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THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND.
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THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND
A STORY OF THE COAST OF MAINE
HARRIET BEECHER STOWE
III
THIRTIETH EDITION
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLTN AND COMPANY
1889
Copyright, 1862,
Br HARRIET BEECH ER STOWE.
All rights reserved.
te
THE PEARL OF OER'S ISLAND.
CHAPTER I.
ON the road to the Kennebec, below the town of Bath,
in the State of Maine, might have been seen, on a cer-
tain autumnal afternoon, a one-horse wagon, in which two
persons were sitting. One is an old man, with the pecu-
liarly hard but expressive physiognomy which character
izes the seafaring population of the New England shores
A clear blue eye, evidently practised in habits of keen
observation, white hair, bronzed, weather-beaten cheeks,
and a face deeply lined with the furrows of shrewd
thought and anxious care, were points of the portrait
that made themselves felt at a glance.
By his side sat a young woman of two-and-twenty, of
a marked and peculiar personal appearance. Her hair
was black, and smoothly parted on a broad forehead, to
which a pair of pencilled dark eyebrows gave a striking
tuid definite outline. Beneath, lay a pair of large black
eyes, remarkable for tremulous expression of melancholy
and timidity. The cheek was white and bloodless as a
enowberry, though with the clear and perfect oval of
good health ; the mouth was delicately formed, with a
certain sad quiet in its lines, which indicated a habitu-
ally repressed and sensitive nature.
The dress of this young person, as often happens in
1
2 THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND.
New England, was, in refinement and even elegancej a
marked contrast to that of ^r male companion and to
the humble vehicle in which she rode. There was not
only the most fastidious neatness, but a delicacy in the
choice of colors, an indication of elegant tastes in the
whole arrangement, and the quietest suggestion in the
world of an acquaintance with the usages of fashion,
which struck one oddly in those wild and dreary sur-
roundings. On the whole, she impressed one like those
fragile wild-flowers which in April cast their fluttering
shadows from the mossy crevices of the old New Eng-
land granite, an existence in which colorless delicacy
is united to a sort of elastic hardihood of life, fit for the
rocky soil and harsh winds it is born to encounter.
The scenery of the road along which the two were
riding was wild and bare. Only savins and mulleins,
with their dark pyramids or white spires of velvet leaves,
diversified the sandy way-side ; but out at sea was a wide
sweep of blue, reaching far to the open ocean, which lay
rolling, tossing, and breaking into white caps of foam in
the bright sunshine. For two or three days a north-east
storm had been raging, and the sea was in all the com-
motion which such a general upturning creates.
The two travellers reached a point of elevated land,
where they paused a moment, and the man drew up the
jogging, stiff-jointed old farm-horse, and raised himself
upon his feet to look out at the prospect.
There might be seen in the distance the blue Kenue-
bee sweeping out toward the ocean through its pictur-
esque rocky shores, decked with cedars and other dusky
evergreens, which were illuminated by the orange and
6ame-colored trees of Indian summer. Here and there
THE PEARL OF ORE'S ISLAND. 3
icarlet eroepers swung long trailing garlands over the
faces of the dark rock, and fringes of golden rod above
swayed with the brisk blowing wind that was driving the
blue waters seaward, in face of the upcoming ocean tide,
a conflict which caused them to rise in great foam-crested
waves. There were two channels into this river from
Ihe open sea, navigable for ships which are coming in
lo the city of Bath ; one is broad and shallow, the other
narrow and deep, and these are divided by a steep ledge
of rocks.
Where the spectators of this scene were sitting, they
could see in the distance a ship borne with tremendous
force by the rising tide into the mouth of the river, and
encountering a north-west wind which had succeeded the
gale, as northwest winds often do on this coast. The
ship, from what might be observed in the distance, seemed
struggling to make the wider channel, but was constantly
driven off by the baflling force of the wind.
" There she is, Naomi," said the old fisherman, eagerly,
to his companion, "coming right in." The young woman
was one of the sort that never start, and never exclaim,
but with all deeper emotions grow still. The color slow-
ly mounted into her cheek, her lips parted, and her eyes
dilated with a wide, bright expression ; her breathing
came in thick gasps, but she said nothing.
The old fisherman stood up in the wagon, his coarse,
butternut-colored coat-flaps fluttering and snapping in the
breeze, while his interest seemed to be so intense in the
efforts of the ship that he made involuntary and eager
movements as if to direct her course. A moment passed,
and his keen, practised eye discovered a change io he>
movements, for he cried out involuntarily,
4 THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND.
** Don't take the narrow channel to-day ! " and a mo-
ment after, " Lord ! O Lord ! have mercy, there
they go! Look! look! look!"
And, in fact, the ship rose on a great wave clear oui
of the water, and the next second seemed to leap with a
desperate plunge into the narrow passage ; for a moment
there was a shivering of the masts and the rigging, and
she went down and was gone.
" They 're split to pieces ! " cried the fisherman. " Oh,
my poor girl my poor girl they 're gone ! O Lord,
have mercy ! "
The woman lifted up no voice, but, as one who has
been shot through the heart falls wiih no cry, she fell
back, a mist rose up over her great mournful eyes,
she had fainted.
The story of this wreck of a home-bound ship just
entering the harbor is yet told in many a family on this
coast. A few hours after, the unfortunate crew were
washed ashore in all the joyous holiday rig in which
they had attired themselves that morning to go to theii
sisters, wives, and mothers.
This is the first scene in our story.
THE PEARL OF ORE'S ISLAND.
CHAPTER II.
DOWN near the end of Orr's Island, facing the open ocean,
stands a brown house of the kind that the natives call " lean-
to," or " linter," one of those large, comfortable structures,
barren in the ideal, but rich in the practical, which the
working-man of New England can always command.
The waters of the ocean came up within a rod of this
house, and the sound of its moaning waves was even now
filling the clear autumn starlight. Evidently something was
going on within, for candles fluttered and winked from win-
dow to window, like fireflies in a dark meadow, and sounds
as of quick footsteps, and the flutter of brushing garments,
might be heard.
Something unusual is certainly going on within the dwell-
ing of Zephaniah Fennel to-night.
Let us enter the dark front-door. "We feel our way to
the right, where a solitary ray of light comes from the chink
of a half-opened door.
Here is the front room of the house, set apart as its place
of especial social hilarity and sanctity, the " best room,"
with its low studded walls, white dimity window-curtains
rag carpet, and polished wood chairs.
It is now lit by the dim gleam of a solitary tallow candle^
which seems in the gloom to make only a feeble circle of
light around itself, leaving all the rest of the apartment in
jhadow.
In the centre of the room, stretched upon a table, and
6 THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND.
covered partially by a sea-cloak, lies the body of a man ol
twenty-five, lies, too, evidently as one of whom it ia
written, " He shall return to his house no more, neither
shall his place, know him any more." A splendid man-
hood has suddenly been called to forsake that lifeless form,
leaving it, like a deserted palace, beautiful in its desola-
tion.
The hair, dripping with the salt wave, curled in glossy
abundance on the finely-formed head ; the flat, broad brow ;
the closed eye, with its long black lashes ; the firm, manly
mouth ; the strongly-moulded chin, all, all were sealed
with that seal which is never to be broken till the great
resurrection day.
He was lying in a full suit of broadcloth, with a white
vest and smart blue neck-tie, fastened with a pin, in which
was some braided hair under a crystal. All his clothing, as
well as his hair, was saturated with sea-water, which trickled
from time to time, and struck with a leaden and dropping
sound into a sullen pool which lay under the table.
. This was the body of James Lincoln, ship-master of the
brig Flying Scud, who that morning had dressed himself
gayly in his state-room to go on shore and meet his wife,
singing and jesting as he did so.
This is all that you have to learn in the room below ; but
as we stand there, we hear a trampling of feet in the apart-
ment above, the quick yet careful opening and shutting
of doors, and voices come and go about the house, and
whisper consultations on the stairs. Now comes the roll of
wheels, and the Doctor's gig drives up to the door ; and, ag
ho goes creaking up with his heavy boots, we will follow ana
gain admission to the dimly -lighted chamber.
Two gossips are sitting in earnest, whispering conversa
THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND. 7
don over a small >andle done up in an old flannel petticoat.
To them the doctor is about to address himself cheerily, but
is repelled by sundry signs and sounds which warn him not
to speak.
Moderating his heavy boots as well as he is able to a pace
of quiet, he advances for a moment, and the petticoat is un-
folded for him to glance at its contents ; while a low, eager,
whispered conversation, attended with much head-shaking,
warns him that his first duty is with somebody behind tho
checked curtains of a bed in the farther corner of the room.
He steps on tiptoe, and draws the curtain ; and there, with
closed eye, and cheek as white as wintry snow, lies the same
face over which passed the shadow of death when that ill-
fated ship went down.
This woman was wife to him. who lies below, and within
the hour has been made mother to a frail little human exist-
ence, which the storm of a great anguish has driven untime-
ly on the shores of life, a precious pearl cast up from the
past eternity upon the wet, wave-ribbed sand of the present.
Now, weary with her meanings, and beaten out with the
wrench of a double anguish, she lies with closed eyes in that
passive apathy which precedes deeper shadows and longer
rest.
Over against her, on the other side of the bed, sits an aged
woman in an attitude of deep dejection, and the old man we
law with her in the morning is standing with an anxious,
iwe-struck face at the foot of the bed.
The doctor feels the pulse of the woman, or rather lays
an inquiring finger where the slightest thread of vital cur-
rent is scarcely throbbing, and shakes his head mourn-
fully.
The touch of his hand rouses her, her large wild, mel
8 THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND.
ancholy eyes fix themselves on him with an inquiring glance,
then she shivers and moans,
" Oh, Doctor, Doctor ! Jamie, Jamie ! "
" Come, come ! " said the doctor, " cheer up, my girl
you 've got a fine little daughter, the Lord mingles mer-
cies with his afflictions."
Her eyes closed, her head moved with a mournful but
decided dissent.
A moment after she spoke in the sad old words of the
Hebrew Scripture,
" Call her not Naomi ; call her Mara, for the Almighty
hath dealt very bitterly with me."
And as she spoke, there passed over her face the sharp
frost of the last winter ; but even as it passed there broke
out a smile, as if a flower had been thrown down from Para-
dise, and she said,
" Not my will, but thy will," and so was gone.
Aunt Roxy and Aunt Ruey were soon left alone in the
chamber of death.
" She '11 make a beautiful corpse," said Aunt Roxy, sur-
veying the still, white form contemplatively, with her head
in an artistic attitude.
" She was a pretty girl," said Aunt Ruey ; " dear me,
what a Providence ! I 'member the wedd'n down in that
lower room, and what a handsome couple they were."
" They were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in
their deaths they were not divided," said Aunt Roxy, sen-
tentiously.
" What was it she said, did ye hear ? " said Aunt Ruey.
" She called the baby < Mary.' "
" Ah ! sure enough, her mother's name afore her. Wha/
A still, softly-spoken thing she always was ! "
THE PEARL OF ORE'S ISLAND. 9
* A pity the poor baby did n't go with her," said Aunt
Roxy ; " seven-months' children are so hard to raise."
" 'T is a pity," said the other.
But babies will lire, and all the more when everybody
says that it is a pity they should. Life goes on as inex-
orably in this world as death.
It was ordered by THE WILL above that out of these two
graves should spring one frail, trembling autumn flower,
the " Mara " whose poor little roots first struck deep in the
salt, bitter waters of our mortal life.
1*
10 THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND.
CHAPTER III,
Now, 1 cannot think of anything more unlikeh ami .min-
teresting to make a story of than that old brown " linter "
house of Captain Zephaniah Pennel, down on the south
end of Orr's Island.
Zephaniah and Mary Pennel, like Zacharias and Eliza-
beth, are a pair of worthy, God-fearing people, walking in
all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless ;
but that is no great recommendation to a world gaping for
sensation and calling for something stimulating. This wor-
thy couple never read anything but the Bible, the Missionary
Herald, and the Christian Mirror, never went anywhere
ixcept in the round of daily business. He owned a fishing-
smack, in which he labored after the apostolic fashion ; and
she washed, and ironed, and scrubbed, and brewed, and baked,
in her contented round, week in and out. The only recrea-
tion they ever enjoyed was the going once a week, in good
weather, to a prayer-meeting in a little old brown school-
house, about a mile from their dwelling; and making a
weekly excursion every Sunday, in their fishing craft, to
Ae church opposite, on Harpswell Neck.
To be sure, Zephaniah had read many wide leaver
of God's great book of Nature, for, like most Maine
sea-captains, he had been wherever ship can go, to all
UBiial and unusual ports. His hard, shrewd, weather-beaten
visage had been seen looking over the railings of his brig
in x he port of Genoa, swept round by its splendid crescent of
THE ^EARL OF ORE'S ISLAND. 11
palaces and its snow-crested Apennines. It had looked out
in the Lagoons of Venice at that wavy floor which in evening
eeems a sea of glass mingled with fire, and out of which rise
temples, and palaces, and churches, and distant silvery Alps,
like so many fabrics of dream-land. He had been through
the Skagerrack and Cattegat, into the Baltic, and away
round to Archangel, and there chewed a bit of chip, and
considered and calculated what bargains it was best to make,
He had walked the streets of Calcutta in his shirt-sleeves,
with his best Sunday vest, backed with black glazed cambric,
which six months before came from the hands of Miss Roxy,
and was pronounced by her to be as good as any tailor
could make ; and in all these places he was just Zephaniah
Fennel, a chip of old Maine, thrifty, careful, shrewd,
honest, God-fearing, and carrying an instinctive knowledge
of men and things under a face of rustic simplicity.
It was once, returning from one of his voyages, that he
found his wife with a black-eyed, curly-headed little creature,
who called him papa, and climbed on his knee, nestled under
his coat, rifled his pockets, and woke him every morning by
pulling open his eyes with little fingers, and jabbering unin-
telligible dialects in his ears.
" We will call this child Naomi, wife," he said, after con-
sulting his old Bible ; ** for that means pleasant, and I 'm
sure I never see anything beat her for pleasantness. I
never knew as children was so engagin' ! "
It was to be remarked that Zephaniah after this made
shorter and shorter vDyages, being somehow conscious of a
string around his heart which pulled him harder and harder,
till one Sunday, when the little Naomi was five years old,
he said to his wife,
" I hope I a'n't a-pervertin' Scrip tur' nor nuthin', but I
12 THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND
can't help thinkin' of one passage, ' The kingdom of hearou
is like a merchantman seeking goodly pearls, and when he
hath found one pearl of great price, for joy thereof he goeih
and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that pearl' Well,
Mary, 1 've been and sold my brig last week," he said, fold-
ing his daughter's little quiet head under his coat, "'cause
it seems to me the Lord 's given us this pearl of great price,
and it s enough for us. I don't want to be rambling round
the world after riches. We'll have a little farm down on
Orr's Island, and I '11 have a little fishing-smack, and we'll
live and be happy together."
And so Mary, who in those days was a pretty you' g
married woman, felt herself rich and happy, no duel ss
richer or happier. The two contentedly delved and to- xl,
and the little Naomi was their princess. The wise mei of
the East at the feet of an infant, offering gifts, gold, frank-
incense, and myrrh, is just a parable of what goes or in
every house where there is a young child. All the hard
Ind the harsh, and the common and the disagreea/.'-le, is
for the parents, all the bright and beautiful fo their
child.
When the fishing-smack went to Portland to seL 7 mack-
erel, there came home in Zephaniah's 'fishy coaC pocket
strings of coral beads, tiny gaiter boots, brilliant silks
and ribbons for the little fairy princess, his Pearl of
the Island; and sometimes, when a stray party from the
neighboring town of Brunswick came down to explore
the romantic scenery of the solitary island, they would be
startled by the apparition of this still, graceful, dark-eyed
child, exquisitely dressed in the best and brightest that the
shops of a neighboring city could afford, sitting like some
topical bird on a lonely rock, where the sea camo dashing
THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND. 13
up into the edges of arbor vitae, or tripping along the wet
sands for shells and sea-weed.
Many children would have been spoiled by such unlimited
indulgence ; but there are natures sent down into this harsh
world so timorous, and sensitive, and helpless in themselves,
that the utmost stretch of indulgence and kindness is needed
for their development, like plants which the warmest shelf
of the green-house and the most careful watch of the gardener
alone can bring into flower.
