea as this ; ' ' and the 
 old couple stood wistfully gazing upon the wreck, 
 as the fierce sea rushed over it and tore it where 
 it lay. 
 
 "She's a wrack, sure enough;" and the 
 cooler calculation of the man was turned to 
 consideration of the flotsam and jetsam which 
 the falling tide might bring him. 
 
 Longingly and pitifully the old couple looked 
 across the waste of waters in which no boat 
 could live, and the salt tears trickled down the 
 weather-beaten cheeks of the dame as she heard 
 again and again the despairing halloo of the 
 drowning mariners. Her thoughts were once 
 more with her beloved Reuben, her only son, 
 who had sailed as second mate on a fishing voy 
 age, years ago, and never had been heard of 
 since, though no day ever passed but she cast a 
 weary glance seaward for the white sails of the 
 William and Sally. But they never came. 
 219
 
 TJie Watf of Nautihis Island 
 
 So she stood there, tearful at last, sheltered 
 behind her husband's stalwart figure, waiting 
 for the end. 
 
 ' ' A spar ! a spar ! ' ' shouted Miah, as a 
 fragment came tumbling through the surf. A 
 line from their fish-flakes, close at hand, was 
 soon around Miah's waist, and Aunt Thankful 
 held the slack, while he plunged in and made 
 for a white object which they saw clinging to 
 the tangle of rigging on the spar. There was a 
 fierce buffet with the breakers, a hurried, sobbing 
 prayer from Aunt Thankful, who saw the strong 
 swimmer reach the plunging bit of timber, and 
 then she screamed through the gale : " ' Ware 
 o' the stick, old man ; it'll mash ye ef yer not 
 keerful. ' ' But Miah had left the spar, and the 
 wiry fingers of his wife tugged nervously at the 
 rope as she hauled him in, hand over hand ; and 
 he dragged a heavy burden with him. 
 
 Miah, breathless and spent, crawled up the 
 stony beach, pulling the half-clad body of a 
 man. Stooping over her husband and his pite 
 ous load, Aunt Thankful beheld a male figure, 
 half dressed as if surprised in sleep, and in its 
 loosening arms, wrapped in a sailor's pea-jacket, 
 an infant. 
 
 " The child is alive, as sure as I'm born," 
 said Aunt Thankful, lifting the tiny waif from
 
 The Waif of Nautilus Island 
 
 the figure where it lay. And there, beneath the 
 angry sky, his feet licked by the half-relenting 
 sea which ran far up the shelving shore, the 
 father gasped out the little remnant of his life 
 as his child was gathered to the motherly bosom 
 of her who should henceforth stand instead of 
 those who were no more. 
 
 The child wailed while good Aunt Thankful 
 bore her swiftly to her cottage, but soon sank 
 into rosy slumber when, wrapped and warm, she 
 was laid carefully by the side of little Obed, 
 Thankful Morey's orphaned nephew, who slept 
 tranquilly in his trundle bed, happily unmindful 
 of the tragedy which was darkening the coast of 
 Nautilus Island, and casting thereon a mystery 
 which should perplex his life from that hour. 
 
 Hurrying back to the shore, Aunt Thankful 
 took the family rum -bottle and warm blankets 
 for the drowned man's relief. But it was 
 vain. No chafing nor restoratives could call 
 back the flutter of the heart. 
 
 " He's tripped his anchor, sure," was the 
 figurative speech of Miah, and so they covered 
 him decently, and set themselves to watching 
 for more waifs from the wreck. None came ; 
 and when the gray dawn struggled up in the 
 East, and the sea sank moodily down, the beach 
 was strewn with fragments of the wreck ; and 
 221
 
 The Waif of Nautilus Island 
 
 far out on Man-'o-War Reef only a few bare ribs 
 of the broken ship, a pitiful sight, thrust their 
 dark lines up through the rising and falling of 
 the tide. A low moan came over the remorseful 
 waves when the rising sun broke redly through 
 the ragged clouds. The night rack faded away, 
 and the blue sky looked down on the bay, but 
 no human sign came up from the secrets of the 
 sea, save a bit of quarter-board, on which had 
 been painted the name of the doomed ship. 
 These were the last three letters of the name 
 " USA ; " and that was all. And so a great sum 
 of life and hope melted into the cruel sea and 
 was heard of no more. 
 
 The child was apparently about two years old ; 
 she knew no name but " Mamie," and took to 
 her new surroundings as though she had never 
 known any other. 
 
 Curious citizens and eager 'longshoremen 
 from the little port across the bay came over 
 and patrolled the edges of the island, looking 
 for treasures and tragic tokens of the unknown 
 wreck ; or they rowed around the broken bones 
 of the mysterious ship when the sea went 
 down, but found no trace of what she had been, 
 or under what flag she had sailed. They took 
 up the form of the dead voyager, and, in 
 solemn procession, gave it Christian burial on 
 
 222
 
 The Waif of Nautilus Island 
 
 the bleak hill-top overlooking the harbor, 
 where the people of Fairport exiled their dead. 
 The village squire gathered all available par 
 ticulars of the wreck into an elaborate account, 
 which, being shorn of its learned length, was 
 duly printed in a Boston newspaper, and, weeks 
 afterward, reached Fairport and Nautilus Island, 
 like a faint echo out of a half-forgotten past. 
 And so all thought of the tragedy melted away 
 from the minds of men. 
 
 Only Aunt Thankful and Miah, her husband, 
 kept these things in their hearts ; and even they, 
 as the years rolled on, almost ceased to fear 
 that some one might come out of the great 
 world which lay outside their narrow and se 
 cluded life, and, guided by the trinket found 
 on the child's neck, claim and take from them 
 their bright darling, Mamie, child of the sea. 
 
 There is no need to tell how Mamie grew 
 into beautiful girlhood, and, never separated 
 from her sturdy playmate Obed, haunted the 
 rocks, spruce thickets, and ledges of the island 
 like an elf. Elfish and uncanny she seemed to 
 the prim townspeople who occasionally came 
 over to Nautilus Island on blueberry parties or 
 fishing excursions. Knowing none but Aunt 
 Thankful, Miah, and Obed, the child was shy 
 of strangers, and, like a timid bird, would fly to
 
 The Waif of 'Nautilus Island 
 
 the crags and fir-clumps, whence she and Obed 
 looked curiously down on the merry-makers, 
 whose gay clothing contrasted pleasantly with 
 the dull linsey-woolsey and oil-skin garb of the 
 old couple, whom these children thought almost 
 the only people in the world. And strange 
 stories were told in the port of the wild child 
 of the Moreys, and of the heathenish way in 
 which she was brought up to dig clams, rob the 
 gulls' nests, and climb rocks like a young mon 
 key. 
 
 But Mamie had a touch of feminine imitative- 
 ness withal, and excessively amused the old 
 people by " rigging herself " with wild flowers, 
 sea-weeds, birds' feathers, and flakes of birch 
 bark, in which array she would promenade 
 gravely with Obed up and down the beach, 
 waving her birchen kerchief as a signal to 
 far-off ships which never came, or to careless 
 pleasure-boats that sailed away, unheeding, into 
 the blue depths of Long Island or Cape Ro- 
 siere. 
 
 Seated on a high black rock near by Man-o'- 
 War Reef, these happy children, unconscious 
 of the mournful tragedies which had given 
 name to island, reef, and rock, in other years, 
 would construct airy fleets out of their own 
 fancies, launch them on the sunny bay, and 
 224
 
 The Waif of Nautilus Island 
 
 sail away into the wonderful world which 
 lay beneath the sky - rim far, far beyond 
 Long Island and Burncoat. To them the dis 
 tant purple Camden Hills were an enchanted 
 realm, where the sun set in a palace of gold 
 and crystal ; and away to the southward, 
 where sky and water met, there was a fairy 
 land, whence, once a year, came a richly 
 freighted ship, which floated up the bay, past 
 Nautilus Island, and, stately and proud, folded 
 her snowy wings before the port, and there 
 dropped anchor. This arrival was a great event 
 for Fairport ; but the ship, which brought to it 
 a fragrance of the Indies, Cathay, and the 
 Spice Islands, Madeira wine and Spanish olives, 
 barbaric, curious things, and a cargo of Cadiz 
 salt, brought for the two eager-eyed children 
 on Nautilus Island a wonderful freight from that 
 enchanted land which they talked of in their 
 play, and from which some faint sounds had 
 somehow reached them, and of which they had 
 some tangible tokens : discarded scraps of 
 finery from Alicante, and yellow shreds of 
 lace, handiwork of the nuns of Fayal. How 
 these faint echoes and little relics reached Nau 
 tilus Island we cannot tell. They drifted, as 
 all such things drift to sea-shore children. 
 The chief delight of these little ones was the 
 225
 
 The Waif of Nautilus Island 
 
 Bar. This, a long strip of shingly sand, con 
 nects the island with Gray's Head, a stony- 
 faced promontory which frowns upon the cove 
 eastward of Nautilus Island. At low tide the 
 Bar is uncovered, and Mamie and Obed loved 
 to run across on the oozy bridge, snatching a 
 fearful joy from the unexplored recesses of the 
 Head, hastening back as the water rose behind 
 them and gushed in eddying rivulets across the 
 narrow tongue of land, licking out the hghc 
 prints of their fast-flying feet. Barely escaping 
 the rising tide, they would sit breathless on the 
 rocks and watch the waves dashing over their 
 path, running to and fro like sleuth-hounds on 
 the track of the escaping fugitive. 
 
 But life was not all play for Mamie and 
 Obed. The old couple, their foster-parents, 
 earned their livelihood by furnishing fish, ber 
 ries, eggs, and small farm products to the slen 
 der market of Fairport. Obed accompanied 
 Miah on his brief voyages into the coves and 
 estuaries about the bay, gathering from the in 
 tricate waters which flowed around the many isl 
 ands of Penobscot Bay their harvest of the sea. 
 The girl, sometimes assisted by her foster- 
 brother, or mother, picked the wild berries of the 
 pastures, dug clams at low tide, and with willing 
 hands assisted Aunt Thankful in the work of 
 226
 
 The Waif of Nautilus Island 
 
 the house and little farm. As she grew older 
 she brought to all these tasks a certain airiness 
 which was in odd contrast with her homely 
 toil. She bloomed out in unexpected ways, 
 and puzzled the old dame with her bizarre 
 fancies. An indefinable native grace was in all 
 her steps; she loved the bright flowers and 
 soft ferns with which she garlanded her head, 
 and she had an artist's fancy for the delicate 
 shells which formed her necklace. A string of 
 bright India peas which she wore for bracelets 
 were to her beyond all price. 
 
 "That air gal will make a smart manter- 
 maker and milliner when she's grown," was 
 Aunt Thankful's frequent remark when she 
 saw how deftly she wrought wonderful snoods 
 and sashes from the odds and ends of woman's 
 attire which she found about the old cottage, 
 or received from occasional visitors from the 
 port. And the distressed old woman won 
 dered if the gypsy-like waywardness and love 
 for bright colors and ornaments which pos 
 sessed the child were not the tokens of some 
 strain of blood which would, by and by, assert 
 itself, and take her away to the " fine-feathered 
 birds" with which she should mate. No 
 wonder Thankful Morey, knowing nothing but 
 her duty to her "old man," her sordid cares, 
 227
 
 The Waif of Nautilus Island 
 
 and her own beloved pipe, grew restive as she 
 watched. " Take off them air rags and tags, 
 you little scarecrow," scolded she, as Mamie, 
 decked with sea-shell necklace, a bit of blue 
 ribbon, a wreath of wild columbines, and an 
 ancient gauze veil and carrying a pumpkin- 
 leaf sunshade, pranced through the house on 
 her way out to a promenade with Obed. The 
 child uttered a little cry of defiance and escaped 
 into the sunshine, followed by a mop-rag which 
 the angry old woman threw after her. 
 
 " Dear suz me ! old woman, let the gal 
 alone," said Miah, who smoked his pipe on 
 the door-stone. " Ef she enjoys that sort o' 
 thing, let her be, can't ye?" 
 
 " Wai, but it duz rile me to see that air gal 
 take on airs. She hasn't half the gumption that 
 Obe has, and the Lord knaows he hasn't got 
 enough to kill. Everybody would 'spose she 
 was born with a silver spoon in her mouth, by 
 the way she carries sail. She's jest a worryin' 
 the life outer me with her antics." 
 
 "Wai, now, Thankful, you jest know you 
 wouldn't take a ship-load o' gold for that air 
 gal, and wut's the use o' yer talkin' ? Her 
 dressin' comes in her blood, I cal'late; and ef 
 her blood relations was to hev her, I dessay 
 she'd wear furbelows like them high-strung 
 228
 
 The Waif of Nautilus Island 
 
 Boston gals thet wuz over to the port las' sum 
 mer. ' ' 
 
 This sort of speech, which was a long one 
 for the taciturn Miah, never failed to silence 
 the good wife, who dearly loved the girl, with 
 all her wayward and prankish tricks. And 
 when Mamie, discreetly hiding her decorations 
 in the rocks, came in from her breezy walk by 
 the beach, rosy and bright, the undemonstrative 
 but softened dame only said: "Wai, naow, 
 you are re'ly jest the poottiest little gal on the 
 Bay, I do b'lieve." 
 
 But Obed always took Mamie's part, and 
 when, sobbing and indignant, she sometimes fled 
 from the sharp tongue of her foster-mother, he 
 tried to cheer her in his rough, boyish way, 
 and vowed that when he grew up to be a man 
 he would bring her from foreign parts all the 
 laces and silks that money could buy ; for Obed 
 was to be a sailor and glean the world for 
 Mamie. Smiling through her tears the child 
 would ask : ' ' And will you really and truly 
 bring me a lace veil and a London doll that 
 opens and shuts its eyes?" 
 
 A solemn promise from Obed gave occasion 
 for a long and delightful confab on things in 
 the future ; and, hand in hand, the children 
 sat on Black Rock, gazing far over the blue, 
 
 229
 
 The Waif of Nautilus Island 
 
 sparkling waters of the bay at the distant sails 
 that floated in the sunny sweep of sky and sea. 
 Happy days ! happy dreamers ! Alas ! that 
 you must ever wake. 
 
 When Mamie had grown to be sixteen years 
 old she was a tall, fair girl, with golden hair, 
 shapely as a little queen, with a peachy cheek, 
 and eyes which reminded one of both sea and 
 sky they were so liquid yet so blue, with an 
 uncertain tint like that of the blue-green wave 
 just off soundings when the sunlight streams 
 through it. The fame of her wonderful beauty 
 had gone out through all the islands, and when, 
 on rare occasions, she rowed across the harbor 
 with Obed and her foster-father, the rustic 
 swains of the port came in groups to admire her 
 from a distance, as she carried her small wares 
 around among the stores of Fairport. Here 
 she caught glimpses of the outer world, and the 
 old-fashioned dry-goods, cheap jewelry, and 
 nameless nothings which decorated the shelves 
 and show-cases of the shops filled her with long 
 ings and imaginings unutterable. 
 
 Obed guarded her jealously, but the natural 
 manliness of the well-nurtured New England 
 youth protected her from any offence to the 
 half-startled shyness which she bore every 
 where. Obed was dark and brown ; his hands 
 230
 
 The Waif of Nautilus Island 
 
 were hard, and his face had that young-old look 
 which children of toil and poverty wear. But 
 he was brave and loving ; and he could row 
 cross-handed, skin a haddock, set a lobster-pot, 
 steer a pinkey, or turn a furrow, with the best 
 man on the Bay. He knew the times and 
 seasons of the mackerel, tomcod, alewives, and 
 smelt ; where to find the biggest hake and the 
 sweetest scallops was to him a second nature. 
 He had dived off the village wharf to save a 
 boy from drowning, had picked twelve quarts 
 of huckleberries in a single afternoon, and 
 earned the reputation of being the best salmon- 
 weir builder in all the region round. 
 