The pale child, with her large, lustrous, dark eyes, and
sensitive organization, was nursed and brooded into a beauti-
ful womanhood, and then found a protector in a high-spirited,
manly young ship-master, and she became his wife.
And now we see in the best room the walls lined with
serious faces men, women, and children, that have come
to pay the last tribute of sympathy to the living and the
dead.
The house looked so utterly alone and solitary in that
wild, sea-girt island, that one would have as soon expected
the sea-waves to rise and walk in, as so many neighbors ; but
they had come from neighboring points, crossing the glassy
sea in their little crafts, whose white sails looked like millers'
wings, or walking miles from distant parts of the island.
Some writer calls a funeral one of the amusements of a
New England population. Must we call it an amusement
to go and see the acted despair of Medea ? or the dying
Agonies of poor Adrienne Lecouvreur? It is something of
the same awful interest in life's tragedy, which makes an
untaught and primitive people gather to a funeral, a
tragedy where there is no acting, and one which each
ene feels must come at some time to his own dwelling.
Be that as it may, here was a room/ul. Not only Aunt
1 4 THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND.
Roxy anc 1 Aunt Rucy, who by a prescriptive right presided
over all the births, deaths, and marriages of the neighbor-
hood, but there was Captain Kittridge, a long, dry, weather-
beaten old sea-captain, who sat as if tied in a double bow-
knot, with his little fussy old wife, with a great Leghorn
bonnet, and eyes like black glass beads shining through
the bows of her horn spectacles, and her hymn-book in her
hand ready to lead the psalm. There were aunts, uncles,
cousins, and brethren of the deceased ; and in the midst
stood two coffins, where the two united in death lay sleep-
ing tenderly, as those to whom rest is good. All was still as
death, except a chance whisper from some busy neighbor, or
a creak of an old lady's great black fan, or the fizz of a fly
down the window-pane, and then a stifled sound of deep-
drawn breath and weeping from under a cloud of heavy
black crape veils, that were together in the group which
country-people call the mourners.
A gleam of autumn sunlight streamed through the white
curtains, and fell on a silver baptismal vase that stood on
the mother's coffin, as the minister rose and said, " The
ordinance of baptism will now be administered." A few
moments more, and on a baby brow had fallen a few drops
of water, and the little pilgrim ot a new life had been called
Mara in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
the minister slowly repeating thereafter those beautiful words
of Holy Writ, " A father of the fatherless is God in his holy
habitation," as if the baptism of that bereaved one had
been a solemn adoption into the infinite heart of the
Lord.
With something of the quaint pathos which distinguishes
the primitive and Biblical people of that lonely shore, the
minister read the passage in Ruth from which the name of
THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND. 15
the little stranger was drawn, and which describes the return
of the bereaved Naomi to her native land. His voice trem-
bled, and there were tears in many eyes as he read, " And
it came to pass as she caa^e to Bethlehem, all the city was
moved about them ; and they said, Is this Naomi ? And
she said unto them, Call me not Naomi ; call me Mara ; for
the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me. I went out
full, and the Lord hath brought me home again empty : why
then call ye me Naomi, seeing the Lord hath testified against
me, and the Almighty hath afflicted me ? "
Deep, heavy sobs from the mourners were for a few mo-
ments the only answer to these sad words, till the minister
raised the old funeral psalm of New England.
44 Why do we mourn departing friends,
Or shake at Death's alarms?
'Tis but the voice that Jesus sends
To call them to his arms.
Are we not tending upward too,
As fast as time can move?
And should we wish the hours more slow
That bear us to our love?"
The words rose in old "China," that strange, wild
warble, whose quaintly blended harmonies might have been
learned of moaning seas or wailing winds, so strange and
grand they rose, full of that intense pathos which rises over
every defect of execution ; and as they sung, Zephaniah
Pennel straightened his tall form, before bowed on his hands,
and looked heavenward, his cheeks wet with tears, but some-
thing sublime and immortal shining upward through his blue
eyes ; and at the last verse he came forward involuntarily,
ai.d stood by his dead, and his voice rose over all the others
is he sung,
16 THE PEARL OF ORE'S ISLAND.
u Then let the last loud trumpet sound,
And bid the dead arise!
Awake, ye nations under ground!
Ye saints, ascend the skies ! "
The sunbeam through the window-curtain fell on his silver
hair, and they that looked beheld his face as it were the face
of an angel ; he had gotten a sight of the city whose foun4a-
tJoc IE jasper, and whose every gate is a separate pearl
THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND. 17
CHAPTER IV.
THE sea lay like an unbroken mirror all around the pine*
girt, lonely shores of Orr's Island. Tall, kingly spruceo
wore their regal crowns of cones high in air, sparkling
with diamonds of clear exuded gum ; vast old hemlocks of
primeval growth stood darkling in their forest shadows,
their branches hung with long hoary moss ; while feathery
larches, turned to brilliant gold by autumn frosts, lighted up
the darker shadows of the evergreens. It was one of those
hazy, calm, dissolving days of Indian summer, when every-
thing is so quiet that the faintest kiss of the wave on the
beach can be heard, and white clouds seem to faint into the
blue of the sky, and soft swathing bands of violet vapor
make all earth look dreamy, and give to the sharp, clear-
cut outlines of the northern landscape all those mysteries
of light and shade which impart such tenderness to Italian
scenery.
The funeral was over, the tread of many feet, bearing
the heavy burden of two broken lives, had been to the lonely
graveyard, and had come back again, each footstep lighter
and more unconstrained as each one went his way from the
great old tragedy of Death to the common cheerful walks of
Life.
The solemn black clock stood swaying with its eternal
tick-tock, tick-tock," in the kitchen of the brown house on
Orr's Island. There was there that sense of a stillness that
Ib THE PEARL OF ORE'S ISLAND.
can be felt, such as settles clown on a dwelling when any
of its inmates have passed through its doors for the last
time, to go whence they shall not return. The best room
was shut up and darkened, with only so much light as could
fall through a little heart-shaped hole in the window-shutter,
for except on solemn visits, or prayer-meetings, or wed-
dings, or funerals, that room formed no part of the dailj
family scenery.
The kitchen was clean and ample, with a great open fire-
place and wide stone hearth, and oven on one side, and rows
of old-fashioned splint-bottomed chairs against the wall. A
table scoured to snowy whiteness, and a little work-stand
whereon lay the Bible, the Missionary Herald, and the
Weekly Christian Mirror, before named, formed the prin-
cipal furniture. One feature, however, must not be for
gotten, a great sea-chest, which had been the companion
of Zephaniah through all the countries of the earth. Old,
und battered, and unsightly it" looked, yet report said that
there was good store within of that which men for the most
part respect more than anything else ; and, indeed, it proved
often when a deed of grace was to be done, when a woman
was suddenly made a widow in a coast gale, or a fishing-
smack was run down in the fogs off the banks, leaving in
some neighboring cottage a family of orphans, in all such
cases, the opening of this sea-chest was an event of good
omen to the bereaved ; for Zephaniah had a large heart and
a large hand, and was apt to take it out full of silver dollars
when once it went in. So the ark of the covenant could not
have been looked on with more reverence than the neighbors
usually sJiowed to Captain Fennel's sea-chest.
The afternoon sun is shining in a square of light through
the open kitchen-doo", whence one dreamily disposed mighf
THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND. IS
look far out to sea, and behold ships coming and going ID
every variety of shape and size.
But Aunt Roxy and Aunt Ruey, who for the present
were sole occupants of the premises, were not people of the
dreamy kind, and consequently were not gazing off to sea,
but attending to very terrestrial matters that in all cases
somebody must attend to. The afternoon was warm anl
balmy, but a few smouldering sticks were kept in the grout
chimney, and thrust deep into the embers was a mongrel
species of snub-nosed tea-pot, which fumed strongly of cat-
nip-tea, a little of which gracious beverage Miss Roxy
was preparing in an old-fashioned cracked India china
tea-cup, tasting it as she did so with the air of a connois-
seur.
Apparently this was for the benefit of a small something
in long white clothes, that lay face downward under a little
blanket of very blue new flannel, and which something Aunt
Roxy, when not otherwise engaged, constantly patted with a
gentle tattoo, in tune to the steady trot of her knee.
All babies knew Miss Roxy's tattoo on their backs, and
never thought of taking it in ill part. On the contrary, it
had a vital and mesmeric effect of sovereign force against
colic, and all other disturbers of the nursery ; and never
was infant known so pressed with those internal troubles
which infants cry about, as not speedily to give over and
sink to slumber at this soothing appliance.
At a little distance sat Aunt Ruey, with a quantity of
black crape strewed on two chairs about her, very busily
employed in getting up a mourning-bonnet, at which she
snipped, and clipped, aud worked, zealously singing, in a
high cracked voice, from time to time, certain verses of a
funeral psalm.
20 THE PEARL OF ORR S ISLAND.
Miss Kt*y and Miss Ruey Toothacre were two brisk old
bodies of the feminine gender and singular number, well
known in all the region of Harpswell Neck and Middle
Bay, and such was thsir fame that it had even reached the
town of Brunswick, eighteen miles away.
They were of that class of females who might be denomi-
nated, in .the Old Testament language, " cunning women,"
that is, gifted with an infinite diversity of practical " faculty,*
which made them an essential requisite in every family for
miles and miles around.
It was impossible to say what they could not do: they
could make dresses, and make shirts and vests and panta-
loons, and cut out boys* jackets, and braid straw, and bleach
and trim bonnets, and cook and wash, and iron and mend,
could upholster and quilt, could nurse all kinds of sick-
nesses, and in default of a doctor, who was often miles away,
were supposed to be infallible medical oracles.
Many a human being had been ushered into life under
their auspices, trotted, chirruped in babyhood on their
knees, clothed by their handiwork in garments gradually
enlarging from year to year, watched by them in the last
sickness, and finally arrayed for the long repose by theii
hands.
These universally useful persons receive among us fhe
title of "aunt" by a sort of general consent, showing the
strong ties of relationship which bind them to the whole
human family. They are nobody's aunts in particular, but
aunts to human nature generally. The idea of restricting
their usefulness to any one family, would strike dismay
through a whole community.
Nobody would be so unprincipled as to think of sue h a
thing as having their services more than a week or tw<> a
THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND. 21
most. Your country factotum knows better than anybody
else how absurd it would be
"To "give t? a part what was meant for mankind"
Nobody knew very well the ages of these useful sisters.
In that cold, clear, severe climate of the North the roots of
human existence are hard to strike ; but, if once people do
take to living, they come in time to a nlace where they seem
never to grow any older, but can always be found, like last
year's mullein stalks, upright, dry, and seedy, warranted to
last for any length of time.
Miss Roxy Toothacre, who sits trotting the baby, is a tall,
thin, angular woman, with sharp black eyes, a.nd hair once
black, but now well streaked with gray. These ravages of
time, however, were concealed by an ample mohair frisette
of glossy blackness woven on each side into a heap of stiff
little curls, which pushed up her cap border in rather a
bristling and decisive way.
In all her movements and personal habits, even to her
tone of voice and manner of speaking, Miss Roxy was vig-
orous, spicy, and decided. Her mind on all subjects wag
made up, and she spoke generally as one having authority ;
and who should, if she should not? Was she not a sort of
priestess and sibyl in all the most awful straits and mysteries
of life ? How many births, and weddings, and deaths had
come and gone under her jurisdiction? And amid weeping
or rejoicing, was not Miss Roxy still the master-spirit,
consulted, referred to by all ? was not her word law and
precedent ? Her younger sister, Miss Ruey, a pliant, cosey,
easy-to-be-entreated personage, plump and cushiony, revolved
around her as a humble satellite. Miss Roxy looked on
Miss Ruey as quite a frisky young thing, though under hei
22 THE PEARL OF ORE'S ISLAND.
ample frisette of carroty hair her head might be seen whit*
with the same snow that had powdered that of her sister
Aunt Ruey had a face much resembling the kind of one yog
may see, reader, by looking at yourself in the convex side of
a silver milk-pitcher. If you try the experiment, this de-
scription will need no further amplification.
The two almost always went together, for the variety ol
talent comprised in their stock could always find employ-
ment in the varying wants of a family. While one nursed
the sick, the other made clothes for the well ; and thus they
were always chippering and chatting to each other, like a
pair of antiquated house-sparrows, retailing over harmless
gossips, and moralizing in that gentle jog-trot which befits
serious old women. In fact, they had talked over every-
thing in Nature, and said everything they could think of to
each other so often, that the opinions of one were as like
those of the other as two sides of a pea-pod. But as often
happens in cases of the sort, this was not because the two
were in all respects exactly alike, but because the stronger
one had mesmerized the weaker into consent.
Miss Roxy was the master-spirit of the two, and, like the
great coining machine of a mint, came down with her own
sharp, heavy stamp on every opinion her sister put out.
She was matter-of-fact, positive, and declarative to the high-
est degree, while her sister was naturally inclined to the
elegiac and the pathetic, indulging herself in sentimental
poetry, and keeping a store thereof in her thread-case,
whbh she had cut from the Christian Mirror. Miss Roxy
sometimes, in her brusque way, popped out observations on
life and things, with a droll, hard quaintness that took one's
breath a little, yet never failed to have a shar^ crystalliza-
tion of truth, frosty though it were. She was one of those
THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND. 28
Bensible, practical creatures who tear every veil, and lay
their fingers on every spot in pure business-like good-will ;
and if we shiver at them at times, as at the first plunge of
a cold bath, we confess to an invigorating power in them
after all.
" Well, now," said Miss Roxy, giving a decisive push to
the tea-pot, which buried it yet deeper in the embors, " a'n't
it all a strange kind o' providence that this 'ere little thing
is left behind so ; and then their callin' on her by such a
strange, mournful kind of name, Mara. I thought sure
as could be 't was Mary, till the minister read the passage
from Scriptur'. Seems to me it's kind o' odd. I'd call it
Maria, or I 'd put an Ann on to it. Mara-ann, now, would n't
sound so strange."
" It 's a Scriptur' name, sister," said Aunt Ruey, " and that
ought to be enough for us."
" Well, I don't know," said Aunt Roxy. " Now there
was Miss Jones down on Mure P'int called her twins
Tiglath-Pileser and Shalinaneser, Scriptur' names both
but I never liked 'em. The boys used to call 'em Tiggy
and Shally, so no mortal could guess they was Scriptur'
" Well," said Aunt Ruey, drawing a sigh which caused
her plump proportions to be agitated in gentle waves,
u 't a'n't much matter, after all, what they call the little
thing, for 't a'n't 't all likely it 's goin' to live, cried and
worried all night, and kep' a-suckin' my cheek and my
night-gown, poor little thing ! This 'ere 's a baby that won't
get along without its mother. What Mis' Fennel 's a-goin'
to do with it when we is g:>ne, I 'm sure I don't know. It
comes kind o' hard on old people to be broke o' their rest
If it's goin' to be called home, it *s a pity, as J said, it did n't
go with its mother "
24 THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND.
" And save the expense of another funeral," said Aunt
Roxy. "Now when Mis' Fennel's sister asked her what
she was going to do with Naomi's clothes, I could n't help
wonderin' when she said she should keep 'era for the
child."
" She had a sight of things, Naomi did," said Aunt Ruey.
a Nothin' was never too much for her. I don't believe lhaf
Cap'n Pennel ever went to Bath or Portland without bavin*
it in his mind to bring Naomi somethin'."
" Yes, and she had a faculty of puttin' of 'ern on," said
Miss Roxy, with a decisive shake of the head. " Naomi
was a still girl, but her faculty was unccmmon ; and I tell
you, Ruey, 't a'n't everybody hes faculty as hes things."
" The poor Cap'n," said Miss Ruey, " he seemed greatly
supported at the funeral, but he 's dreadful broke down since.
I went into Naomi's room this morning, and there the old
man was a-sittin' by her bed, and he had a pair of her shoes
in his hand, you know what a leetle bit of a foot she had.
I never saw nothin' look so kind o' solitary as that poor old
man did ! "
" Well," said Miss Roxy, " she was a master-hand for
keepin' things, Naomi was ; her drawers is just a sight ;
she 's got all the little presents and things they ever give
her since she was a baby, in one drawer. There 's a little
pair of red shoes there that she had when she wa' n't more 'n
five year old. You 'member, Ruey, the Cap'n brought 'm
over from Portland when we was to the house a-nmkin' Mia 1
Fennel's figured black silk that he brought from Calcutty.