 But he was nineteen years old, and when, 
 after a short cruise down the Round, he greeted 
 his foster-sister as usual with a tremendous kiss, 
 she blushed and told him, in sweet confusion, 
 that he must not do so again. Grieved and in 
 jured, he asked the reason. " We are too old 
 to be kissing each other like babies," and 
 Mamie fled to hide her own embarrassment. 
 That night Obed sat on the rocks alone in the 
 starlight and looked out into the Bay. He 
 watched the waves climb up and down Man-o'- 
 War Reef, and thought of the sweet young life 
 which had been snatched from its hungry jaws ; 
 he pondered again the story of her mysterious 
 231
 
 The Waif of Nautilus Island 
 
 landing on the island. He looked over at the 
 beacon-light across the harbor, which seemed 
 to blink confidentially upon him as he knew at 
 last that he loved Mamie, and that she might 
 not always be his. He pictured her floating far 
 away somewhere into the wonderful world that 
 seemed to wait for her. The cottage hearth 
 stone would be unlighted by her gracious pres 
 ence. Aunt Thankful would forget her tempo 
 rary asperities, and smoke her pipe in sorrowful 
 silence ; the dingy cabin-walls would be dingier 
 and narrower, and the sunshine would be gone 
 from Nautilus Island. How could he keep it ? 
 
 But when winter came again, and Mamie 
 went over to the port to attend " the Master's 
 school," it was to supply the deficiencies of 
 education which she felt must not exist when 
 she married Obed in the spring. 
 
 Those were happy Saturday afternoons when 
 the stalwart young man, facing his foster-sister 
 crouched in the stern of his wherry, rowed her 
 home to stay until Monday morning. Lovely 
 were those wintry nights when the young 
 couple, pacing the icy beach, looked over the 
 glittering bay, marked the pencil-ray of the 
 light-house pointing afar, hearkened to the nine 
 o'clock bell ringing in the distant village spire, 
 and built anew their castles in the air, dreamed 
 232
 
 The Watf of Nautilus Island 
 
 again their golden dreams, and beneath the 
 frosty stars plighted again their undying love. 
 
 During the week-days Obed planned fresh 
 surprises for Mamie's Saturday return. He 
 wreathed her bedroom windows with the trail 
 ing evergreen from Gray's Head, and strung 
 great festoons of checker-berry and red wild- 
 rose seed-vessels above her little looking-glass. 
 The fragrant juniper with its purple berries per 
 fumed her room, and a wonderful rug of mink 
 and squirrel skins was laid where her dainty 
 feet might most need it. 
 
 The humble fare of the family was garnished 
 with its choicest dishes when Mamie came home 
 for Saturday and Sunday ; and on these occa 
 sions the picture of the beautiful girl, roughly 
 sketched by a wandering artist who had visited 
 the island, was newly decked with the delicate 
 ferns that Mamie loved best. 
 
 This portrait, sketchy though it was, had 
 been a cause of sore trouble once, for the artist, 
 a gay, chattering young fellow from a distant 
 city, while he painted it had talked of the 
 bright world of art, fashion, wealth, and soci 
 ety, and had filled Mamie's head with strange 
 fancies as he drew from her the story of her 
 mysterious childhood. In a moment of unac 
 customed ardor she had shown him the locket- 
 
 233
 
 The Waif of Nautilus Island 
 
 portrait which she had worn about her neck 
 when she was found in her dying father's arms. 
 And Obed was angry when he heard the care 
 less artist say that the portrait was that of " a 
 high-bred lady," and must have been painted in 
 foreign parts. But that was all forgotten now, 
 though Obed could never be quite reconciled 
 to the thought that the painter had carried away 
 with him a charming sketch of the Waif of 
 Nautilus Island, painted with the curious locket 
 resting on her bosom. 
 
 Spring came, and brought an end to Mamie's 
 schooling. The alders were all a-bloom with 
 their tender catkins, and the trailing arbutus 
 began to gleam in the recesses of the thickets. 
 Here and there, yellow violets sparkled on 
 the wet sod ; the bank swallows twittered 
 among the rocks, and the clang of wild-geese 
 resounded far up in the tender mist of the sky. 
 The young folks were across the bar, for the 
 tide was down, and a climb up Gray's Head 
 was not to be resisted on such a day ; it was 
 perfect in its cool fragrance and sunny bright 
 ness. It was a day to be remembered. It was 
 well remembered. 
 
 Dancing and skipping back across the bar, 
 they paused midway to settle an affectionate 
 little dispute. 
 
 234
 
 The Waif of Nautilus Island 
 
 " So you are sure you would love me just the 
 same if I were worth a meeting-house full of 
 gold? " queried the laughing girl. 
 
 Stretching his arms over the little rill of the 
 sea which separated them, streaming across the 
 bar with the rising tide, he answered : 
 
 " I should love you if you were a queen on a 
 golden throne, and I were the slave who waited 
 at your foot." 
 
 ' ' If you were rich I should not love you, be 
 cause you would be proud ; ' ' and she vaulted 
 over the swelling current, adjusting the much- 
 vexed question as they went homeward. 
 
 At the landing-place they saw a Fairport 
 boat, and, reaching the cottage, they beheld, 
 standing in the middle of the room which 
 served as kitchen, sitting-room, and bedroom 
 for the old couple, a stranger, who held in his 
 hand Mamie's locket. His face was fine and 
 pure ; his air was strangely out of keeping with 
 the humble surroundings, and on him was the 
 aromatic breath of another sphere than that of 
 Nautilus Island. He looked at the stony face 
 of Aunt Thankful, the sad features of the lock 
 et-portrait, and on the bewildered, changeful 
 eyes of the girl, and said : " My sister's child ! " 
 
 At last the mystery was cleared. The ship 
 Arethusa, bound from Calcutta to Portland, 
 
 235
 
 The Waif of 'Nautilus Island 
 
 years ago, carried homeward John Minton, 
 who had buried his wife in a far-off land, and, 
 accompanied by a native nurse, had taken his 
 motherless child to his own country. By what 
 disastrous chance the ship had been so far di 
 verted from her proper course as to be wrecked 
 on Man-o'-War Reef, no living man can tell. 
 But where the good ship Nautilus had been 
 broken up in 1797, and where a proud Spanish 
 man-of-war had met its death two years later, 
 the Arethusa went to pieces on a fatal night in 
 March, 1846 ; and only this golden-haired girl 
 remained of all those strong lives which were 
 whelmed in the breakers of the reef. 
 
 The wild, fantastic fancies of the children 
 had blossomed into reality at last. The tell 
 tale artist had showed his picture of the rustic 
 beauty of Nautilus Island to his friends and pa 
 trons in the great city where he wrought. The 
 likeness to her dead mother, the strange locket 
 on her breast, the mystery of her birth all these 
 had piqued a languid curiosity among the artist's 
 acquaintances ; but they furnished a chain 
 which led straight from the gay capital to Miah 
 Morey's cabin by the shores of the Penobscot. 
 
 Why should I dwell on the parting that fol 
 lowed ? 
 
 New England people are not given to tears 
 
 236
 
 The Waif of Nautilus Island 
 
 and scenes, wild bursts of grief and heart-rend 
 ing farewells. It was settled that Mamie ought 
 to go and see her new-found relatives, while 
 proper steps were taken to secure to her her 
 father's property. Mr. Horton was ready to 
 recognize Obed's right to the hand of his niece, 
 since she claimed that it was a right. But the 
 young man could wait ; Mamie lacked a year 
 and more of being eighteen ; and, meantime, 
 she should take a look at the world before she 
 married and settled down on Nautilus Island ; 
 and the man of the city looked superciliously 
 about him as he spoke. 
 