You 'member they cost just five and sixpence ; but, law ! the
Cap'n he never grudged the money when 't was for Naomi
And so she 's got all her husband's keepsakes and things
just as nice as when he giv' 'em to her."
THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND. 25
"It's real affectin'," said Miss Ruey, "I can't all the
While help a-thinkin' of the Psalm,
'So fades the lovely blooming flower,
Frail, smiling solace of an hour;
So quick our transient comforts fly,
And pleasure only blooms to die.' "
* Yes," said Miss Roxy ; " and, Ruey, I was a-thinl.m
whether or no it wa'n't best to pack away them things,
'cause Naomi had n't fixed no baby drawers, and we seem
to want some."
" I was kind o' hintin' that to Mis' Pennel this morn-
ing," said Ruey, " but she can't seem to want to have 'em
touched."
" Well we may just as well come to such things first as
last," said Aunt Roxy ,' " 'cause if the Lord takes our
friends, he does take 'em ; and we can't lose 'em and
have 'em too, and we may as well give right up at first,
and done with it, that they are gone, and we V got to do
without 'em, and not to be hangin' on to keep things just
as they was."
" So I was a-tellin' Mis' Penriel," said Miss Ruey, " but
she '11 come to it by and by. I wish the baby might live, and
kind o' grow up into her mother's place."
" Well," said Miss Roxy, " I wish it might, but there 'd be
A sight o' trouble fetchin' on it up. Folks can do pretty well
with children when they 're young and spry, if they do get
em up nights ; but come to grandchildren, it 's pretty tough."
" I 'm a-thinkin', sister," said Miss Ruey, taking off her
spectacles and rubbing her nose thoughtfully, " whether or
no cow's milk a'n't goin to be too heartyfor it, it 's such a
oindlin' little thing. Now, Mis' Badger she brought up a
lev en-months' child, and she told me she gave it nothin'
I
26 THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND.
but these 'ere little seed cookies, wet in water, and it throve
nicely, and the seed is good for wind."
" Oh, don't tell me none of Mis' Badger's stories," said
Miss Roxy, " I don't believe in 'em. Cows is the Lord's
ordinances for bringing up babies that 's lost their mothers
it stands to reason they should be, and babies that can't
eat milk, why they can't be fetched up ; but babies can
eat milk, and this un will if it lives, and if it can't it won't
live." So saying, Miss Roxy drummed away on the little
back of the party in question, authoritatively, as if to pound
in a wholesome conviction at the outset.
" I hope," said Miss Ruey, holding up a strip of black
crape, and looking through it from end to end so as to test
its capabilities, " I hope the Cap'n and Mis' Fennel '11 get
some support at the prayer-meetin' this afternoon."
" It 's the right place to go to," said Miss Roxy, with
decision.
" Mis' Fennel said this mornin' that she was just beat out
tryin' to submit ; and the more she said, * Thy will be done.'
the more she did n't seem to feel it."
" Them 's common feelin's among mourners, Ruey. These
'ere forty years that I 've been round nussin', and layin'-out,
and tendin' funerals, I 've watched people's exercises. Peo-
ple 's sometimes supported wonderfully just at the time, and
aaaybe at the funeral ; but the throe or four weeks after, most
^vcrybody, if they 's to say what they feel, is unreconciled."
" The Cap'n, he don't say nothin'," said Miss Ruey.
" No, he don't, but he looks it in his eyes," said Miss
Roxy ; " he 's one of the kind o' mourners as takes it deep
that kind don't cry ; it 's a kind o' dry, deep pain ; them 's
the worst to get over it, sometimes they just says nothin'
tnd in about six months they send for you to nuss 'em in
THE PRARL OF ORK'S ISLAND. 27
ponsumplion or somethin'. Now, Mis' Fennel, she can cry
and she can talk, well, she '11 get over it ; but he won't get
no support unless the Lord reaches right down and lifts him
up over the world. I 've seen that happen sometimes, and 1
tell you, Ruey, that sort makes powerful Christians."
At that moment the old pair entered the door.
Zephaniah Fennel 2ame and stood quietly by the pillow
where the little form was laid, and lifted a corner of the
blanket. The tiny head was turned to one side, showing
the soft, warm cheek, and the little hand was holding tightly
a morsel of the flannel blanket. He stood swallowing hard
for a few moments. At last he said, with deep humility, to
the wise and mighty woman who held her, " I '11 tell you
what it is, Miss Roxy, I '11 give all there is in my old chest
yonder if you '11 only make her live."
23 THE PEARL OF ORE'S ISLAND.
CHAPTER V.
Il did live. The little life, so frail, so unprofitable in
every mere material view, so precious in the eyes of love,
expanded and flowered at last into fair childhood. Not
without much watching and weariness. Many a night the
old fisherman walked the floor with the little thing in hia
arras, talking to it that jargon of tender nonsense which
fairies bring as love-gifts to all who tend a cradle. Many
a day the good little old grandmother called the aid of
gossips about her, trying various experiments of catnip,
and sweet fern, and bayberry, and other teas of rustic
reputation for baby frailties.
At the end of three years, the two graves in the lonely
graveyard were sodded and cemented down by smooth vel-
vet turf, and playing round the door of the brown house waa
a slender child, with ways and manners so still and singular
as often to remind the neighbors that she was not like other
children, a bud of hope and joy, but the outcome of a
great sorrow, a pearl washed ashore by a mighty, uproot-
ing tempest. They that looked at her remembered that her
father's eye had never beheld her, and her baptismal cup
had rested on her mother's coffin.
She was small of stature, beyond the wont of children of
her age, and moulded with a fine waxen delicacy that won
admiration from all eyes. Her hair was curly and golden,
but her eyes were dark like her mother's, and the tidi
THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND. 2*
drooped over them in that manner which gives a peculiar
expression of dreamy wistfulness.
Every one of us must rememoer eyes that have a strange,
peculiar expression of pathos and desire, as if the spirit
that looked out of them were pressed with vague remem-
brances of a past, or but dimly comprehended the mystery of
its present life. Even when the baby lay in its cradle, and
its dark, inquiring eyes would follow now one object and
now another, the gossips would say the child was longing for
something, and Miss Roxy would still further venture to
predict that that child always would long and never would
know exactly what she was after.
That dignitary sits at this minute enthroned in the kitchen
corner, looking majestically over the press-board on her
knee, where she is pressing the next year's Sunday vest of
Zephaniah Fennel. As she makes her heavy tailor's goose
squeak on the work, her eyes follow the little delicate fairy
form which trips about the kitchen, busily and silently ar-
ranging a little grotto of gold and silver shells and sea-weed.
The child sings to herself as she works in a low chant, like
the prattle of a brook, but ever and anon she rests her little
arms on a chair and looks through the open kitchen-door
far, far off where the horizon line of the blue sea dissolves in
the blue sky.
" See that child now, Roxy," said Miss Ruey, who sat
stitching beside her ; " do look at her eyes. She 's as hand-
some a^ a pictur', but 'ta'n't an ordinary look she has
neither; she seems a contented little thing; but what makes
her eyes always look so kind o' wishful ? "
" Wa' n't her mother always a-longin' and a-lookin' to sea,
and watchin' the ships, afore she was born ? " said Miss
Roxy; "and didn't her heart break afore she was born?
30 THE PEAKL OF ORE'S ISLATSD.
Babies like that is marked always. They don't know what
nils 'em, nor nobody.*'
" It 's her mother she 's after ? " said Miss Iluey. i
"The Lord only knows," said Miss Roxy ; "but tj em
kind o' children always seem homesick to go back where
they come from. They 're mostly grave and old-fashioned
like this 'un. If they gets past seven years, why they live ;
but it 's always in 'em to long ; they don't seem to be i eally
unhappy neither, but if anything 's ever the matter with
'em, it seems a great deal easier for 'era to die than to live.
Some say it 's the mothers longin' after 'em makes 'em feel
BO, and some say it 's them longin' after their mothers ; but
dear knows, Ruey, what anything is or what makes any-
thing. Children 's mysterious, that 's my mind."
"Mara, dear," said Miss Ruey, interrupting the child's
steady look-out, "what you thinking of?"
" Me want somefin'," said the little one.
" That 's what she 's always sayin'," said Miss Roxy.
" Me want somebody to pay wis'," continued the little one
" Want somebody to play with," said old Dame Fennel,
as she came in from the back-room with her hands yet
floury with kneading bread; "sure enough, she does. Our
house stands in such a lonesome place, and there a'n't any
children. But I never saw such a quiet little thing
always still and always busy."
" I '11 take her down with me to Cap'n Kittridge's," said
Miss Roxy, " and let her play with their little girl ; she '11
chirk her up, I'll warrant. She's a regular little witch,
Sally is, but she'll chirk her up. It a'n't good for children
to be so still and old-fashioned; children ought to be chil-
dren. Sally takes to Mara just 'cause she 's so different."
" Well, now, you may," said Dame Fennel ; " to be sure
THE PEARL OP ORE'S ISLAND. 31
be can't bear her out of his sight a minute after he comes
in ; but after all, old folks can't be company for children."
Accordingly, that afternoon, the little Mara was arrayed
in a littlu blue flounced dress, which stood out like a balloon,
made by Miss Roxy in first-rate style, from a French fashion-
plate ; her golden hair was twined in manifold curls by
Dame Fennel, who, restricted in her ideas of ornamenta-
tion, spared, nevertheless, neither time nor money to en-
hance the charms of this single ornament to her dwelling.
Mara was her picture-gallery, who gave her in the twenty-
four hours as many Murillos or Greuzes as a lover of art
could desire ; and as she tied over the child's golden curls a
little flat hat, and saw her go dancing off along the sea-
sands, holding to Miss Roxy's bony finger, she felt she had
in her what galleries of pictures could not buy.
It was a good mile to the one story, gambrel-roofed cot-
tage where lived Captain Kittridge, the long, lean, brown
man, with his good wife of the great Leghorn bonnet, round,
black bead eyes, and psalm-book, whom we told you of at
the funeral.
The Captain, too, had followed the sea in his early life,
but being not, as he expressed it, " very rugged," in time
changed his ship for a tight little cottage on the sea-shore,
and devoted himself to boat-building, which he found suffi-
ciently lucrative to furnish his brown cottage with all that
his wife's heart desired, besides extra money for knick-knackg
when she choje to go up to Brunswick or over to Portland
to shop.
The Captain himself was a welcome guest at all the fire-
sides round, being a chatty body, and disposed to make the
most of hi-? foreign experiences, in which he took the usual
Advantages of a traveller. In fact, it was said, whether
52 THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND.
slanderously or not, that the Captain's yarns were spun U
order ; and as, when pressed to relate his foreign adventures,
he always responded with, " What would you like to hear ? *
it was thought that he fabricated his article to suit his mar-
ket. In short, there was no species of experience, finny,
fishy, or aquatic, no legend of strange and unaccountable
incident of fire or flood, no romance of foreign scenery
and productions, to which his tongue was not competent,
when he had once seated himself in a double bow-knot at
a neighbor's evening fireside.
His good wife, a sharp-eyed, literal body, and a vigorous
church -member, felt some concern of conscience on the score
of these narrations ; for, being their constant auditor, she,
better than any one else, could perceive the variations and
discrepancies of text which showed their mythical character,
and oftentimes her black eyes would snap and her knitting-
needles rattle with an admonitory vigor as he went on, and
sometimes she would unmercifully come in at the end of a
narrative with,
" Well, now, the Cap'n 's told them ar stories till he begins
to b'lieve 'em himself, I think."
But works of fiction, as we all know, if only well gotten
up, have always their advantages in the hearts of listeners
over plain, homely truth ; and so Captain Kittridge's yarns
were marketable fireside commodities still, despite the scepti-
cisms which attended them.
The afternoon sunbeams at this moment are painting the
gambrel-roof with a golden brown. It is September again,
as it was three years ago when our story commenced, and
the sea and sky are purple and amethystine with its Italian
haziness of atmosphere.
The brown house tands on a little knoll, about a hundred
THE PEARL OF ORE'S ISLAND. 33
yards from the open ocean. Behind it rises a ledge of rocks,
where cedars and hemlocks make deep shadows into which
the sun shoots golden shafts of light, illuminating the scarlet
feathers of the sumach, which threw themselves jauntily
forth from the crevices ; while down below, in deep, damp,
messy recesses, rose ferns which autumn had just begun to
linge with yellow and brown. The little knoll where the
cottage stood, had on its right hand a tiny bay, where the
ocean water made up amid picturesque rocks shaggy
and solemn. Here trees of the primeval forest, grand and
lordly, looked down silently into the waters which ebbed
and flowed daily into this little pool. Every variety of
those beautiful evergreens which feather the coast of
Maine, and dip their wings in the very spray of its ocean
foam, found here a representative. There were aspiring
black spruces, crowned on the very top with heavy coronet*
of cones ; there were balsamic firs, whose young buds
breathe the scent of strawberries ; there were cedars, black
as midnight clouds, and white pines with their swaying
plumage of needle-like leaves, strewing the ground beneath
witli a golden, fragrant matting ; and there were the gigan-
tic, wide-winged hemlocks, hundreds of years old, and with
long, swaying, gray beards of moss, looking white and
ghostly under the deep shadows of their boughs. And
beneath, creeping round trunk and matting over stones,
were many and many of those wild, beautiful things which
tmbellish the shadows of these northern forests. Long,
feathery wreaths of what are called ground-pines, ran here
mid there in little ruffles of green, and the prince's pine
raised its oriental feather, with a mimic cone on the top, aa
THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND. 51
Kittridge out on the beach. We heard the guns plain
enough, but could n't see anything. I went on down to
Kittridge's to get a look at little Mara."
" Well, she 's all well enough ? " said Mrs. Fennel,
anxiously.
" Oh, yes, well enough. Miss Roxy showed her to me in
the trundle-bed, 'long with Sally. The little thing was lyinf
imiling in her sleep, with her cheek right up against Sally's
I took comfort looking at her. I could n't help thinking
So he giveth his beloved sleep I' w
52 THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND
CHAPTER VII.
DURING the night and storm, the little Mara had l&ifi
Bleeping as quietly as if the cruel sea, that had made her an
orphan from her birth, were her kind-tempered old grand-
father singing her to sleep, as he often did, with a
somewhat hoarse voice truly, but with ever an undertone
of protecting love.
But toward daybreak, there came very clear and bright
into her childish mind a dream, having that vivid distinct-
ness which often characterizes the dreams of early childhood.
She thought she saw before her the little cove where she
and Sally had been playing the day before, with its broad
sparkling white beach of sand curving round its blue sea-
mirror, and studded thickly with gold and silver shells.
She saw the boat of Captain Kittridge upon the stocks,
and his tar-kettle with the smouldering fires flickering under
it ; but, as often happens in dreams, a certain rainbow viv-
idness and clearness invested everything, and she and
Sally were jumping for joy at the beautiful things they
found on the beach.
Suddenly, there stood before them a woman, dressed in a
long white garment. She was very pale, with sweet, serious
dark eyes, and she led by the hand a black-eyed boy, who
seemed to be crying and looking about as for something
lost. She dreamed that she stood still, and the woman came
toward her, looking at her with sweet, sad eyes, till th
THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND. 53
:hild seemed to feel them in every fibre of her frame. The
woman laid her hand on her head a.s if in blessing, and then
put the boy's hand in hers, and said, " Take him, Mara, he is
a playmate for you ; " and with that the little boy's face flashed
out into a merry laugh. The woman faded away, and the
three children remained playing together, gathering sheila
and pebbles of a wonderful brightness. So vivid was this
vision, that the little one awoke laughing with pleasure, and
searched under her pillows for the strange and beautiful
things that she had been gathering in dreamland.
" What 's Mara looking after ? " said Sally, sitting up in
her trundle-bed, and speaking in the patronizing motherly
tone she commonly used to her little playmate.
" All gone, pitty boy all gone ! " said the child, looking
round regretfully, and shaking her golden head ; " pity lady
all gone ! "
" How queer she talks ! " said Sally, who had awakened
with the project of building a sheet-house with her fairy neigh-
bor, and was beginning to loosen the upper sheet and dispose
the pillows with a view to this species of architecture.
" Come, Mara, let 's make a pretty house ! " she said.