 So he went over to the port for a day or two 
 while Mamie was prepared for her journey. 
 And there fell a great silence on the house 
 hold. Mamie and Obed sat on Black Rock, 
 and watched the sea come and go ; she, tearful 
 and trembling, talked of the joyousness of the 
 time when she should come back with her 
 " shipload of gold," to make dear Aunt Thank 
 ful and Uncle Miah comfortable to the end of 
 their days. He, jealous and distraught, was 
 half sure she was glad to go. Old Miah mended 
 his nets in silence, and the good wife sternly 
 went about her household duties, feeling, she 
 savagely muttered to herself, " as if there was 
 a funeral in the house." 
 
 237
 
 The Waif of Nautilus Island 
 
 At last the day came when Obed received 
 the lingering feet of his playmate into his boat ; 
 she sobbed once more her farewells on the ample 
 bosom of Aunt Thankful, and kissed the sea- 
 beaten face of old Miah. They shoved off from 
 the familiar landing-place ; Mamie turned her 
 eyes, swollen with weeping, to the silent, rigid 
 figures of the aged couple on the shore ; Obed 
 grimly choked down a great lump in his throat, 
 and with manly strokes, swept out into the tide 
 which bore them toward the port where the 
 girl's uncle waited to take her to her new 
 home. 
 
 When the Bucksport stage, which carried 
 his love away, had climbed Windmill Hill, 
 dazed Obed had rowed back to the island. He 
 plodded in a blind way to the rocks where 
 he and Mamie had sat in childhood, and had 
 built their youthful fancies in the floating 
 clouds. So he sat alone for hours, until he 
 saw, far across the bay, the plume of smoke 
 which marked where the Boston steamboat 
 glided down the coast, bearing from him all 
 that was dear on earth ; then he went calmly 
 away, and, with a set face, turned his fish-flakes 
 to the westering sun. 
 
 The silent, self-contained household said no 
 word of the day's great event, save, when the 
 
 238
 
 The Waif of Nautilus Island 
 
 nine o'clock bell chimed from the village spire 
 across the tide, Aunt Thankful, as she covered 
 the fire, said : "I cal'late the poor gal is dref- 
 ful sea-sick naow. ' ' 
 
 The days passed wearily. The season ad 
 vanced rapidly ; the leaves rushed out on the 
 trees, and the corn crackled its green blades in 
 the field behind the fish-house; but there was no 
 longer any joy of life on Nautilus Island. Aunt 
 Thankful's " rheumatiz " was worse than usual ; 
 and though there was a fine run of salmon that 
 spring, and drift-wood was uncommonly plenty, 
 old Miah felt " diskerridged and clean beat 
 out." Obed worked harder than ever before, 
 but he rowed over to town every night, and 
 waited about the corner until the sound of the 
 post-office horn told him to ask for a letter. 
 
 At last it came, that wonderful letter, and 
 the sunset gleams were richer, redder, and more 
 glorious as Obed, drifting with the tide, sat on 
 the thwart where she had often sat with him, 
 and, resting his oars, read her loving words. 
 She was well and happy in her new home. 
 How could she be happy, thought Obed, half 
 in anger ; but he was glad to be told that all 
 her bliss was dashed by the thought that she was 
 away from him. She ran on, page after page, 
 describing the Hortons, who lived in a grand 
 
 239
 
 The Watf of Nautilus Island 
 
 house, had servants by the score, with gay 
 equipage and brilliant company. Her aunt 
 was a lovely woman with pink cheeks and waves 
 of real lace. Her only cousin was a handsome 
 young fellow with such a splendid mustache ! 
 And would not Obed wear a mustache? it 
 would become him so. Then there followed 
 many minute inquiries about Aunt Thankful 
 and Uncle Miah. Did the gray duck hatch 
 out well, and was the top-knot hen ready to set 
 yet? Obed must be sure and not forget her 
 doves ; how did the mackerel season turn out ? 
 And, oh, had he been across the Bar lately? 
 On the whole, the letter was decided, in family 
 conclave, to be a very satisfactory and alto 
 gether grand affair. Obed had a secret pang 
 of jealousy whenever he thought of the hand 
 some city cousin with the matchless mustache ; 
 and he could not exactly see how Mamie could 
 by and by forego the luxurious home which she 
 described, and return to Nautilus Island. 
 
 With laborious hands he wrote a reply to her 
 letter, faithfully cataloguing all the domestic 
 incidents which had occurred, and commenting 
 on each as he wrote. 
 
 And Mamie ? In her city home she was trans 
 figured by the magic of dress and surroundings. 
 No linsey-woolsey and calico now ; no bizarre 
 240
 
 The Waif of Nautilus Island 
 
 sea- weed and cockle-shell decorations. With 
 that wonderful intuition which beautiful women 
 have, she overruled and guided the artistic 
 fancies of her aunt and her millinery women ; 
 and the untutored child of the sea-shore arrayed 
 herself in matchless garniture. Soft, bright 
 colors, diaphanous laces and flowing lines were 
 but the unnoticed accessories of the rare loveli 
 ness into which she bloomed. Her brown face 
 cleared into rosy alabaster ; the sharp lines of 
 her mouth grew soft and full ; her glorious hair 
 took on a more golden glow in its bands of 
 pearl and gold. At last her luxurious tastes 
 and her craving for beautiful things were satis 
 fied. Sometimes she stood gravely before the 
 great mirror in her dressing-room, delighting 
 her eyes with the sheen of her silk, the gossa 
 mer-like airiness of her rufflings, and she asked 
 if this fair, flower-like creature, so rarely decked, 
 could be the Waif of Nautilus Island ? Lock 
 ing her door securely, she paced statelily up and 
 down her room, learning to sweep with grace 
 her shining drapery, waving her round arms, 
 half hid in lace, and turning her head, as she 
 imagined her beautiful mother in the picture- 
 locket must have walked and moved and turned 
 her lovely head when she was a young girl. 
 But, in the most ravishing strains of the 
 241
 
 The Waif of Nautilus Island 
 
 grand operas, in the pauses of the gay gossip of 
 the ball-room, and in the midst of the splendor 
 of drawing-rooms, her true heart went back to 
 her own home. She saw Aunt Thankful spin 
 ning in the sun by the door ; Uncle Mi ah 
 tended his lobster-pots, and thought of his dear 
 little girl so far away. And Obed, of course, 
 he looked across the Bar, and his eye sought 
 out the ledges in the rocks where they two had 
 sat and dreamed, or it dwelt lovingly on the 
 mossy tree trunks among which they had 
 climbed the Head, seeking for thimble-berries. 
 With a great longing she longed to go back ; 
 she could not wait another year to hear the be 
 loved voices of the dear ones on the island ; 
 how could she live so long so far away from the 
 familiar little cabin, the homelike shore, and 
 the well-remembered wash and murmur of the 
 sea? 
 
 But the city was fair ; it was full of life and 
 beauty for her. The picture-galleries, the gay 
 shops, the crowds of well-dressed people, the 
 delicious opera, gorgeous ball, and occasional 
 pageant all these filled her with a great satis 
 faction. Under their influences and those of a 
 refined, luxurious home, she ripened into a 
 woman of extraordinary beauty and attractive 
 ness. She was the bright particular star of the 
 242
 
 The Waif of Nautilus Island 
 
 fashionable season, and her romantic story, art 
 less ways, and surpassing loveliness filled any 
 gaps that her unfamiliarity with the gay world's 
 ways might have made. Men do not readily 
 adapt themselves to a new sphere of life, 
 whether it be higher or lower; women have 
 the art to conceal their unacquaintance with 
 novel circumstances and soon learn to appear 
 as though they had never known any other. 
 Mamie was as one born in the purple. 
 