"Pitty boy out dere out dere ! " said the little one,
pointing to the window, with a deeper expression than ever
of wishfulness in her eyes.
" Come, Sally Kittridge, get up this minute ! " said the
voice of her mother, entering the door at this moment ; " and
here, put these clothes on to Mara, the child must n't run
round in her best ; it 's strange, now, Mary Fennel never
Junks of such tilings."
Sally, who was of an efficient temperament, was prepar-
ing energetically to second these commands of her mother,
and endue her little neighbor with a coarse brown stuff
54 THE PEARL OF ORE'S ISLAND.
Jress, somewhat faded and patched, which she herself ha<]
outgrown when of Mara's age ; with shoes, which had been
coarsely made to begin with, and very much battered by
time; but, quite to her surprise, the child, generally so
passive and tractable, opposed a most unexpected and des-
perate resistance to this operation. She began to cry and to
sob and shake her curly head, throwing her tiny hands out
in a wild species of freakish opposition, which had, notwith-
standing, a quaint and singular grace about it, while she
Btated her objections in all the little English at her command.
"Mara don't want Mara want pitty boo des and
pitty shoes."
" Why, was ever anything like it ? " said Mrs. Kittridge
< Miss Roxy, as they both were drawn to the door by the
outcry ; " here *s this child won't have decent every-day
clothes put on her, she must be kept dressed up like a
princess. Now, that ar 's French calico ! " said Mrs. Kit-
tridge, holding up the controverted blue dress, " and that ar
never cost a cent under fi ve-and-sixpence a yard ; it takes a
yard and a half to make it, and it must have been a good
day's work to make it up ; call that three-and-sixpence more,
and with them pearl buttons and thread and all, that ar dress
never cost less than a dollar and seventy-five, and here she 'a
goin' to run out every day in it ! "
" Well, well ! " said Miss Roxy, who had taken the sob-
bing fair one in her lap, " you know, Mis' Kittridge, this
'ere 's a kind o' pet lamb, an old-folks' darling, and things be
with her as they be, and we can't make her over, and she 's
such a nervous little thing we must n't cross her." Saying
which, she proceeded to dress the child in her own clothes.
" If you had a good large checked apron, I would n't mind
putting that on her!" added Miss Roxy, after she had ar
rayed the child.
THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND. 55
" Here 's one," said Mrs. Kittridge ; " that may save her
rfothes some."
Miss Roxy began to put on the wholesome garment ; but,
rather to her mortiti cation, the little fairy began to weep
again in a most heart-broken manner.
" Don't want che't apon."
* Why don't Mara want nice checked apron ? " said Miss
Roxy, in that extra cheerful tone by which children are to
be made to believe they have mistaken their own mind.
" Don't want it! " with a decided wave of the little hand;
u I 's too pitty to wear che't apon."
" Well ! well ! " said Mrs. Kittridge, rolling up her eyes,
" did I ever ! no, I never did. If there a'n't depraved na-
tur* a-comin' out early. Well, if she says she 's pretty now,
what '11 it be when she 's fifteen ? "
" She '11 learn to tell a lie about it by that time," said
Miss Roxy, " and say she thinks she 's horrid. The
child is pretty, and the truth comes uppermost with her
now."
" Haw ! haw ! haw ! " burst with a great crash from Cap-
tain Kittridge, who had come in behind, and stood silently
listening during this conversation ; " that 's musical now ;
come here, my little maid, you are too pretty for checked
aprons, and no mistake;" and seizing the child in his long
arms, he tossed her up like a butterfly, while her sunny
curls shone in the morning light.
' There 's one comfort about the child, Miss Kittridge,"
laid Aunt Roxy; "she's one of them that dirt won't stick
to. I never knew her to stain or tear her clothes, she
fcLways come in jist so nice."
" She a'n't much like Sally, then ! " said Mrs. Kittridge.
4 That girl '11 run through more clothes ! Only last week
$<> THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND.
Bhe walked the crown out of my old black straw bonnet,
and left it hanging on the top of a blackberry-bush."
" Wai', wal'," said Captain Kittridge, " as to dressin' this
ere child, why, ef Fennel 's a mind to dress her in cloth
of gold, it 's none of our business ! He 's rich enough for
all he wants to do, and so let 's eat our breakfast and mind
our own business."
After breakfast Captain Kittridge took the two children
down to the cove, to investigate the state of his boat and
tar-kettle, set high above the highest tide-mark.
The sun had risen gloriously, the sky was of an intense,
vivid blue, and only great snowy islands of clouds, lying in
silver banks on the horizon, showed vestiges of last night's
storm. The whole wide sea was one glorious scene of form-
ing and dissolving mountains of blue and purple, breaking
at the crest into brilliant silver. All round the island the
waves were constantly leaping and springing into jets and
columns of brilliant foam, throwing themselves high up, in
silvery cataracts, into the very arms of the solemn evergreen
forests which overhung the shore.
The sands of the little cove seemed harder and whiter
than ever, and were thickly bestrewn with the shells and
sea-weed which the upturnings of the night had brought in.
There lay what might have been fringes and fragments of
sea-gods' vestures, blue, crimson, purple, and orange sea-
weeds, wreathed in tangled ropes of kelp and sea-grass, cr
lying separately scattered on .the sands. The children ran
wildly, shouting as they began gathering sea-treasures ; and
Sally, with the air of an experienced hand in the business,
untwisted the coils of ropy sea-weed, from which every
moment she disengaged some new treasure, in some rarei
shell or smoother pebble.
THE PEARL OF ORR S ISLAND. 57
Suddenly, the child shook out something from a knotted
mass of sea-grass, which she held up with a perfect shriek
of delight.
It was a bracelet of hair, fastened by a brilliant clasp
of green, sparkling stones, such as she had never seen be-
fore.
She redoubled her cries of delight, as she saw it sparkle
between her and the sun, calling upon her father.
" Father ! father ! do come here, and see what I 've
found ! "
He came quickly, and took the bracelet from the child's
hand; but, at the same moment, looking over her head, he
caught sight of an object partially concealed behind a pro-
jecting rock. He took a step forward, and uttered an
exclamation,
" Well, well ! sure enough ! poor things ! "
There lay, bedded in sand and sea-weed, a woman with a
little boy clasped in her arms ! Both had been carefully
lashed to a spar, but the child was held to the bosom of the
woman, with a pressure closer than any knot that mortal
hands could tie.
Both were deep sunk in the sand, into which had streamed
the woman's long, dark hair, which sparkled with glittering
morsels of sand and pebbles, and with those tiny, brilliant,
yellow shells which are so numerous on that shore.
The woman was both young .and beautiful. The fore-
head, damp with ocean-spray, was like sculptured marble,
the eyebrows dark and decided in their outline ; but the
long, heavy, black fringes had shu* down, as a solemn cur-
tain, over all the history of mortal joy or sorrow that those
eyes had looked upon. A wedding-ring gleamed on the
\parble hand ; but the sea had divorced all human ties, and
3*
58 THE PEARL OF ORE'S ISLAND.
taken her as a bride to itself. And, in truth, it seemed to
have made to her a worthy bed, for she was all folded aad
inwreathed in sand and shells and sea-weeds, and a great,
weird-looking leaf of kelp, some yards in length, lay twined
around her like a shroud.
The child that lay in her bosom had hair, and face, and
eyelashes like her own, and his little hands were holding
tightly a portion of the black dress which she wore.
" Cold, cold, stone dead ! " was the muttered excla-
mation of the old seaman, as he bent over the woman.
" She must have struck her head there," he mused, as he
laid his finger on a dark, bruised spot on her temple. Ho
laid his hand on the child's heart, and put one finger under
the arm to see if there was any lingering vital heat, and then
hastily cut the lashings that bound the pair to the spar, and
with difficulty disengaged the child from the cold clasp in
which dying love had bound him to a heart which should
beat no more with mortal joy or sorrow.
Sally, after the first moment, had run screaming toward
the house, with all a child's forward eagerness, to be the
bearer of news ; but the little Mara stood, looking anxiously,
with a wishful earnestness of face.
" Pitty boy, pitty boy, come ! " she said often ; but
.he old man was so busy, he scarcely regarded her.
" Now, Cap'n Kittridge, do tell ! " said Miss Roxy, meet-
ing him in all haste, with a cap-border stiff in air, while
Dame Kittridge exclaimed,
" Now, you don't ! Well, well ! did n't I say that was a
ship last night ? And what a solemnizing thought it was
that souls might be goin' into eternity ! "
" We must have blankets and hot bottles, right away ! '
said Miss Roxy, who always took the earthly view cf mat
THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND. 59
*ers, an.1 who was, in her own person, a personified humane
society. " Miss Kittridge, you jist dip out your dishwater
into the smallest tub, and we '11 put him in. Stand away,
Mara ! Sally, you take her out of the way ! We '11 fetch
this child to, perhaps. I 've fetched 'em to, when they 'a
seemed to be dead as door-nails ! "
4 Cap'n Kittridge, you 're sure the woman 's dead ? "
u Laws, yes ; she had a blow right on her temple here.
There 's no bringing her to till the resurrection."
" Well, then, you jist go and get Cap'n Fennel to como
down and help you, and get the body into the house, and
we '11 attend to layin* it out by and by. Tell Ruey to come
down."
Aunt Roxy issued her orders with all the military vigor
and precision of a general in case of a sudden attack. It
was her habit. Sickness and death were her opportunities ;
where they were, she felt herself at home, and she addressed
herself to the task before her with undoubting faith.
Before many hours a pair of large, dark eyes slowly
emerged from under the black-fringed lids of the little
drowned boy, they rolled dreamily round for a moment,
and dropped again in heavy languor.
The little Mara had, with the quiet persistence which
formed a trait in her baby character, dragged stools and
chairs to the back of the bed, which she at last succeeded
in scaling, and sat opposite to where the child lay, grave and
still, watching with intense earnestness the process that was
going on.
At the moment when the eyes had opened, she stretched
forth her little arms, and said, eagerly, " Pitty boy, come,"
and then, as they closed again, she dropped her hands
wilh a sigh of disappointment. Yet, before night, the
60 HIE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND.
little stranger sat up in bed, and laughed with pleasure at
the treasures of shells and pebbles which the children spread
out on the bed before him.
He was a vigorous, well-made, handsome child, with brill-
iant eyes and teeth, but the few words that he spoke were
in a language unknown to most present. Captain Kittridge
declared it to be Spanish, and that a call which he most
passionately and often repeated was for his mother. But he
was of that happy age when sorrow can be easily effaced,
and the efforts of the children called forth joyous smiles.
When his playthings did not go to his liking, he showed
sparkles of a fiery, irascible spirit.
The little Mara seemed to appropriate him in feminine
fashion, as a chosen idol and graven image. She gave him
at once all her slender stock of infantine treasures, and
seemed to watch with an ecstatic devotion his every move-
ment, often repeating, as she looked delightedly around,
" Pitty boy, come"
She had no words to explain the strange dream of the
morning ; it lay in her, struggling for expression, and giving
her an interest in the new-comer as in something belonging
to herself. Whence it came, whence come multitudes
like it, which spring up as strange, enchanted flowers, every
now and then in the dull, material pathway of life, who
knows ?
It may be that our present faculties have among them a
rudimentary one, like the germs of wings in the chrysalis,
by which the spiritual world becomes sometimes an object
of perception, there may be natures in which the walls
of the material are so fine and translucent that the spiritua
is seen through them as through a glass darkly. It may be
too, that the love which is strongf r than death has a powe*
THE PEARL OF OER'S ISLAND 61
sometimes to make itself heard and felt through the walls of
our mortality, when it would plead for the defenceless ones
it has left behind. All these things may be, who knows ?
******
" There," said Miss Roxy, coming out of the keeping-room
at sunset ; " I would n't ask to sec a better-lookin' corpse*
That ar woman was a sight to behold this morning. I guese
I shook a double handful of stones and them little shells out
of her hair, now she reely looks beautiful. Captain Kit-
tridge has made a coffin out o' some cedar-boards he hap
pened to have, and I lined it with bleached cotton, anO
stuffed the pillow nice and full, and when we come to get
her in, she reely will look lovely."
" I s'pose, Mis' Kittridge, you '11 have the funeral to-
morrow, it 's Sunday."
" Why, yes, Aunt Roxy, I think everybody must want
to improve such a dispensation. Have you took little Mara
in to look at the corpse ? "
"Well, no," said Miss Roxy; "Mis' PennePs gettin'
ready to take her home."
" I think it 's an opportunity we ought to improve," said
Mrs. Kittridge, " to learn children what death is. I think
we can't begin to solemnize their minds too young."
At this moment Sally and the little Mara entered the
mom.
" Come here, children," said Mrs. Kittridge, taking a hand
of either one, and leading them to the closed door of the
keeping-room ; " I 've got somethin' to show you."
The room looked ghostly and dim, the rays of light fell
through the closed shutter on an object mysteriously muffled
in a white sheet.
Sally's bright face expressed only the vague curiosity of a
62 THE PEARL OF ORE'S ISLAND.
child to see something new ; but the little Mara resisted and
hung back with all her force, so that Mrs. Kittridge waa
obliged to take her up and hold her.
She folded back the sheet from the chill and wintry form
which lay so icily, lonely, and cold. Sally walked around
it, and gratified her curiosity by seeing it from every point
of view, and laying her warm, busy hand on the lifeless and
cold one ; but Mara clung to Mrs. Kittridge, with eyes that
expressed a distressed astonishment. The good woman
fttooped over and placed the child's little hand for a mo-
ment on the icy forehead. The little one gave a piercing
scream, and struggled to get away ; and as soon as she was
put down, she ran and hid her face in Aunt Roxy's dress,
sobbing bitterly.
" That child '11 grow up to follow vanity," said Mrs. Kit-
tridge ; " her little head is full of dress now, and she hates
anything serious, it 's easy to see that."
The little Mara had no words to tell what a strange, dis-
tressful chill had passed up her arm and through her brain,
as she felt that icy cold of death, that cold so different
from all others. It was an impression of fear and pain that
lasted weeks and months, so that she would start out of sleep
and cry with a terror which she had not yet a sufficiency of
language to describe.
" You seem to forget, Mis' Kittridge, that this 'ere child
a'n't rugged like our Sally," said Aunt Roxy, as she raised
the little Mara in her arms. " She was a seven-months'
baby, and hard to raise at all, and a shivery, scary liltle
creature."
" Well, then, she ought to be hardened," said Dame Kit-
tridge. " But Mary Fennel never had no sort of idea of
bringin' up children, 't was jist so with Naomi, the gir 1
THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND. 63
never had no sort o' resolution, and she just died for want o*
resolution, that 's what came of it. I tell ye, children 's
got to learn to take the world as it is; and 'ta'n't no use
bringin' on 'em up too tender. Teach 'em to begin as
they 've got to go on, that 's my maxim."
" Mis' Kittridge," said Aunt Roxy, " there 's reason in all
things, and there 's difference in children. ' What 's one's
meat 's another's pison.' You could n't fetch up Mis' Fen-
nel's children, and she could n't fetch up yourn, so let 'a
say no more 'bout it."
" I 'm always a-tellin* my wife that ar," said Captain Kit-
tridge ; " she 's always wantin' to make everybody over after
her pattern."
" Cap'n Kittridge, I don't think you need to speak,"
resumed his wife. "When such a loud providence is
a-knockin' at your door, I think you 'd better be a-searchin*
your own heart, here it is the eleventh hour, and you
ha* n't come into the Lord's vineyard yet."
" Oh ! come, come, Mis' Kittridge, don't twit a feller
afore folks," said the Captain. " I 'm goin' over to Harps-
well Neck this blessed minute after the minister to 'tend tha
funeral, so we '11 let him preach."
84 THE PEARL OF ORE'S ISLAND
CHAPTER VIII.
LIFE on any shore is a dull affair, ever degenerating
into commonplace ; and this may account for the eagerness
with which even a great calamity is sometimes accepted in a
neighborhood, as affording wherewithal to stir the deeper
feelings of our nature.
Thus, though Mrs. Kittridge was by no means a hard-
hearted woman, and would not for the world have had a
ship wrecked on her particular account, yet since a ship had
been wrecked and a body floated ashore at her very door,
as it were, it afforded her no inconsiderable satisfaction to
dwell on the details and to arrange for the funeral.