 Obed poured out his strong, loving soul in 
 long letters, which Mamie read in the rosy, 
 velvety, curtained privacy of her own apart 
 ments with a guilty blush. She was half- afraid 
 that the stately mirrors and supercilious satin 
 hangings should discover how dreadfully 
 crabbed was her lover's handwriting, and how 
 he misused his capital letters. It was like a 
 breath from the salt sea to read those dear, lov 
 ing messages from Nautilus ; but, somehow, 
 her bronze Hebe looked with innocent surprise 
 from its pedestal when Mamie's rosy fingers 
 turned over the details of the welfare of the new 
 litter of pigs, and the promise of the salmon 
 season. The Louis Quatorze chairs were in 
 terested but not pleased with Aunt Thankful' s 
 directions about the yarn stockings and the 
 catnip tea. The girl was conscious that she
 
 The Waif of Nautilus Island 
 
 was living two lives one present and one pass 
 ing away. 
 
 The winter melted, leaving Mamie a little 
 weary ; and a summer in the mountains rested 
 her. She saw and loved the snowy, billowy 
 peaks ; they reminded her of the familiar 
 white-crested, tumultuous waves that rose over 
 the watery ridge of the sea, or sank into the 
 long level of the placid valleys. The moun 
 tains and the great forests were new to this 
 child of the sea, but they oppressed her, and 
 seemed to shut out the sky. She longed for 
 the free expanse of the ocean. So when the 
 time came for her to choose between the capi 
 tal and Nautilus Island, between her uncle and 
 her foster-parents, she wondered reproachfully 
 that any one could doubt how she would 
 decide; and she astonished the city family 
 by deliberately electing Aunt Thankful and 
 Uncle Miah as her guardians. She would turn 
 her back on the gauds of the gay world, and, 
 with a little sigh for its soft light and color, go 
 back to the rude home of her childhood and to 
 Obed. 
 
 There was mourning as well as wonder when 
 this decision was anounced to the city family. 
 And when Obed came out of his life-long se 
 clusion, proud, yet timid, to claim his bride, he 
 244
 
 The Waif of Nautilus Island 
 
 was coldly and disdainfully shut into a drawing- 
 room to wait for Mamie. His manliness for 
 bade him to be dismayed by the fairy-like 
 splendors in which he found himself; but his 
 heart sank somewhat as the untutored youth, 
 fresh from the bare, hard life of the Maine sea- 
 coast, contemplated the walls gleaming with 
 treasures of art, the gilded, carved furniture, 
 the heavy drapery, and the multitude of costly 
 objects scattered about in what seemed to him 
 reckless profusion. And when Mamie, blush 
 ing and half shy, floated into the room, he was 
 almost appalled. Could this radiant creature, 
 adorned with fragile and costly textures, be his 
 little foster-sister, his affianced bride? The 
 first greeting over, he contemplated her from a 
 distance, hot and cold by turns. He was ready 
 to fall down and worship, yet he was angry 
 that she looked so rare and fine. It was not his 
 Mamie ; still it was she whom he adored. 
 
 To Mamie, Obed did not look changed ; he 
 was browner and a trifle taller ; he wore the 
 mustache which she had fancied for him ; but it 
 was not becoming, and, somehow, Obed did not 
 " fit into the picture." He did not sit easily 
 on his satin chair ; and his garments, awkwardly 
 fitting as they were, were not in keeping with 
 the brocaded drapery behind him. All this ran 
 
 245
 
 The Waif of 'Nautilus Island 
 
 through the girl's mind, and she vexedly 
 thought how wrong it was to notice them ; and 
 yet how much more handsome Obed was in his 
 white duck trousers and blue flannel shirt than 
 in that cheap-looking shiny black coat. Poor 
 Obed ! he felt cheap-looking, and longed to be 
 back on Nautilus with his own little girl again. 
 
 No word of criticism escaped Mamie's lips. 
 All was well, and a torrent of talk swept away 
 the first natural coolness of restraint which fell 
 on both. There were a thousand things to say 
 and ask, and though, during the two or three 
 days of Obed's stay, she had great difficulty in 
 trying to make him fit into the new life where 
 she was so much at home, she still found her 
 old friend as dear and loving as ever. He was 
 still her Obed ! 
 
 "I am Cinderella, and the clock strikes 
 twelve," she said, as she laid aside "the fine 
 feathers," and prepared for her return to Nauti 
 lus Island. Silk and satin trains were not 
 suitable for her wild runs across the Bar ; her 
 laces would not " fit in " with the spruce boughs 
 and wild-brier of Gray's Head. So, amidst 
 great wonder and lamentation in city mansions, 
 she went her way homeward with Obed. 
 
 The sunshine, softened and mellowed, came 
 again with Mamie to Nautilus Island. Obed, 
 246
 
 The Waif of Nautilus Island 
 
 proud and happy as a king, conducted his 
 affianced bride to the old cottage ; Aunt Thank - 
 ful's hard features relaxed with joyful tears as 
 she gathered in her arms her restored treasure. 
 Old Miah sounded his nasal trumpet loudly in 
 .the depths of his bandanna, and turned away, 
 after a greeting, to split firewood with unneces 
 sary vigor. The girl brought back with her a 
 greatly changed demeanor, but she was the 
 same loving child as of yore. If she wove into 
 her quiet browns and grays a stray bit of bright 
 ribbon or lace, like a souvenir of her city life, 
 it was not out of keeping with the sombre 
 woods, the dazzling shore, and the blue-green 
 water that lapped the island. Her beauty was 
 heightened by the accidental lights which 
 gleamed in her quiet dress, and even undemon 
 strative Thankful Morey was constrained to 
 say: " Wai, I dew declare you've grown to be 
 a right proper young gal, and you allers wuz as 
 pootty as a pink." 
 
 The first excitement of returning over, Mamie 
 tried to settle contentedly into the old order of 
 things. She pranced about the little island 
 like a child, revisiting all their old haunts, sit 
 ting on Black Rock with Obed for a moment, 
 then darting to the dove-house to call her 
 pets, visiting the cow-yard to greet the mild- 
 247
 
 The Waif of Nautilus Island 
 
 eyed Brindle, inspecting the fish-flakes, and 
 listening half attentively to Obed's account 
 of the net result of last season's catch. But, 
 most of all, she delighted to chase across the 
 Bar; it was not so easy to climb up Gray's 
 Head as it once was, but the purple asters were, 
 as bright and the white amaranths as perfect as 
 ever. The tide came in as it used, lacing the 
 wet sand with its long streams of frothy spume, 
 and chasing their steps as they ran to and from 
 the Head to Nautilus. 
 
 Yet, somehow, when she tried to be quite 
 satisfied with the dear old home, she was morti 
 fied and angry with herself that it was not easy 
 to be so satisfied. Something ailed the place. 
 It was clear that Aunt Thankful had not been 
 so scrupulously neat about the house as when 
 she was a younger woman. She had grown 
 old and careless in a year and a half. The 
 rooms were smaller and dingier than when 
 Mamie went away. The ceilings were low, and 
 her pure little bedroom smelt of her foster- 
 mother's pipe. She laughed airily to herself 
 about all these trifles : she should soon get over 
 them. 
 
 "I cal'late," said Aunt Thankful confiden 
 tially to her good man, " that our little gal will 
 build an L onto the haouse when she and Obe are 
 248
 
 The Waif of Nautilus Island 
 
 married. It'd be nuthin' more'n right, for she's 
 forehanded naow." 
 