It was something to talk about and to think of, and likely
to furnish subject-matter for talk for years to come when
she should go out to tea with any of her acquaintances who
lived at Middle Bay, or Maquoit, or Harpswell Neck. For
although in those days, the number of light-houses being
much smaller than it is now, it was no uncommon thing
for ships to be driven on shore in storms, yet this incident
had undeniably more that was stirring and romantic in it
than any within the memory of any tea-table gossip in the
vicinity. Mrs. Kittridge, therefore, looked forward to the
funeral services on Sunday afternoon as to a species of
solemn fete, which imparted a sort of consequence to hei
dwelling and herself. Notice of it was to be given out in
* meeting " after service, and she might expect both keep
THE PEARL OF ORE'S ISLAND. 6$
Ing-room and kitchen to be full. Mrs. Pennel had offered
to do her share of Christian and neighborly kindness, in
taking home to her own dwelling the little boy. In fact, it
became necessary to do so in order to appease the feelings
of the little Mara, who clung to the new acquisition with
most devoted fondness, and wept bitterly when he was sep
arated from her even for a few moments. Therefore, in the
afternoon of the day when the body was found, Mrs. Pennel,
who had come down to assist, went back in company with
Aunt Ruey and the two children.
The September evening set in brisk and chill, and the
cheerful fire that snapped and roared up the ample chimney
of Captain Kittridge's kitchen was a pleasing feature. The
days of our story were before the advent of those sullen
gnomes, the " air-tights," or even those more sociable and
cheery domestic genii, the cooking-stoves. They were the
days of the genial open kitchen-fire, with the crane, the
pot-hooks, and trammels, where hissed and boiled the
social tea-kettle, where steamed the huge dinner-pot, in
whose ample depths beets, carrots, potatoes, and turnips
boiled in jolly sociability with the pork or corned beef
which they were destined to flank at the coming meal.
On the present evening, Miss Roxy sat bolt upright, as
was her wont, in one corner of the fireplace, with her specta-
cles on her nose, and an unwonted show of candles on the
little stand beside her, having resumed the task of the silk
dress which had been for a season interrupted. Mrs. Kit-
tridge, with her spectacles also mounted, was carefully and
warily " running-up breadths," stopping every few minutes
to examine her work, and to inquire submissively of Miss
Roxy if " it will do ? "
Captain Kittridge sat in the other corner busily W
61* THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND.
on a little boat which he was shaping to please Sally, who sat
on a low stool by his side with her knitting, evidently more
intent on what her father ^s producing than on the evening
task of " ten bouts," which her mother exacted before she
could freely give her mind to anything on her own account.
As Sally was rigorously sent to bed exactly at eight o'clock,
it became her to be diligent if she wished to do anything foi
her own amusement before that hour.
And in the next room, cold and still, was lying that faded
image of youth and beauty which the sea had so strangely
given up. ^Without a name, without a history, without a
single accompaniment from which her past could even be
surmised, there she lay, sealed in eternal silence.
" It 's strange," said Captain Kittridge, as he whittled
away, " it 's very strange we don't find anything more of
that ar ship. I 've been all up and down the beach a-lookin*
There was a spar and some broken bits of boards and tim-
bers come ashore down on the beach, but nothin' to speak of."
"It won't be known till the sea gives up its dead," said
Miss Roxy, shaking her head solemnly, " and there '11 be a
great givin' up then, I 'm a-thinkin'."
" Yes, indeed," said Mrs. Kittridge, with an emphatic nod.
" Father," said Sally, " how many, many things there
must be at the bottom of the sea, so many ships are
sunk with all their fine things on board. Why don't people
contrive some way to go down and get them ? "
" They do, child," said Captain Kittridge ; " they have
diving-bells, and men go down in 'em with caps over their
faces, and long tubes to get the air through, and they walk
nbout on the bottom of the ocean."
" Did you ever go down in one, father ? "
a Why, yes, child, to be sure ; and strange enough it waa
THE PEARL OF ORE'S ISLAND. 67
to be sure. There you could see great big sea critters, with
ever so many eyes and long arms, swimming right up to
catch you, and all you could do would be to muddy the
water on the bottom, so they could n't see you."
" I never heard of that, Cap'n Kittridge," said his wife,
drawing herself up with a reproving coolness.
" Wai', Mis' Kittridge, you ha' n't heard of everything
that ever happened," said the Captain, imperturbablj,
"though you do know a sight."
" And how does the bottom of the ocean look, father ? "
said Sally.
" Laws, child, why trees and bushes grow there, just aa
they do on land ; and great plants, blue and purple and
green and yellow, and lots of great pearls lie round. I *ve
seen 'em big as chippin'-birds* eggs."
" Cap'n Kittridge ! " said his wife.
" I have, and big as robins' eggs, too, but them was off
the coast of Ceylon and Malabar, and way round the Equa-
tor," said the Captain, prudently resolved to throw his ro-
mance to a sufficient distance.
" It 's a pity you did n't get a few of them pearls," said
his wife, with an indignant appearance of scorn.
" I did get lots on 'em, and traded 'em off to the Nabobs
in the interior for Cashmere shawls and India silks and
sich," said the Captain, composedly; "and brought 'em
home and sold 'em at a good figure, too."
"Oh, father!" said Sally, earnestly, "I wish you had
saved just one or two for us."
"Laws, child, I wish now I had," said the Captain, good-
naturedly. " Why, when I was in India, I went up to
Lucknow, and Benares, and round, and saw all the Nabobs
and Biggums, why, they don't make no more of gold and
68 THE PEARL OF ORE'S ISLAND.
silver and precious stones than we do of the shells we find
on the beach. Why, I 've seen one of them fellers with a
diamond in his turban as big as my fist."
" Cap'n Kittridge, what are you telling ? " said his wife
once more.
" Fact, as big as my fist," said the Captain, obdurately ;
" and all the clothes he wore was jist a stiff crust of pearls
and precious stones. I tell you, he looked like something ia
the Revelations, a real New Jerusalem look he had."
"/call that ar talk wicked, Cap'n Kittridge, usin' Scrip-
lur* that ar way," said his wife.
" Why, don't it tell about all sorts of gold and precious
stones in the Revelations ? " said the Captain ; " that 's all I
meant. Them ar countries off in Asia a'n't like our 'n,
stands to reason they should n't be ; them 's Scripture coun-
tries, and everything is different there."
" Father, did n't you ever get any of those splendid
things?" said Sally.
" Laws, yes, child. Why, I had a great green ring, an
emerald, that one of the princes giv' me, and ever so many
pearls and diamonds. I used to go with 'em rattlin' loose in
my vest pocket. I was young and gay in them days, and
thought of bringin' of 'em home for the gals, but somehow I
always got opportunities for swappin' of 'em off for goods and
sich. That ar shawl your mother keeps in her camfire chist
was what I got for one on 'em."
" Well, well," said Mrs. Kittridge, " there 's never any
catchin 1 you, 'cause you 've been where we have n't."
" You 've caught me once, and that ought 'r do," said tha
Captain, with unruffled good-nature. " I tell yoa, Sally, your
mother was the handsomest gal in Harpswell in them days."
"I should think you was too old for such nonsense
THE PEARL OF GRITS ISLAND. 69
Cap'n," said Mrs. Kittridge, with a toss of her head, and
a voice that sounded far less inexorable than her former
admonition.
In fact, though the old Captain was as unmanageable un-
der his wife's fireside regime as any brisk old cricket that
skipped and sang around the hearth, and though he hopped
over all moral boundaries with a cheerful alertness of con-
science that was quite discouraging, still there was no resist-
big ihe spell of his inexhaustible good-nature.
By this time he had finished the little boat, and to Sally's
great delight, began sailing it for her in a pail of water.
" I wonder," said Mrs. Kittridge, " what 's to be done
with that ar child. I suppose the selectmen will take
care on't; it'll be brought up by the town."
" I should n't wonder," said Miss Roxy, " if Cap'n Fennel
should adopt it."
"You don't think so," said Mrs. Kittridge. " T would
be taking a great care and expense on their hands at their
time of life."
" I would n't want no better fun than to bring up that
little shaver," said Captain Kittridge ; " he 's a bright un, I
promise you."
u You, Cap'n Kittridge ! I wonder you can talk so," said
his wife. " It 's an awful responsibility, and I wonder you
don't think whether or no you 're fit for it."
" Why, down here on the shore, I 'd as lives undertake a
boy as a Newfoundland pup," said the Captain. " Plenty in
the sea to eat, drink, and wear. That ar young un may be
Ihe staff of their old age yet."
u You see," said Miss Roxy, " I think they '11 adopt it to
be company for little Mara; they'r bound up in her, and
the little thing pines bein' alone."
TO THE FEARL OF ORE'S ISLAND.
" Well, they make a real graven image of that ar child,"
said Mrs. Kittridge, " and fairly bow down to her and wor-
ship her."
" Well, it 's natural," said Miss Roxy. " Besides, the
little thing is cunnin' ; she 's about the cunnin'est little
crittur that I ever saw, and has such enticin' ways."
The fact was, as the reader may perceive, that Miss Roxy
had been thawed into an unusual attachment for the little
Mara, and this affection was beginning to spread a warming
element through her whole being. It was as if a rough
granite rock had suddenly awakened to a passionate con-
sciousness of the beauty of some fluttering white anemone
that nestled in its cleft, and felt warm thrills running through
all its veins at every tender motion and shadow. A word
spoken against the little one seemed to rouse her combative-
ness. Nor did Dame Kittridge bear the child the slightest
ill-will, but she was one of those naturally care-taking peo-
ple whom Providence Leems to design to perform the picket
duties for the rest of society, and who, therefore, challenge
everybody and everything to stand and give an account of
themselves.
Miss Roxy herself belonged to this class, but sometimes
found herself so stoutly overhauled by the guns of Mrs.
Kittridge's battery, that she could only stand modestly on
the defensive.
One of Mrs. Kittridge's favorite hobbies was education,
or, as she phrased it, the " fetchin' up " of children, which
she held should be performed to the letter of the old stiff
rule. In this manner she had already trained up six sons,
who were all following their fortunes upon the seas, and,
on this account, she had no small conceit of her abilities
and when she thought she discerned a lamb being left to
THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND. 71
frisk heedlessly out of bounds, her zeal was stirred to bring
it under proper sheepfold regulations.
" Come, Sally, it 's eight o'clock," said the good woman.
Sally's dark brows lowered over her large, black eyes,
and she gave an appealing look to her father.
" Law, mother, let the child sit up a quarter of an hour
later, jist for once."
" Cap'n Kittridge, if I was to hear to you, there 'd never be
Do rule in this house. Sally, you go 'long this minute, and
be sure you put your knittin' away in its place."
The Captain gave a humorous nod of submissive good-
nature to his daughter as she went out. In fact, putting
Sally to bed was taking away his plaything, and leaving
him nothing to do but study faces in the coals, or watch
the fleeting sparks which chased each other in flocks up
the sooty back of the chimney.
It was Saturday night, and the morrow was Sunday,
never a very pleasant prospect to the poor Captain, who,
having, unfortunately, no spiritual tastes, found it very
difficult to get through the day in compliance with his
wife's views of propriety, for he, alas ! soared no higher
in his aims.
"I b'lieve, on the hull, Polly, I '11 go to bed, too," said he,
suddenly starting up.
" Well, father, your clean shirt is in the right -hand corner
of the upper drawer, and your Sunday clothes on the back
of the chair by the bed."
The fact was that the Captain promised himself Uie
pleasure of a long conversation with Sally, who nestled ill
the trundle-bed under the paternal couch, to whom, he could
"elate long, many-colored yarns, without the danger of inter-
Mption from her mother's sharp, truth-seeking voice.
T2 THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND.
A moralist might, perhaps, be puzzled exactly what ac-
count to make of the Captain's disposition to romancing
and embroidery. In all real, matter-of-fact transactions,
as between man and man, his word was as good as
another's, and he was held to be honest and just in his
dealings. It was only when he mounted the stilts of foreign
travel that his paces became so enormous. Perhaps, after
all, a rude poetic and artistic faculty possessed the man.
He might have been a humbler phase of the "mute, in-
glorious Milton." Perhaps his narrations required the priv-
ileges and allowances due to the inventive arts generally.
Certain it was that, in common with other artists, he re-
quired an atmosphere of sympathy and confidence in which
to develop himself fully ; and, when left alone with children,
his mind ran such riot, that the bounds between the real and
unreal became foggier than the banks of Newfoundland.
The two women sat up, and the night wore on apace,
while they kept together that customary vigil which it was
thought necessary to hold over the lifeless casket from which
an immortal jewel had recently been withdrawn.
" I re'lly did hope," said Mrs. Kittridge, mournfully, " that
this 'ere solemn Providence would have been sent home to
the Cap'n's mind ; but he seems jist as light and triflin' as
ever."
" There don't nobody see these 'ere things unless they 'a
effectually called," said Miss Roxy, " and the Cap'n's time
*'n't come."
" It 's gettin' to be t'ward the eleventh hour," said Mrs
Kittridge, " as I was a-tellin' him this afternoon."
Well," said Miss Roxy, you know
'While the lamp holds out to burn,
The vilest sinner may return.' "
THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND. ?3
tt Yes, I know that," said Mrs. Kittridge, rising and taking
flp the candle. " Don't you think, Aunt Roxy, we may as
well give a look in there at the corpse?"
It was past midnight as they went together into the
keeping-room. All was so still that the clash of the rising
tide and the ticking of the clock assumed that solemn and
mournful distinctness which even tones less impressive take
Oil in the night-watches.
Miss Roxy went mechanically through with certain ar-
rangements of the white drapery around the cold sleeper,
and uncovering the face and bust for a moment, looked
critically at the still unconscious countenance.
" Not one thing to let us know who 'or what she is," she
said ; " that boy, if he lives, would give a good deal to know
some day."
" What is it one's duty to do about this bracelet ? " said
Mrs. Kittridge, taking from a drawer the article in ques-
tion, which had been found on the beach in the morning.
" Well, I s'pose it belongs to the child, whatever it 's
worth," said Miss Roxy.
" Then if the Fennels conclude to take him, I may as
well give it to them," said Mrs. Kittridge, laying it back in
the drawer.
Miss Roxy folded the cloth back over the face, and the
two went out into the kitchen. The fire had sunk low
the crickets were chirruping gleefully. Mrs. Kittridge
added more wood, and put on the tea-kettle that their
watching might be refreshed by the aid of its talkative
Bnd inspiring beverage. The two solemn, hard-visaged
tfomcn drew up to each other by the fire, and insensibly
Aeir very voices assumed a tone of drowsy and confidential
mystery.
4
T4 THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND.
" If this 'ere poor woman was hopefully pious, and could
gee what was goin' on here," said Mrs. Kittridge, " it would
seem to be a comfort to her that her child has fallen into
such good hands. It seems a' most a pity she couldn't
know it."
" How do you know she don't ? " said Miss Roxy, bruskly,
"Why, you know the hymn," said Mrs. Kittridge, quoting
those somewhat saddusaical lines from the popular p*aln>
book:
" ' The living know that they must die,
But all the dead forgotten lie
Their memory and their senses gone,
Alike unknowing and unknoton.' "
" Well, I don't know 'bout that," said Miss Roxy, flavor-
ing her cup of tea ; " hymn-book a'n't Scriptur', and I 'm
pretty sure that ar aVt true always ; " and she nodded her
head as if she could say more if she chose.
Now Miss Roxy's reputation of vast experience in all the
facts relating to those last fateful hours which are the only
certain event in every human existence, caused her to be
regarded as a sort of Delphic oracle in such matters, and
therefore Mrs. Kittridge, not without a share of the latent
superstition to which each human heart must confess at some
hours, drew confidentially near to Miss Roxy, and asked if
she had anything particular on her mind.
"Well, Mis' Kittridge," said Miss Roxy, "I a'n't one of
the sort as likes to make a talk of what I Ve seen, but meb-
be if I was, I 've seen some things as remarkable as any
body. I tell you Mis' Kittridge, folks don't tend the sick
and dyin' bed year in and out, at all hours, day and night
End not see some remarkable things ; that 's my opinion."
" Well, Miss Roxy, did you ever see a sperit ? "
THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND. 75
* I wo/i't say as I have, and I won't say as I hav' n't,"
laid Miss Roxy; "only as I have seen some remarkable
things." There was a pause, in which Mrs. Kittridge stirred
her tea, looking intensely curious, while the old kitchen-
clock seemed to tick with one of those fits of loud insist-
acce which seem to take clocks at times when all is still, as
if they had something that they were getting ready to say
pretty soon, if nobody else spoke.