 " Wai, wal, don't less hurry the child; she's 
 noways mean, and '11 dew the right thing when 
 the time comes. I s'pose she'll hev a sight o' 
 money when she squares up with the Hortons? " 
 
 " I don't knaow, but I would like to hev that 
 L built onto the haouse. Mame wants me to git 
 a help ; that air Booden gal over to Somes 's 
 would be right handy. But no, I don't want 
 none o' the pesky critters raound, breakin' more 
 dishes than they are wuth, and spilin' vittles 
 by the pailful. But I would like to hev that 
 air L onto the haouse." 
 
 Mamie took great pleasure in Obed's manly, 
 resolute ways ; he was in refreshing contrast 
 with insipid young gentlemen whom she had 
 known in the city. It was a little trying to her 
 ideas of niceness that he should put his knife to 
 his mouth at table; but then the three-tined 
 steel forks were not just the thing to use as she 
 would like to see him use them. These little 
 non-essentials would be corrected when they 
 were married. Married ? She thought of that 
 now with a vague shiver. She was too young yet 
 to take up life for herself. But she was true to 
 Obed ; she never, never could love anybody 
 else, for he was noble, loving, and true as steel. 
 249
 
 The Waif of Nautilus Island 
 
 Still, there was no hurry, for she had many 
 things to do. And one of these things was to 
 soften down some of the asperities which chafed 
 her gentle soul about the family. Aunt Thank 
 ful must certainly learn to do without that 
 shocking pipe ; and she really did think that 
 Uncle Miah might shave oftener ; his gray stub 
 bly beard detracted much from the beauty of 
 his dear old face, never very handsome. 
 
 Aunt Thankful's eyes were not so old but 
 they were sharp enough to see Mamie's un- 
 satisfaction. ' ' Wai, ' ' she said one day, ' ' ef 
 ye think them air sheets on yer bed air too 
 coarse, I s'pose ye knaow where there's finer 
 ones to be bought. But I hain't got no money 
 to fool away on such extravagance at my time 
 o' life." 
 
 " O Aunty," pleaded she. 
 
 "Wai, wal, my little pink, make 'em dew 
 for naow ; yer' 11 hev better when yer set up fur 
 yerself. ' ' 
 
 These small disputes worried Obed, but 
 Mamie and he never spoke to each other about 
 them, and, before they knew it, a thin wall had 
 risen up between them. It was thin, so thin, 
 but cold ; and they looked at each other through 
 it. Then he remembered angrily the gentle criti 
 cisms which she had passed upon his uncultured 
 250
 
 The Waif of Nautilus Island 
 
 habits. " She's got above us plain folks," he 
 muttered to himself; but he swore roundly at 
 Aunt Thankful one day when she hinted that 
 Mamie was " consider' ble uppish since she had 
 been spiled by them Mortons." 
 
 He thought of the wondrous apparition of 
 loveliness that had been revealed to him when 
 he met her in the Horton drawing-room ; and 
 he reproached himself that he had been so eager 
 to take her away from a station in life which 
 seemed to have been made for her. After all, 
 was she not the dove in the fish-hawk's nest ? 
 But he ground his teeth and kept everything to 
 himself. 
 
 Winter came on apace, and Obed coldly con 
 sented to a postponement of their marriage 
 until spring. They had long talks now loving 
 and tender, but sometimes fierce ; for the girl 
 had a temper of her own, and Obed was " very 
 aggravating " at times. He was jealous as the 
 grave ; she was wilful, prankish, and sometimes 
 teased him until he was frenzied, and she was 
 astonished at her own audacity ; but she kept 
 on teasing. And the thin veil of ice betwixt 
 them did not melt. 
 
 They were sitting one day on the rocky 
 ledge of Gray's Head, whither they had rowed 
 in Obed's boat. The tide was coming in, and 
 251
 
 The Waif of Nautilus Island 
 
 they watched the salt, spongy ice-cakes grinding 
 together as they tumultuously huddled up the 
 Bar. "How lovely this is," she said. "It 
 somehow makes me think of the hurried, crash 
 ing, mournful music of an opera I once heard." 
 
 "Oh, cuss the opera," said Obed, roughly; 
 for he was in one of. his black moods, and she 
 had been unconsciously worrying him. ' ' We've 
 no opera on Nautilus, and I never heard one. ' ' 
 
 "You shall hear one some day, dear; but 
 I guess we had better go home. Dinner is 
 ready ; see, Aunt Thankful has hung the red 
 cloth in the window." 
 
 On the way down to the beach, a whim seized 
 her to go across the Bar. ' ' But the tide is 
 coming in, and the ice is running to-day." 
 
 "Nevermind," said the laughing girl; "I 
 haven't been on the ice-cakes for so long, I 
 want to take a run. You go in the boat and 
 I'll beat you across." 
 
 In vain Obed pleaded and in vain com 
 manded. " Will you go in my boat with me? 
 Now or never," he said, meaningly. 
 
 "No, and never," she laughed gayly, and 
 fled away, her bright red hood fluttering in the 
 breeze. 
 
 Obed took his way sullenly across the cove, 
 making a wide detour to reach into clear water. 
 252
 
 The Waif of Nautilus Island 
 
 Mamie went on, her gayety gone her heart 
 was heavy ; she looked yearningly after Obed's 
 retreating form. " Poor boy ! " she murmured ; 
 " I do not love him as I thought I did. But, 
 before God who pities me, I must keep my 
 word." 
 
 She set her teeth firmly as she whispered this 
 to the spectral ice-cakes that came crowding 
 up about her. The way was hard ; the tide 
 was flowing in rapidly, and the time she gained 
 in running on the open sand was lost in climb 
 ing over the frequent sheets of treacherous ice. 
 The ominous whisper of the sea grew loud and 
 hoarse under the icy shapes that hurried in 
 upon the Bar, hiding her from the shore and 
 from Obed, who was standing up in his boat now 
 and looking for her. Up, up crept the tide, 
 pouring through the blocks of ice and chilling 
 her poor little feet. Her slender hands were torn 
 with the rough crystalline edges of the frozen 
 sea-water over which she toiled ; but she strug 
 gled on. She was half way across, and could see 
 the fish-flakes on the snowy bank, the old sail 
 boat hauled up for the winter. How distant 
 they were ! 
 
 But the tide was rising. She must wade for 
 it, if she got to clear water. Suddenly there 
 was a tremor ; the air was hushed and still, save 
 
 253
 
 The Waif of Nautilus Island 
 
 where a little sob crept up from ice-covered 
 Man-o'-War Reef. A jam of ice-floes gave way 
 with a noise like thunder, and great blue and 
 white masses came crowding down across the 
 Bar with the rising tide. Like a drove of 
 hungry wolves, the fantastic shapes sped from 
 shore to shore, sweeping everything before 
 them. There was a little cry as of a human 
 note muffled in the sea, and the icy waves 
 flowed murmurously over the Bar. 
 
 Obed's straining eyes saw no graceful figure 
 climb the bank below the cottage; and from 
 Nautilus to Gray's Head the tide coursed in 
 strong, deep currents. Frantic, he pulled his 
 boat through the hindering ice and sprang 
 ashore. No footprints led upward from the isl 
 and end of the Bar ; no form met his distracted 
 vision. Shore and sky, ice, water, and stony- 
 faced precipice looked calmly at him, as he 
 stood, speechless, in his great agony. 
 
 The news spread, as such news does, in the 
 air, and from far and wide flocked the rough, 
 compassionate sea-farers of the bay, searching 
 for it. They never found that for which they 
 sought. 
 
 As the sun went down, compassionately tint 
 ing the frosty shores with a rosy glow, John 
 Clark, removing his seal -skin cap in deference 
 254
 
 The Waif of Nautilus Island 
 
 to a great grief, silently handed Obed a little 
 red hood which he had found on a floating sheet 
 of ice. 
 
 And that was all. The Waif of Nautilus 
 Island had returned to the sea whence she 
 came. 
 
 255
 
 A Century Ago
 
 A CENTURY AGO 
 
 I. 
 
 1777 
 
 " HT*HE British have landed at the Back 
 JL Cove ! ' ' shouted Peletiah Wardwell, 
 one fine May morning in 1777, as he burst into 
 the keeping-room of Captain Joe Perkins's 
 house. Dame Perkins dropped her knitting- 
 work, and, looking steadily over her spectacles 
 at the lad, said : 
 
 " Peletiah, you have forgotten something." 
 
 Peletiah, with a blush mantling his honest 
 and already flushed face, pulled off his sealskin 
 cap and made an awkward bow. Boys were 
 brought up in that way, one hundred years ago. 
 
 Then he added, excitedly, but with less bois- 
 terousness : "Yes, the British have landed at 
 the Back Cove. Captain Blodgett has called 
 for volunteers. ' ' 
 
 " And Mr. Perkins has gone off to the Neck," 
 said the dame, rising and going to the window, 
 259
 
 A Century Ago 
 
 from which she could look up toward Windmill 
 Hill. No horseman was in sight. There was 
 no sign of her husband's return. Then, with a 
 flash of indignation in her eyes, she turned to 
 the boy and asked : 
 
 ' ' Why stand you there ? Go ! alarm the 
 town ! ' ' 
 
 The boy was off like a shot. 
 
 "What's that? What's that, mother?" 
 cried Oliver, a boy of sixteen, who rushed in 
 from the back garden, where he had been spad 
 ing up the ground. His mother had taken 
 down Captain Perkins's gun from the wooden 
 mantel where it hung, and was looking at the 
 old flint-lock. 
 
 " The red-coats have landed at the Back 
 Cove, my son, and we must defend the town. ' ' 
 
 " You ! mother ? " cried the boy, with some 
 thing like a laugh in his eye, but with his face 
 glowing. "You! mother?" 
 
 ' ' The time has come at last, my boy. Father 
 said that there was danger that the British 
 would come over from the Penobscot shore and 
 take the town in the rear. They have landed 
 at the Back Cove. There is no force in the 
 little battery between them and the fort. And 
 Captain Blodgett has only thirty militia-men 
 with him in the fort. Everybody must do his 
 260
 
 share to save the town. I can run bullets for 
 somebody to use with your father's gun." 
 
 " Give me the gun, mother ! I'll go !" 
 and the lad's eyes sparkled as he spoke. 
 
 " Said like a man, my boy ! said like a man ! 
 There are the horns ! ' ' and just then the sound 
 of fish-horns braying on the village-green 
 showed that the alarm had spread. 
 
 The preparations were scant and hurried. 
 Oliver hung his father's powder-horn about his 
 neck, put into his pouch the few bullets he 
 could find, picked the flint of the gun-lock, so 
 that it should not miss fire, and was then ready 
 to fly to the green to report himself for duty. 
 
 " I shall run some more bullets and send to 
 you anon," said the mother. "The skillet is 
 on the coals and Dorcas will help me. ' ' 
 
 The lad lingered an instant in the open door 
 way, and the sun streaming brightly on him 
 gilded his yellow hair and shed a golden glory 
 over his fair young face. So full of life, so alert 
 and ardent, he seemed for the moment transfig 
 ured in the eyes of his mother. She went 
 swiftly toward him, kissed him, and without a 
 quaver in her voice said : 
 
 " /cannot give you to your country, Nolly. 
 God gave you when he gave you a country. 
 You will do your duty. ' ' 
 261
 
 " That I will, mother," and the boy, throw 
 ing his father's gun over his shoulder, ran down 
 the village street to the green. 
 
 As he fled, two stalwart fellows hurried by, 
 not forgetting to salute Dame Perkins as they 
 passed. Shading her eyes from the sun, she 
 called after them : 
 
 " Seth and Jotham Buker ! My little Nolly 
 has gone to the defence. Will you have an eye 
 on his welfare in the fight ? ' ' 
 
 " Aye ! aye ! " answered the men cheerily as 
 they ran. 
 
 Then Dame Perkins softly closed the door, 
 threw her apron over her head, and sat down on 
 the stair, crying to herself, ' ' My son ! my son ! ' ' 
 
 Dorcas, the little handmaid of the house, 
 brought a bag of bullets, all hot from the moulds, 
 to Oliver as he stood with the other volunteers 
 on the green. 
 
 "And I thought, Nolly, that mebbe you'd 
 like your fishin' tackle," and she produced the 
 boy's torn-cod line as she spoke. 
 
 The young men standing around laughed at 
 the sight, and Oliver blushed with mortification. 
 It seemed to him that he had grown to man 
 hood since he had fished with that line off the 
 wharf the day before. Curbing his impatience 
 a little, he said : 
 
 262
 
 A Century Ago 
 
 " Much obliged, Dorcas," and put the reel 
 into his pocket. 
 
 " Forward ! march ! " shouted Corporal Hib- 
 bard, and the little company stepped out man 
 fully to the tap of the drum, every throb of which 
 seemed to say to the lad: "You will do your 
 duty ! you will do your duty ! " over and over 
 again. 
 
 Through the fields they went straight to the 
 crown of the peninsula on which Castine is built. 
 There, on the rounded ridge, overlooking the 
 town on the one side, and the pastures on the 
 other, was a rude earthwork, about ten feet 
 high, surrounded by a ditch, and commanding 
 a view of the harbor in front of the town, as 
 well as of the Back Cove which borders the 
 rocky and sloping pastures behind it. This was 
 "The Fort." Thence they could descry a 
 fleet of boats on the shore of the cove, about a 
 mile and a half away. Half a mile off was a 
 small battery of earth, shaped like a half-moon, 
 behind which a few men might lie concealed 
 and worry an advancing enemy. 
 
 ' ' Tell off twenty men for the battery ! ' ' 
 shouted Captain Blodgett. 
 
 And Corporal Hibbard went down the line 
 and counted out every other man until he had 
 his twenty men. These stepped out to the 
 
 263
 
 front. They were old, middle-aged, and young. 
 Each was afire with zeal ; each was more than 
 ready to fight for his country. The oldest was 
 the gray-haired grandsire of Seth and Jotham 
 Buker. The youngest was Oliver Perkins. And 
 as they marched cheerily, yet sedately, down 
 the hill, Oliver's heart beat high with pride, 
 and he seemed to hear a soft voice repeating : 
 " You will do your duty! You will do your 
 duty! " 
 
 " Seems to me they might have kep' that lit 
 tle chap at home," muttered old man Buker to 
 his grandson, Seth, discontentedly, though even 
 his aged limbs almost tottered as he spoke. 
 " This is no fit work for children." 
 
 " He's grit," said Seth, sententiously, "and 
 I've promised the dame to keep an eye on 
 him." 
 
 " No talking in the ranks ! " thundered Cor 
 poral Hibbard. 
 
 The red coats of the British were already 
 gleaming through the firs and cedars as the lit 
 tle squad filed behind the battery and lay down 
 with their guns in position. 
 
 " Wait till I give the word," said the cor 
 poral, in a hoarse whisper, " then fire ! " 
 
 Oliver's breath came fast, and his eyes spar 
 kled with strange light, as the red-coats came 
 264
 
 A Century Ago 
 
 steadily on. On they came, first slowly, then, 
 lowering their guns, with gleaming bayonets 
 fixed, they broke into a run, and charged di 
 rectly upon the battery. 
 
 "Fire! " shouted Corporal Hibbard, as he 
 saw the whites of the eyes of the British regu 
 lars. 
 
 At the word, a rattling crash tore out from 
 the line behind the battery. The enemy's line 
 wavered and broke here and there. Then came 
 a word of command, and the red-coats dashed 
 up the slope, swarmed over the battery, and, in 
 the midst of firing, smoke, and cheers, struggled 
 to gain the position. 
 
 It was a brief fight. A few of the patriots 
 managed to escape into the fir thickets to the 
 right and left of the battery, and so fled back 
 to the fort with their ill news. 
 