But Miss Roxy evidently had something to say, and so
she began :
" Mis' Kittridge, this 'ere 's a very particular subject to
be talkin' of. I 've had opportunities to observe that most
hav' n't, and I don't care if I jist say to you, that I 'm pretty
sure spirits that has left the body do come to their friends
sometimes."
The clock ticked with still more empressement, and Mrs.
Kittridge glared through the horn bows of her glasses with
eyes of eager curiosity.
" Now, you remember Cap'n Titcomb's wife that died fif-
teen years ago when her husband had gone to Archangel,
and you remember that he took her son John out with him
and of all her boys, John was the one she was particular
sot on."
u Yes, and John died at Archangel ; I remember that."
" Jes' so," said Miss Roxy, laying her hand on Mrs. Kit-
tridge's ; " he died at Archangel the very day his mother died,
find jist the hour, for the Cap'n had it down in his log-book."
" You don't say so ! "
" Yes I do. "Well, now," said Miss Roxy, sinking her
v^ice, " this 'ere was rerrarkable. Mis' Titcomb was one of
the fearful sort, tho' one of the best women that ever lived.
Oar minister used to call her * Mis' M'jchafraid ' you
76 THE PEARL OF GRITS ISLAND.
know, in the < Pilgrim's Progress' but he was satisfied
with her evidences, and told her so ; she used to say she waa
'afraid of the dark valley,' and she told our minister so
when he went out, that ar last day he called ; and his
last words, as he stood with his hand on the knob of the
door, was ' Mis' Titcomb, the Lord will find ways to bring
you thro' the dark valley.' Well, she sunk away about
three o'clock in the morning. I remember the time, 'cause
the Cap'n's chronometer watch that he left with her lay on
the stand for her to take her drops by. I heard her kind o'
restless, and I went up, and I saw she was struck with death,
and she looked sort o' anxious and distressed.
" ' Oh, Aunt Roxy,' says she, ' it 's so dark, who will go
with me? 'and in a minute her whole face brightened up,
and says she, 'John is going with me,' and she jist gave the
least little sigh and never breathed no more she jist died
as easy as a bird.
" I told our minister of it next morning, and he asked if
I 'd made a note of the hour, and I told him I had, and says
he, ' You did right, Aunt Roxy.' "
" What did he seem to think of it ? "
" Well, he did n't seem inclined to speak freely. * Miss
Roxy,' says he, all natur 's in the Lord's hands, and there 's
no saying why he uses this or that ; them that 's strong
enough to go by faith, he lets 'em, but there 's no saying
what he won't do for the weak ones.'"
" Wa'n't the Cap'v> overcome when you told him ? " said
Mrs. Kittridge.
" Indeed he was ; he was jist as white as a sheet."
Miss Roxy now proceeded to pour out another cup of tea,
and having mixed and flavored it, she looked in a weird and
iibylline manner across it, and inquired,
IflE PEARL OF ORE'S ISLAND. 77
" Mis' Kittridge, do you remember that ar Mr. Wadkins
that come to Brunswick twenty years ago, in President
Averill's days ? "
" Yes, I remember the pale, thin, long-nosed gentleman
that used to sit in President Averill's pew at church. No-
body knew who he was or where he came from. The col-
lege students used to call him Thaddeus of Warsaw. No-
body knew who he was but the President, 'cause he could
speak all the foreign tongues one about as well as an-
other ; but the President he knew his story, and said he w as
a good man, and he used to stay to the sacrament regular, I
remember."
" Yes," said Miss Roxy, " he used to live in a room all
alone, and keep himself. Folks said he was quite a gentle-
man, too, and fond of reading."
" I heard Cap'n Atkins tell," said Mrs. Kittridge, " how
they came to take him up on the shores of Holland. You
see, when he was somewhere in a port in Denmark, some
men come to him and offered him a pretty good sum of
money if he 'd be at such a place on the coast of Holland
on such a day, and take whoever should come. So the
Cap'n he went, and sure enough on that day there come a
troop of men on horseback down to the beach with this man,
and they all bid him good-by, and seemed to make much of
him, but he never told 'em nothin' on board ship, only he
seemed kind o' sad and pmin'."
" Well," said Miss Roxy ; " Ruey and I we took care o*
Jiat man in his last sickness, and we watched with him the
night he died, and there was something quite remarkable."
" Do tell now," said Mrs. Kittridge.
"Well, you see/' said Miss Roxy, "he'd been low and
poorly all day, kind o' tossin* and restless, and a little light-
78 THE PEARL OF ORE'S ISLAND.
Headed, and the Doctor said he thought he wouldn't last till
morning, and so Ruey and I we set up with him, and be-
tween twelve and one Ruey said she thought she 'd jist lop
down a few minutes on the old sofa at the foot of the bed,
and I made me a cup of tea like as I 'm a-doin' now, and
get with my back to him."
"Well?" said Mrs. Kittridge, eagerly.
"Well, you see he kept a-tossin' and throwin* off lha
clothes, and I kept a-gettin' up to straighten 'em ; and once
he threw out his arms, and something bright fell out on to
the pillow, and I went and looked, and it was a likeness that
he wore by a ribbon round his neck. It was a woman a
real handsome one and she had on a low-necked black
dress, of the cut they used to call Marie Louise, and she had
a string of pearls round her neck, and her hair curled with
pearls in it, and very wide blue eyes. Well, you see, I
didn't look but a minute before he seemed to wake up, and
he caught at it and hid it in his clothes. Well, I went and
sat down, and I grew kind o' sleepy over the fire ; but pretty
soon I heard him speak out very clear, and kind o' sur-
prised, in a tongue 1 did n't understand, and I looked
round."
Miss Roxy here made a pause, and put another lump of
sugar into her tea.
" Well ? " said Mrs. Kittridge, ready to burst with curi-
osity.
"Well, now, I don't like to tell about these "ere things,
and you must n't never speak about it ; but as sure as you
live, Polly Kittridge, I see that ar very woman standin' at
the back of the bed, right in the partin' of the curtains, jisl
as she looked in the pictur' blue eyes and curly hair an4 THE PEARL OF ORE'S ISLAND.
The Rev. Theophilus Sewell was one of the few ministers
who preserved the costume of a former generation, with
something of that imposing dignity with which, in earlier
times, the habits of the clergy were invested.
He was tall and majestic in stature, and carried to advan-
tage the powdered wig and three-cornered hat, the broad*
skirted coat, knee-breeches, high shoes, and plated buckles
of the ancient costume. There was just a sufficient degree
of the formality of olden times to give a certain quaintnesa
to all he said and did. He was a man of a considerable de-
gree of talent, force, and originality, and in fact had been
held in his day to be one of the most promising graduates
of Harvard University.
But, being a good man, he had proposed to himself no
higher ambition than to succeed to the pulpit of his father
in Harpswell.
His parish included not only a somewhat scattered sea-
faring population on the main-land, but also the care oi
several islands. Like many other of the New England
clergy of those times, he united in himself numerous dif-
ferent offices for the benefit of the people whom he served
As there was neither lawyer nor physician in the town,
he bad acquired by his reading, and still more by his expe-
rience, enough knowledge in both these departments to
enable him to administer to the ordinary wants of a very
healthy and peaceable people.
It was said that most of the deeds and legal conveyance*
in his parish were in his handwriting, and in the medical
line his authority was only rivalled by that of Miss Roxy
*ho claimed a very obvious advantage over him in a certain
class of cases, from the fact of her being a woman, which
was still further increased by the circumstance that the good
THE PEARL OF ORE'S ISLAND. 9fl
man had retained steadfastly his bachelor estate; "so, of
course," Miss Roxy used to say, " poor man ! what could ho
know about a woman, you know ? "
This state of bachelorhood gave occasion to much surmis-
ing; but when spoken to about it, he was accustomed to
remark with gallantry, that he should have too much regard
for any lady whom he could think of as a wife, to ask her to
share his straitened circumstances.
Hu income, indeed, consisted of only about two hundred
dollars a year ; but upon this he and a very brisk, cheerful
maiden sister contrived to keep up a thrifty and comfortable
establishment, in which everything appeared to be pervaded
by a spirit of quaint cheerfulness.
In fact, the man might be seen to be an original in his
way, and all the springs of his life were kept oiled by a
quiet humor, which sometimes broke out in playful sparkles,
despite the gravity of the pulpit and the avvfulness of the
cocked hat.
He had a placid way of amusing himself with the quaint
and picturesque side of life, as it appeared in all his visit-
ings among a very primitive, yet very shrewd-minded peo-
pie.
There are those people who possess a peculiar faculty of
mingling in the affairs of this life as spectators as well as
actors. It does not, of course, suppose any coldness of
nature or want of human interest or sympathy nay, it
often exists most completely with people of the tenderest
human feeling.
It rather seems to be a kind of distinct faculty working
harmoniously with all the others ; but he who possesses it
needs never to be at a loss for interest or amusement ; he is
always a spectator at a tragedy or comedy, and sees in real
96 THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND.
life a humor and a pathos beyond anything he can tnd
shadowed in books.
Mr. Sewell sometimes, in his pastoral visitations, took a
quiet pleasure in playing upon these simple minds, and
amusing himself with the odd harmonies and singular reso-
lutions of chords which started out under his fingers. Sure-
ly he had a right to something in addition to his limited sal-
ary, and this innocent, unsuspected entertainment helped to
make up the balance for his many labors.
His sister was one of the best-hearted and most unsus-
picious of the class of female idolaters, and worshipped her
brother with the most undoubting faith and devotion
wholly ignorant of the constant amusement she gave him
by a thousand little feminine peculiarities, which struck him
with a continual sense of oddity. It was infinitely diverting
to him to see the solemnity of her interest in his shirts and
stockings, and Sunday clothes, and to listen to the subtile
distinctions which she would draw between best and second-
best, and every day ; to receive her somewhat prolix admo-
nition how he was to demean himself in respect of the wear-
ing of each one ; for Miss Emily Sewell was a gentlewoman,
and held rigidly to various traditions of gentility which had
been handed down in the Sewell family, and which afforded
her brother too much quiet amusement to be disturbed. He
would not have overthrown one of her quiddities for the
world ; it would be taking away a part of his capital in
existence.
Miss Emily was a trim, genteel little person, with dancing
black eyes, and cheeks which had the roses of youth well
dried into them. It was easy to see that she had been quit*
pretty in her days ; and her neat figure, her brisk little
rivacious ways, her unceasing good-nature and kindness of
T1IE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND. 97
heart, still made her an object both of admiration and inter
est in the parish.
She was great in drying herbs and preparing recipes ; in
knitting and sewing, and cutting and contriving; in saving
every possible snip and chip either of food or clothing ; and
no less liberal was she in bestowing advice and aid in the
parish, where she moved about with all the sense of conse-
quence which her brother's position warranted.
The fact of his bachelorhood caused his relations to the
female part of his flock to be even more shrouded in sacred-
ness and mystery than is commonly the case with the great
man of the parish ; but Miss Emily delighted to act as in-
terpreter. She was charmed to serve out to the willing ears
of his parish from time to time such scraps of information
as regarded his life, habits, and opinions as might gratify
iheir ever new curiosity.
Instructed by her, all the good wives knew the difference
between his very best long silk stockings and his second
best, and how carefully the first had to be kept under lock
and key, where he could not get at them ; for he was under-
stood, good as he was, to have concealed in him all the
thriftless and pernicious inconsiderateness of the male
nature, ready at any moment to break out into unheard-of
improprieties. But the good man submitted himself to Miss
Emily's rule, and suffered himself to be led about by her
with an air of half whimsical consciousness.
Mrs. Kittridge that day had felt the full delicacy of the
compliment when she ascertained by a hasty glance, before
flie first prayer, that the good man had been brought out to
i.er funeral in all his very best things, not excepting the
long silk stockings, for she knew the second-best pair by
means of a certain skilful darn wnich Miss Emily had once
5
9S THE PEARL OF ORE'S ISLAND.
ghown her, which commemorated the spot where a hole had
been. The absence of this darn struck to Mrs. Kittridge'a
heart at once as a delicate attention.
"Mis' Simpkins," said Mrs. Kittridge to her pastor, aa
they were seated at the tea-table, " told me that she wished
when you were going home that you would call in to see
Mary Jane she couldn't come out to the funeral on ac-
count of a dreffle sore throat. I was tellin' on her to gargle
it with blackberry-root tea don't you think that is a good
gargle, Mr. Sewell ? "
*' Yea, I think it a very good gargle," replied the minister,
gravely.
" Ma'sh rosemary is the gargle that I always use," saia
Miss Roxy ; " it cleans out your throat so."
"Marsh rosemary is a very excellent gargle," said Mr.
Sewell.
" Why, brother, don't you think that rose leaves and vit-
riol is a good gargle ? " said little Miss Emily ; " I always
thought that you liked rose leaves and vitriol for a gargle."
" So I do," said the imperturbable Mr. Sewell, drinking
his tea with the air of a sphinx.
" Well, now, you '11 have to tell which on 'em will be most
likely to cure Mary Jane," said Captain Kittridge, "or
there '11 be a pullin' of caps, I 'm thinkin' ; or else the poor
girl will have to drink them all, which is generally the
way."
" There won't any of them cure Mary Jane's throat,"
said the minister, quietly.
"Why, brother!" "Why, Mr. Sewell!" "Why, you
jbn't ! " burst in different tones from each of the women
" I thought you said that blackberry-root tea was good,
said Mrs. Kittridge,
THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND, 99
" I understood that you 'proved of ma'sh rosemary," said
Miss Roxy, touched in her professional pride.
"And I am sure, brother, that I have heard you say v
often and often, that there was n't a better gargle than
rose leaves and vitriol," said Miss Emily.
" You are quite right, ladies, all of you. I think these
are all good gargles excellent ones."
" But I thought you said that they didn't do any good?"
laid all the ladies in a breath.
" No, they don't not the least in the world," said Mr.
Sewell ; " but they are all excellent gargles, and as long as
people must have gargles, I think one is about as good as
another."
" Now you have got it," said Captain Kittridge.
" Brother, you do say the strangest things," said Miss
Emily.
" Well, I must say," said Miss Roxy, " it is a new idea
to me, long as I Ve been nussin', and I nussed through one
season of scarlet fever when sometimes there was five diet
in one house ; and if ma'sh rosemary did n't do good then,
I should like to know what did."
" So would a good many others," said the minister.
" Law, now, Miss Roxy, you mus' n't mind him. Do you
know that I believe he says these sort of things just to hear
us talk ? Of course he would n't think of puttin' his experi-
ence against yours."
" But, Mis' Kittridge," said Miss Emily, with a view of
summoning a less controverted subject, " what a beautiful
little boy that was, and what a striking providence that
brought him into such a good family ! "
" Yes," said Mrs. Kittridge ; " but I 'm sure I don't see
what Mary Fennel is goin to do with that boy, for she aVt
got no more government than a twisted tovt -string."
100 THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND.
Oh, the Cap'n, he '11 lend a hand," said Miss Roxy
u it won't be easy gettin* roun' him ; Cap'n bears a pretty
steady hand when he sets out to drive."
" Well," said Miss Emily, " I do think that bringin' up
children is the most awful responsibility, and I always won-
der when I hear that any one dares to undertake it."
"It requires a great deal of resolution, certainly," saul
Mrs. Kittridge ; " I 'm sure I used to get a'most discouraged
when my boys was young : they was a reg'lar set of wild
ass's colts," she added, not perceiving the reflection on their
paternity.
But the countenance of Mr. Sewell was all aglow with
merriment, which did not break into a smile.
"Wai', Mis' Kittridge," said the Captain, "strikes me
that you're gettin' pussonal."
"No, I a'n't neither," said the literal Mrs. Kittridge
ignorant of the cause of the amusement which she saw
around her ; " but you wa' n't no help to me, you know ;
you was always off to sea, and the whole wear and tear
on't carne on me."
Well, well, Polly, all 's well that ends well ; don't you
think so, Mr. Sewell?"
" I have n't much experience in these matters," said Mr
Sewell, politely.
" No, indeed, that 's what he has n't, for he never will
have a child round the house that he don't turn everything
topsy-turvy for them," said Miss Emily.