 The British troops re-formed their line and 
 marched on up the hill. How gallantly the pa 
 triots defended this last line behind the town, 
 how well they fought, I cannot stay to tell. It 
 was all in vain. When night fell, the red cross 
 of St. George was flying on the flag-staff on the 
 green, and the British colonel was quartered in 
 Dame Perkins's house. 
 
 That night Captain Perkins came back and 
 heard the doleful story. " It was a foolish thing 
 265
 
 A Century Ago 
 
 to do," was all he said. But whether he re 
 ferred to Oliver's going to the defence, or to 
 Captain Blodgett's attempt to hold the battery, 
 nobody dared to ask. For it was plain that 
 his grief was great. 
 
 266
 
 II. 
 
 i8 7 7- 
 
 "SAY, ma! mayn't I go a-fishin' down to 
 the Back Cove, with Joey Gardner? " 
 
 Lincoln Parker's mother hung two more of 
 her boy's shirts on the clothes-line before she 
 glanced up at the summer sky, and said : 
 
 " Why, my son, it is going to rain, I'm 
 afraid. Besides, there's no good fishing in the 
 Back Cove. Better go down on the wharf. ' ' 
 
 " Oh, you can catch torn-cods off the rocks, 
 if you only have a long pole. Say, ma, may n't 
 I?" 
 
 A few minutes later, Abraham Lincoln Par 
 ker, with a luncheon-basket in his hand, was 
 tugging after Jotham Swansdowne Gardner, 
 who was two years older than he and was ac 
 counted the most knowing fisherman of all the 
 village lads. The two youngsters cut across the 
 fields, scaled the grassy ruins of the old fort on 
 the hill, and, with a wild cheer of savage joy in 
 freedom, scampered down the pasture which 
 slopes to the Back Cove. 
 267
 
 A Century Ago 
 
 The robins fled away from the newly ploughed 
 ground as the boys approached ; and a squirrel 
 that had been scolding at them from the top of 
 Dave Sawyer's fence dropped his tail and scud 
 ded away in alarm. Squirrels and robins usu 
 ally have a wholesome dread of young people, 
 though neither Abe nor Joey was their enemy. 
 These boys had their thoughts on torn-cods, 
 and they scarcely noticed the green and velvety 
 tufts of moss that adorned the pasture-knolls, or 
 saw the pale petals of the May-flowers that sent 
 forth their delicate odors from the very edge of 
 the lingering snow-drifts under the spruce trees. 
 
 ' ' Young Dave, " as he was called, was plough 
 ing in the little patch which his father had 
 fenced in from the pasture. Summer comes late 
 in Maine, and though this was in warm May, 
 the time for planting had only just begun. The 
 air was full of life. The peewit and the chick 
 adee were complaining in the bushes. The 
 water-spiders and pollywogs were lively in the 
 clear puddles that filled the grassy hollows, 
 and eye-brights and yellow violets were bloom 
 ing on the swale which is still called ' ' The 
 Battery." 
 
 "Hullo, Dave! what's that?" asked Joey, 
 as Dave's ploughshare turned up a brown bowl 
 from the earth. Dave stopped his horses, picked 
 268
 
 A Century Ago 
 
 up the bowl, and turning it over in his hands, 
 said : "I swan to man, boys, but that's a hu 
 man critter's skull ! " 
 
 "A skull!" cried both the boys at once, 
 with eyes agog with awe and wonder. 
 
 Abe drew back a little. 
 
 "Oh, it wont hurt ye," said Dave. "I 
 reckon this belonged to one of them Revolution 
 ary fellers that fit here, a hundred year ago. ' ' 
 
 "Fought here, did they?" cried Joey, 
 eagerly. 
 
 " Yes, fit here, they did," said Dave, and he 
 seated himself on the cross-beam of his plough 
 and looked thoughtfully at the brown relic. 
 " I've heerd my gran'ther Dunham tell the story 
 many and many a time. He was into the last 
 war, but his father he was a Revolutionary pen 
 sioner. ' ' 
 
 " What a little skull for a man ! " remarked 
 Joey. " Should think it must have been a boy. ' ' 
 
 " Shouldn't wonder ! shouldn't wonder ! 
 And here, you see, is where the British bullet 
 left its mark. Drefful good shot that," and 
 Dave regarded the little round hole with real 
 admiration. "The feller that put that there 
 could knock over that red squirrel just as easy. ' ' 
 
 " What did they fight for ? " demanded Abe. 
 To him it seemed wicked that people should 
 269
 
 A Century Ago 
 
 fight and kill each other, and that this remnant 
 of a cruel war should now be turned up in the 
 midst of the life and beauty of spring. 
 
 " Wai ! you '11 hev to ask your ma about 
 that. She wuz a Perkins, and some of her folks 
 fit into the Revolutionary war. There wuz old 
 Captain Joe Perkins ; he wuz your gran'ther 
 Perkins's gran'ther, or great-gran' ther, I don't 
 justly know which. But it was a great fight, 
 anyway. ' ' 
 
 " A fight for independence," said Jotham, 
 stoutly. 
 
 " That's it, Joey. They fit for their country. 
 Many a poor feller bit the dust in that war. 
 They were buried where they fell. But they 
 did their dooty, and it's all the same in a hun 
 dred years." 
 
 So, tenderly placing the skull on a rock, Dave 
 took up his reins and went on with his ploughing. 
 
 " Here's something else ! " cried Abe, as the 
 plough moved on. He picked up what appeared 
 to be a ball of dried grass. It fell into powdery 
 dust as he fingered it, and left in the palm of his 
 hand a little bar of lead. 
 
 ' ' A torn-cod sinker ! ' ' exclaimed Joey. 
 "And that stuff must have been a fish-line. 
 Tom-cod line, d' ye suppose ? ' ' 
 
 " Don't know," said Dave, who had turned 
 270
 
 A Century Ago 
 
 back to look. " But I know I sha'n't get my 
 stent done afore night if I stop to talk with you 
 boys. Get up, Whitey ! " and Dave drove on. 
 Abe fastened the strangely found sinker to his 
 line, and the lads went to their fishing in the 
 Back Cove. 
 
 271
 
 NEW NOVELS AND SHORT STORIES. 
 
 In Uniform Binding. Each One Dollar. 
 
 A POUND OF CURE. 
 By W. H. BISHOP. 
 
 A striking novel of life at Monte Carlo. It embodies a 
 curious picture of the growth of the gambling spirit upon a 
 young married man, whose only fault is his weakness in the 
 presence of alluring pleasure. In addition to the very remark 
 able plot, the book is noteworthy for the delicate and pictur 
 esque descriptions of the scenery around Monte Carlo. Mr. 
 Bishop's easy and very accurate English style adds to the 
 effectiveness of the book as a work of art. 
 
 SALEM KITTREDGE, AND OTHER STORIES. 
 By BLISS PERRY. 
 
 Salem Kittredge is a story about a theological student, a 
 pretty girl with active sympathies, and a young man addicted 
 to drink. How these characters stood affected by each other 
 during a season at Bar Harbor, is told with much spirit and 
 skill. The other stories are crisp and interesting, full of keen 
 character drawing and a quick sense of human nature. 
 
 " ' Salem Kittredge ' is one of the best short stories we have read 
 recently. There are eight other stories in the volume, all good." 
 
 Boston Advertiser. 
 
 TALES OF THE MAINE COAST. 
 By NOAH BROOKS. 
 
 Including " Pansy Pegg," " The Apparition of Joe Murch," 
 "A Hereditary Barn," "The Phantom Sailor," "The Waif of 
 Nautilus Island," "A Century Ago," etc., all dealing with the 
 romantic life of the people, and all full of local color. 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, Publishers, 
 
 153-157 Fifth Avenue, 
 
 NEW YORK CITY.
 
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