" But I was going to remark," said Mr. Sewell, " that a
friend of mine said once, that the woman that had brought
up six boys deserved a seat among the martyrs and thai
is rather my opinion."
" Wai', Polly, if you git up there, I hope you '11 keep
*eat for me."
THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND. 101
- Cap'n Kittridge, what levity ! " said his wife.
a I did n't begin it, anyhow," said the Captain.
Miss Emily interposed, and led the conversation back to
the subject.
" What a pity it is," she said, " that this poor child's
family can never know anything about him. There may
be those who would give all the world to know what haa
become of him ; and when he comes to grow up, how sad
he will feel to have no father and mother ! "
" Sister," said Mr. Sewell, " you cannot think that a child
brought up by Captain Fennel and his wife would ever feel
as without father and mother."
" Why, no, brother, to be sure not. There 's no doubt ho
will have everything done for him that a child could. But
then it's a loss to lose one's real home."
" It may be a gracious deliverance," said Mr. Sewell
" who knows ? We may as well take a cheerful view, and
think that some kind wave has drifted the child away from
an unfortunate destiny to a family where we are quite sure
he will be brought up industriously and soberly, and in the
fear of God."
" Well, I never thought of that," said Miss Roxy.
Miss Emily, looking at her brother, saw that he was
speaking with a suppressed vehemence, as if some inner
fountain of recollection at the moment were disturbed. But
Miss Emily knew no more of the deeper parts of her
iTother's nature than a little bird that dips its beak into the
sunny waters of some spring knows of its depths of cold-
uess and shadow.
" Mis' Fennel was a-saym' to me," said Mrs. Kittridge,
* that I should ask you what was to be done about the
bracelet they found. We don't knrw whether 'tis real gold
102 THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND.
Mid precious stones, or only glass and pinchbeck. Cap'n
Kittridge he thinks it's real; and if 'tis, why then the ques-
tion is, whether or no to try to sell it, or to keep it for the
boy agin he grows up. It may help find out who and what
he is."
" And why should he want to find out ? " said Mr. Sewell
"^Why should he not grow up and think himself the son of
Captain and Mrs. Fennel ? What better lot could a boy oe
born to?"
"That may be, brother, but it can't be kept from him
Everybody knows how he was found, and you may be sure
every bird of the air will tell him, and he '11 grow up restless
and wanting to know. Mis' Kittridge, have you got the
bracelet handy?"
The fact was, little Miss Emily was just dying with curi-
osity to set her dancing black eyes upon it.
" Here it is," said Mrs. Kittridge, taking it from a
drawer.
It was a bracelet of hair, of some curious foreign work-
manship. A green enamelled serpent, studded thickly with
emeralds and with eyes of ruby, was curled around the
clasp. A crystal plate covered a wide flat braid of hair, on
which the letters " D. M." were curiously embroidered in a
cipher of seed pearls. The whole was in style and work-
manship quite different from any jewelry which ordinarily
meets one's eye.
But what was remarkabb #as the expression in Mr
Sewell's face when this bracelet was put into his hand
Miss Emily had risen from table and brought it to him,
eaning over him as she did so, and he turned his head a
little to hold it in the light from the window, so that only
she remarked the sudden expression of blank surprise and
THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND. 10S
startled recognition which fell upon it. He seemed like a
man who chokes down an exclamation ; and rising hastily,
he took the bracelet to the window, and standing with his
back to the company, seemed to examine it with the minut-
est interest. After a few moments he turned and said, in ft
\ ery composed tone, as if the subject were of no particular
interest,
" It is a singular article, so far as workmanship is con-
cerned. The value of the gems in themselves is not great
enough to make it worth while to sell it. It will be worth
more as a curiosity than anything else. It will doubtless be
an interesting relic to keep for the boy when he grows up."
"Well, Mr. Sewell, you keep it," said Mrs. Kittridge;
<; the Fennels told me to give it into your care."
" I shall commit it to Emily here ; women have a native
sympathy with anything in the jewelry line. She '11 be
sure to lay it up so securely that she won't even know
where it is herself."
Brother ! "
" Come, Emily," said Mr. Sewell, " your hens will all go
L> roost on the wrong perch if you are not at home to see
to them ; so, if the Captain will set us across to Harpswell,
I think we may as well be going."
u Why, what 's your hurry ? " said Mrs. Kittridge.
" Well," said Mr. Sewell, " firstly, there 's the hens ; sec-
ondly, the pigs ; and lastly, the cow. Besides I should n't
wonder if some of Emily's admirers should call on her this
evening, never any saying when Captain Broad may
Dome in"
u Now, brother, you are too bad," said Miss Emily, as she
austled about her bonnet and shawl. " Now, that 's all made
vjp out of whole cloth. Captain Broad called last week
104 THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND.
a Monday, to talk to you about the pews, and hardly spoke
a word to me. You ought n't to say such things, 'cause it
raises reports."
" Ah, well, then, I won't again," said her brother. " I
believe, after all, it was Captain Badger that called twice.'
Brother ! "
** And left you a basket of apples the second time."
u Brother, you know he only called to get some of my
hoarhound for Mehitable's cough."
" Oh, yes, I remember."
" If you don't take care," said Miss Emily, I '11 tell
where you call."
" Come, Miss Emily, you must not mind him," said Miss
Roxy ; " we all know his ways."
And now took place the grand leave-taking, which con-
sisted first of the three women's standing in a knot and all
talking at once, as if their very lives depended upon saying
everything they could possibly think of before they separat-
ed, while Mr. Sewell and Captain Kittridge stood patiently
waiting with the resigned air which the male sex commonly
assume on such occasions ; and when, after two or three
" Come, Emily's," the group broke up only to form again on
the door-step, where they were at it harder than ever, and
a third occasion of the same sort took place at the bottom
ef the steps, Mr. Sewell was at last obliged by main force
to drag his sister away in the middle of a sentence.
Miss Emily watched her brother shrewdly all the way
home, but all traces of any uncommon feeling had passed
away, and yet, with the restlessness of female curiosity
the felt quita sure that she had laid hold of the end of
Bomo skein of mystery, could she only find rkill enougk
U> unwind it.
THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND. 105
She took up the bracelet, and held it in the fading even
mg light, and broke into various observations with regard
to the singularity of the workmanship.
Her brother seemed entirely absorbed in talking with
Captain Kittridge about the brig Anna Maria, which was
going to be launched from Fennel's wharf next Wednes-
day.
But she, therefore, internally resolved to lie in wait for
the secret in that confidential hour which usually preceded
going to bed.
Therefore, as soon as she had arrived at their qniet dwell-
ing, she put in operation the most seducing little fire that
ever crackled and snapped in a chimney, well knowing that
nothing was more calculated to throw light into any hidden
or concealed chamber of the soul than that enlivening blaze
which danced so merrily on her well-polished andirons, and
made the old chintz sofa and the time-worn furniture so rich
in remembrances of family comfort.
She then proceeded to divest her brother of his wig and
his dress-coat, and to induct him into the flowing ease of a
study-gown, crowning his well-shaven head with a black cap,
and placing his slippers before the corner of a sofa nearest
the fire. She observed him with satisfaction sliding into his
iteat, and then she trotted to a closet with a glass-door in the
corner of the room, and took down an old, quaintly-shaped
silver cup, which had been an heirloom in their family, and
was the only piece of plate which their modern domestic
esfablishment could boast; and with this, down cellar she
tripped, her little heels tapping lightly on each stair, and the
hum of a song coming back after her as she sought the
cider barrel. Up again she came, and set the silver cup,
with its clear amber contents, down by the fire, and
6*
106 THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND.
busied herself in making just the crispest, nicest square of
toast to be eaten with it, for Miss Emily had conceived
the idea that some little ceremony of this sort was absolutely
necessary to do away all possible ill effects from a day's la-
bor, and secure an uninterrupted night's repose.
Having done all this, she took her knitting-work, and
stationed herself just opposite to her brother.
It was fortunate for Miss Emily that the era of dailj
journals had not yet arisen upon the earth, because if it had
after all her care and pains, her brother would probably
have taken up the evening paper, and holding it between
his face and her, have read an hour or so in silence ; but
Mr. Sewell had not this resort. He knew perfectly well
that he had excited his sister's curiosity on a subject where
he could not gratify it, and therefore he took refuge in a
kind of mild, abstracted air of quietude which bid defiance
to all her little suggestions.
After in vain trying every indirect form, Miss Emily ap-
proached the subject more pointedly.
" I thought that you looked very much interested in that
poor woman to-day."
" She had an interesting face," said her brother, dryly.
" Was it like anybody that you ever saw ? " said Miss
Emily.
Her brother did not seem to hear her, but, taking the
tongs, picked up the two ends of a stick that had just fallen
apart, and arranged them so as to make a new blaze.
Miss Emily was obliged to repeat her question, whereat
he started as one awakened out of a dream, and said,
" Why, yes, he did n't know but she did ; there were a
good many women with black eyes and black hair, Mrs
Kittridge, for instance."
THE PKAKL OF ORE'S 1SLAKD. 107
** Why, I don't think that she looked like Mrs. TCittridgfc
ji the least," said Miss Emily, warmly.
" Oh, well ! I did n't say she did," said her brother, look-
ing drowsily at his watch ; " why, Emily, it 's getting rather
late."
" "What made you look so when I showed you that bra(t>
let?" said Miss Emily, determined now to push the war :o
the heart of the enemy's country.
" Look how ? " said her brother, leisurely moistening a
bit of toast in his cider.
" Why, I never saw anybody look more wild and aston-
ished than you did for a minute or two."
" I did, did I ? " said her brother, in the same indifferent
tone. " My dear child, what an active imagination you
have. Did you ever look through a prism, Emily ? "
" Why, no, Theonhilus ; what do you mean ? "
" Well, if you should, you would see everybody and
everything with a nice little bordering of rainbow around
them ; now the rainbow is n't on the things, but in the
prism."
" Well, what 's that to the purpose ? " said Miss Emily,
rather bewildered.
" Why, just this : you women are so nervous and excita-
ble, that you are very apt to see your friends and the world
in general with some coloring just as unreal. I am sorry
for you, childie, but really I can't help you to get up a ro-
mance out of this bracelet. Well, good- night, Emily, take
pood care of yourself and go to bed ; " and Mr. Sewell went
to his room, leaving poor Miss Emily almost persuaded out
ni the sight of her own eyes.
108 THE FE4BL OF ORE'S
CHAPTER XL
THE little boy who had been added to the family of
Zephaniah Fennel and his wife soon became a source of
grave solicitude to that mild and long-suffering woman.
For, as the reader may have seen, he was a resolute, self-
willed little elf, and whatever his former life may have been,
it was quite evident that these traits had been developed
without any restraint.
Mrs. Fennel, whose whole domestic experience had con-
sisted in rearing one very sensitive and timid daughter, who
needed for her development only an extreme of tenderness,
and whose conscientiousness was a law unto herself, stood
utterly confounded before the turbulent little spirit to which
her loving-kindness had opened so ready an asylum, and she
soon discovered that it is one thing to take a human being to
bring up, and another to know what to do with it after it is
taken.
The child had the instinctive awe of Zephaniah which his
manly nature and habits of command were fitted to inspire,
BO that morning and evening, when he was at home, he was
demure enough ; but while the goocP man was away all day,
and sometimes on fishing excursions which cften lasted a
week, there was a chronic state of domestic warfare i
succession of skirmishes, pitched battles, long treaties, with
divers articles of capitulation, ending, as treaties are ap f , to
1o, in open rupture on the first convenient opportunity.
THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND. 109
M rs. VLMV! sometimes reflected with herself mournfully,
imd with vto.iy self-disparaging sighs, what was the reason
that young master somehow contrived to keep her far more
in awe of h:'ra than be was of her. Was she not evidently,
as yet at least, bigger and stronger than he, able to hold his
rebellious little hands, to lift and carry him, and to shut him
up, if so she willed, in a dark closet, and even to administer
to him that discipline of the birch which Mrs. Kittridge
often and forcibly recommended as the great secret of her
family prosperity ? Was it not her duty, as everybody told
her, to break his will while he was young ? a duty which
hung like a millstone round the peaceable creature's neck,
and weighed her down with a distressing sense of respon-
sibility.
Now, Mrs. Pennel was one of the people to whom self-
sacrifice is constitutionally so much a nature, that self-denial
for her must have consisted in standing up for her own
rights, or having her own way when it crossed the will
and pleasure of any one around her. All she wanted of
a child, or in fact of any human creature, was something to
love and serve. We leave it entirely to theologians to rec-
oncile such facts with the theory of total depravity ; but it
it a fact that there are a considerable number of women of
this class. Their life would flow en very naturally if it
might consist only in giving, never in withholding only in
praise, never in blame only in acquiescence, never in con-
flict and the chief comfort of such .women in religion \\
that it gives them at last an object for love without criticism,
and for whom the utmost degree of self-abandonment is not
idolatry but worship.
Mrs. Pennel would gladly have placed herself and all she
possessed at the disposition of the children ; they might have
110 THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND.
broken her china, dug in the garden with her silver spoony
made turf alleys in her best room, drummed on her ma-
hogany tea-table, filled her muslin drawer with their choicest
shells and sea- weed ; only Mrs. Fennel knew that such kind-
ness was no kindness, and that in the dreadful word respon-
sibility, familiar to every New England mother's ear, thera
lay an awful summons to deny and to conflict where she
could so much easier have conceded.
She saw that the tyrant little will would reign without
mercy, if it reigned at all, and ever present with her was the
uneasy sense that it was her duty to bring this erratic little
comet within the laws of a well-ordered solar system, a
task to which she felt about as competent as to make a new
ring for Saturn. Then, too, there was a secret feeling, if
the truth must be told, of what Mrs. Kittridge would think
about it ; for duty is never more formidable than when she
gets on the cap and gown of a neighbor ; and Mrs. Kit-
tridge, with her resolute voice and declamatory family gov-
ernment, had always been a secret source of uneasiness to
^oor Mrs. Fennel, who was one of those sensitive souls who
lan feel for a mile or more the sphere of a stronger neigh-
bor. During all the years that they had lived side by side,
there had been this shadowy, unconfessed feeling on the part
if poor Mrs. Fennel, that Mrs. Kittridge thought her de-
ficient in her favorite virtue of " resolution," as, in fact, in
her inmost soul she knew she was; but who wants to have
one's weak places looked into by the sharp eyes of a neigh-
bor who is strong precisely where we are weak ? The
trouble that one neighbor may give to another, simply by
living within a mile of one, is incredible ; but until this new
accession to her family, Mrs. Fennel had always been able
to comfort herself with the idea that the child under he?
THE PEARL OF OKR'S ISLAND. Ill
particular training was as well-behaved as any of those of
her more demonstrative friend. But now, all this consola-
tion had been put to flight ; she could not meet Mrs. Kit-
tridge without most humiliating recollections.
On Sundays, when those sharp black eyes gleamed upon
her through the rails of the neighboring pew, her very soul
shrank within her, as she recollected all the compromise*
and defeats of the week before. It seemed to her that Mrs.
Kittridge saw it all, how she had ingloriously bought
peace with gingerbread, instead of maintaining it by right-
ful authority, how young master had sat up till nine
o'clock on divers occasions, and even kept little Mara up
for his lordly pleasure.
How she trembled at every movement of the child in the
pew, dreading some patent and open impropriety which
should bring scandal on her government ! This was the
more to be feared, as the first effort to initiate the youthful
neophyte in the decorums of the sanctuary had proved any-
thing but a success, insomuch that Zephaniah Fennel had
been obliged to carry him out from the church ; therefore,
poor Mrs. Pennel was thankful every Sunday when she
got her little charge home without any distinct scandal and
breach of the peace.
But, after all, he was such a handsome and engaging little
wretch, attracting all eyes wherever he went, and so full of
saucy drolleries, that it seemed to Mrs. Pennel that every-
thing and everybody conspired to help her spoil him.
There are two classes of human beings in this world : one
rlass seem made to give love, and the other to take it. Now
Mrs. Pennel and Mara belonged to the first class, and little
Master Moses to the latter.
It was, perhaps, of service to the little girl to give to her
112 THE PEARL OF ORE'S ISLAND.
delicate, shrinking, highly nervous organization the constant
support of a companion so courageous, so richly blooded,
and highly vitalized as the boy seemed to be. There was a
fervid, tropical richness in his air that gave one a sense of
warmth in looking at him, and made his Oriental name
seem in good-keeping. He seemed an exotic that might
have waked up under fervid Egyptian suns, and been found
cradled among the lotus blossoms of old Nile, and the fair
golden-haired girl seemed to be gladdened by his compan-
ionship, as if he supplied an element of vital warmth to her
being. She seemed to incline toward him as naturally as a
needle to a magnet.
The child's quickness of ear and the facility with whicl he
picked up English were marvellous to observe. Evidently,
he had been somewhat accustomed to the sound of it before,
for there dropped out of his vocabulary, after he began to
speak, phrases which would seem to betoken a longer
familiarity with its idioms than could be equally accounted
for by his present experience. Though the English evi-
dently was not his native language, there had yet appar-
ently been some effort to teach it to him although the
terror and confusion of the shipwreck seemed at first to
have washed every former impression from his mind.
But whenever any attempt was made to draw him to
Bpeak of the past, of his mother, or of where he came from,
his brow lowered gloomily, and he assumed that kind of
moody, impenetrable gravity, which children at times will
BO strangely put on, and which baffle all attempts to look
within them. Zephaniah Pennel used to call it putting up
Us dead-lights.
Perhaps it was the dreadful association of agony and ter
ror connected with the shipwreck, that thus confused and
THE PEARL OF ORE'S ISLAND. 113
darkened the mirror of his mind the moment it was turned
backward ; but it was thought wisest by his new friends to
avoid that class of subjects altogether indeed, it was their
wish that he might forget the past entirely, and remember
them as his only parents.
Miss Roxy and Miss Ruey came duly as appointed to in-
itiate the young pilgrim into the habil'rnents of a Yankee
boy, endeavoring, at the same time, to Irop into his mind
such seeds of moral wisdom as might make the internal
economy in time correspond to the exterior.
But Miss Roxy declared that "of all the children that
ever she see, he beat all for finding out new mischief, the
moment you 'd make him understand he must n't do one
thing, he was right at another."
One of his exploits, however, had very nearly been the
means of cutting short the materials of our story in the
outset.
It was a warm, sunny afternoon, and the three women,
being busy together with their stitching, had tied a sun-
bonnet on little Mara, and turned the two loose upon the
beach to pick up shells.
All was serene, and quiet, and retired, and no possible
danger could be apprehended. So up and down they
trotted, till the spirit of adventure which ever burned in
the breast of little Moses caught sight of a small canoe
which had been moored just under the shadow of a cedar-
covered rock.
Forthwith he persuaded his little neighbor to go into it,
and for a while they made themselves very gay, rocking it
from side to side.
The tide was going out, and each retreating wave washed
the boat up and down, till it came into the boy's curly head
114 THE PEARL OF ORE'S ISLAND.
how beautiful it would be to sail out as he had seen men do>
and so, with much puffing and earnest tugging of his little
brown hands, the boat a. x ast was loosed from her moorings
and pushed out on the tide, when both children laughed
gayly to find themselves swinging and balancing on the
amber surface, and watching the rings and sparkles of sun-
shine and the white pebbles below. Little Moses wa*
glorious, his adventures had begun, and with a fairy-
princess in his boat, he was going to stretch away to some
of the islands of dream-land. He persuaded Mara to give
him her pink sun-bonnet, which he placed for a pennon on a
stick at the end of the boat, while he made a vehement
dashing with another, first on one side of the boat and then
on the other, spattering the water in diamond showers, to
the infinite amusement of the little maiden.
Meanwhile the tide waves danced them out and still out-
ward, and as they went farther and farther from shore, the
more glorious felt the boy. He had got Mara all to himself,
and was going away with her from all grown people, who
would n't let children do as they pleased, who made them
sit still in prayer-time, and took them to meeting, and kept
so many things which they must not touch, or open, or play
with. Two white sea-gulls came flying toward the children,
and they stretched their little arms in welcome, nothing
doubting but these fair creatures were coming at once to
take passage with them for fairy-land. But the birds only
dived and shifted and veered, turning their silvery sides
toward the sun, and careering in circles round the children.
A brisk little breeze, that came hurrying down from the
land, seemed disposed to favor their unsubstantial enterprise,
for your winds, being a fanciful, uncertain tribe of people,
we always for falling in with any th jig that is contrary U
THE PEARL OF ORE'S ISLAND. 115
fommon sense. So the wind trolled them merrily along,
nothing doubting that there might be time, if they hurried,
to land their boat on the shore of some of the low-banked
red clouds that lay in the sunset, where they could pick up
shells, blue and pink and purple, enough to make
them rich for life. The children were all excitement nt the
rapidity with which their little bark danced and rocked, as
it floated outward to the broad, open ocean, at the blue,
freshening waves, at the silver-glancing gulls, at the floating,
white-winged ships, and at vague expectations of going
rapidly somewhere, to something more beautiful still. And
what is the happiness of the brightest hours of grown people
more than this ?
" Roxy," said Aunt Ruey innocently, " seems to me I
have n't heard nothin' o' them children lately. They 're so
still, I 'm 'fraid there 's some mischief."
"Well, Ruey, you jist go and give a look at *em," said
Miss Roxy. " I declare, that boy ! I never know what he
will do next ; but there did n't seem to be nothin' to get into
out there but the sea, and the beach is so shelving, a body
can't well fall into that."
Alas ! good Miss Roxy, the children are at this moment
tilting up and down on the waves, half a mile out to sea, as
airily happy as the sea-gulls ;. and little Moses now thinks,
with glorious scorn, of you and your press-board, as of grim
shadows of restraint and bondage that shall never darken
his free life more.
Both Miss Roxy and Mrs. Fennel were, however, startled
into a paroxysm of alarm when poor Miss Ruey came
screaming, as she entered the door,
" As sure as you Y alive, them chil'en are off in the boat,
they Y out to sea, sure as I m alive ! What shall we
lo? The boat '11 upset, and the shark? '11 get 'em."
116 THE PEARL OF ORE'S ISLAND.
Miss Roxy ran to the window, and saw dancing and
courtesying on the blue waves the little pinnace, with its
fanciful pink pennon fluttered gayly by the indiscreet and
flattering wind.
Poor Mrs. Fennel ran to the shore, and stretched her
arms wildly, as if she would have followed them across the
treacherous blue floor that heaved and sparkled between
them.
"Oh, Mara, Mara! oh, my poor little girl! oh, pool
children ! "
" Well, if ever I see such a young un as that," soliloquized
Miss Roxy from the chamber-window; "there they be,
dancin' and giggitin' about ; they '11 have the boat upset
in a minit, and the sharks are waitin' for 'era, no doubt. 1
b'lieve that ar young un 's helped by the Evil One, not a
boat round, else I 'd push off after 'em. Well, I don't see
but we must trust in the Lord, there don't seem to be
much else to trust to," said the spinster, as she drew her
head in grimly.
To say the truth, there was some reason for the terror of
these most fearful suggestions ; for not far from the place
where the children embarked was Zephaniah's fish-drying
ground, and multitudes of sharks came up with every rising
tide, allured by the offal that was here constantly thrown
into the sea. Two of these prowlers, outward-bound from
their quest, were even now assiduously attending the little
boat, and the children derived no small amusement frona
watching their motions in the pellucid water, the boy oc-
casionally almost upsetting the boat by valorous plunges at
them with his stick. It was the most exhilarating and
piquant entertainment he had found for many a day ; and
Uttle Mara laughed in chorus at every lunge that he mada
THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND. 117
What would have been the end of it all it is difficult to
lay, had not some mortal power interfered before they had
sailed finally away into the sunset.
But it so happened on this very afternoon, Rev. Mr.
Sewell was out in a boat, busy in the very apostolic em
ployment of catching fish, and looking up from one of tho
contemplative pauses which his occupation induced, ho
rnbbed his eyes at the apparition which presented itself.
A tiny little shell of a boat came drifting toward him, in
\vhich was a black-eyed boy, with cheeks like a pomegran-
ate, and lustrous tendrils of silky dark hair, and a little
golden-haired girl, white as a water-lily, and looking ethereal
enough to have risen out of the sea-foam. Both were in the
very sparkle and effervescence of that fanciful glee which
bubbles up from the golden, untried fountains of ftarly child-
hood.
Mr. Sewell, at a glance, comprehended the whole, and at
once overhauling the tiny craft, he broke the spell of fairy-
land, and constrained the little people to return to the con-
fines, dull and dreary, of real and actual life.
Neither of then} had known a doubt or a fear in that joy-
ous trance of forbidden pleasure, which shadowed with so
many fears the wiser and more far-seeing heads and hearts
of the grown people ; nor was there enough language yet in
common between the two classes to make the little ones
comprehend the risk they had run.
Perhaps so do our elder brothers, in our Father's house,
look anxiously out when we are sailing gayly over life's sea,
over unknown depths, amid threatening monsters,
but want words to tell us why what seems so bright is so
dangerous.
Duty herself could not have worn a more rigid aspect
118 THE PEARL OF ORE'S ISLAND.
than Miss Roxy, as she stood on the beach, press-board in
hand ; for she had forgotten to lay it down in the eagerness
of her anxiety. She essayed to lay hold of the little hand
of Moses to pull him from the boat, but he drew back, and,,
looking at her with a world of defiance in his great eyes,
jumped magnanimously upon the beach.
The spirit of Sir Francis Drake and of Christopher Colum-
bus was swelling in his little body, and was he to be brought
unier by a dry-visaged woman with a press-board ?
In fact, nothing is more ludicrous about the escapades of
c lildren than the utter insensibility they feel to the dangers
they have run, and the light esteem in which they hold the
deep tragedy they create.
That night, when Zephaniah, in his evening exercise,
poured forth most fervent thanksgivings for the deliver-
ance, while Mrs. Pennel was sobbing in her handkerchief,
Miss Roxy was much scandalized by seeing the young cause
of all the disturbance sitting upon his heels, regarding the
emotion of the kneeling party with his wide bright eyes,
without a wink of compunction.
" Well, for her part," she said, " she hped Cap'n Pennel
would be blessed in takin' that ar boy ; but she was sure shft
did n't see much that looked like it now."
*******
The Rev. Mr. Sewell fished no more that day, for the
draught from fairy-land with which he had filled his boat
brought up many thoughts into his mind, which he pondered
anxiously.
" Strange ways of God," he thought, " that should send to
ray door this child, and should wash upon the beach the only
sign by which he could be identified. To what end or pur
pose ? Hath the Lord a will in this matter, and what is it ?
THE PEARL OF GRITS ISLAND. 119
So ho thought as he slowly rowed homeward, and so did
ais thoughts work upon him that half way across the bay to
Harpf.well he slackened his oar without knowing it, and the
hoat lay drifting on the purple and gold tinted mirror, like a
speck between two eternities. Under such circumstances,
even heads that have worn the clerical wig for years at
times get a little dizzy and dreamy. Perhaps it was because
of the impression made upon him by the sudden apparition
of those great dark eyes and sable curls, that he now thought
of the boy that he had found floating that afternoon, looking
as if some tropical flower had been washed landward by a
monsoon ; and as the boat rocked and tilted, and the minister
gazed dreamily downward into the wavering rings of purple,
orange, and gold which spread out and out from it, gradually
it seemed to him that a face much like the child's formed
itself in the waters; but it was the face of a girl, young
and radiantly beautiful, yet with those same eyes and curls,
he saw her distinctly, with her thousand rings of silky
hair, bound with strings of pearls and clasped with stiange
gems, and she raised one arm imploringly to him, and on the
-vrist he saw the bracelet embroidered with seed pearls, and
the letters D. M. " Ah, Dolores," he said, " well wert thou
called so. Poor Dolores ! I cannot help thee."
" What am I dreaming of? " said the Rev. Mr. Sewell.
" It is my Thursday evening lecture on Justification, and
Emily has got tea ready, and here I am catching cold out on
Ilic bay."
120 THE IARL OF ORR'S ISLAND
CHAPTER XII.
MR. SEWELL, as the reader may perhaps have inferred,
was of a nature profoundly secretive.
It was in most things quite as pleasant for him to keep
matters to himself, as it was to Miss Emily to tell them to
somebody else.
She resembled more than anything one of those trotting,
chattering little brooks that enliven the " back lot " of many
a New England home, while he was like one of those wells
you shall sometimes see by a deserted homestead, so long
unused that ferns and lichens feather every stone down to
the dark, cool water.
Dear to him was the stillness and coolness of inner
thoughts with which no stranger intermeddles ; dear to him
every pendent fern-leaf of memory, every dripping moss of
old recollection ; and though the waters of his soul came up
healthy and refreshing enough when one really must have
them, yet one had to go armed with bucket and line and
draw them up, they never flowed.
One of his favorite maxims was, that the only way to
keep a secret was never to let any one suspect that you
have one. And as he had one now, he had, as you hav
seer:, done his best to baffle and put to sleep the feminine
curiosity of his sister.
He rather wanted to tell her, too, for he was a good-na-
tured brother, and would have liked to have given her th
THE PEARL OF GRK S ISLAND. 121
amount of pleasure the confidence would have produced ; but
then he reflected with dismay on the number of women in
his parish with whom Miss Emily was on tea-drinking terms,
he thought of the wondrous solvent powers of that bev-
erage in whose amber depths so many resolutions, yea, and
solemn vows, of utter silence have been dissolved like Cleo-
patra's pearls.
lie knew tfiat an infusion of his secret would steam up
from every cup of tea Emily should drink for six months to
come, till gradually every particle would be dissolved and
float in the air of common fame. No ; it would not do.
You would have thought, however, that something was the
matter with Mr. Sewell, had you seen him after he retired
for the night after he had so very indifferently dismissed the
subject of Miss Emily's inquiries. For instead of retiring
quietly to bed, as had been his habit for years at that hour,
ne locked his door, and then unlocked a desk of private
papers, and emptied certain pigeon-holes of their contents,
and for an hour or two sat unfolding and looking over old
letters and papers, and when all this was done, he pushed
them from him and sat for a long time buried in thoughts
which went down very, very deep into that dark and mossy
Well of which we have spoken.
Then he took a pen and wrote a letter, and addressed it
tc a direction for which he had searched through many piles
of paper, and having done so, seemed to ponder, uncertainly,
whether lo send it or not. The Harpswell post-office ww
kept in Mr. Silas Perm's store, and the letters were every
one (if them carefully and curiously investigated by all the
gossips of the village, and as this was addressed to St. Augus-
tine in Florida, he foresaw that tefore Sunday the newa
ivculd be in every mouth in th" parish that the ministei
ft
122 THE PEARL OF GRITS ISLAND.
bad \* ritten to so und so in Florida, " and what do you s'posc
it 's about ? "
" No, no," he said to himself, " that will never do ; but at
all events there is no hurry," and he put back the papers in
order, put the letter with them, and locking his desk, looked
at his watch and found it to be two o'clock, and so he went
to bed to think the matter over.
Now, there may be some reader so simple as to feel a por
tion of Miss Emily's curiosity. But, my friend, restrain it,
for Mr. Sewell will certainly, as we foresee, become less
rather than more communicative on this subject, as he
thinks upon it.
Nevertheless, whatever it be that he knows or suspects, it
is something which leads him to contemplate with more than
usual interest this little mortal waif that has so strangely
come ashore in . his parish.
He mentally resolves to study the child as minutely as
possible, without betraying that he has any particular reason
for being interested in him.
Therefore, in the latter part of this mild November after-
noon, which he has devoted to pastoral visiting, about two
months after the funeral, he steps into his little sail-boat, and
stretches away for the shores of Orr's Island. He knows
the sun will be down before he reaches there ; but he sees
in the opposite horizon, the spectral, shadowy moon, only
waiting for daylight to be gone to come out, calm and ra-
diant, like a saintly friend neglected in the flush of pros-
perity, whc waits patiently to enliven our hours of darkness.
As his boat-keel grazed the sands on the other side, a
uhout of laughter came upon his ear from behind a cedar-
covered rock, and soon emerged Captain Kittridge, as long
find lean and brown as the Ancient Mariner, carrying little
THE PEARL OF OKR'S ISLAND. 123
on one shoulder, while Sally and little Moses Fennel
trotted on before.
It was difficult to say who in this whole group was in the
highest spirits. The fact was that Mrs. Kittridge had gone
to a tea-drinking over at Maquoit, and left the Captain as
house-keeper and general overseer ; and little Mara and
Moses and Sally had been gloriously keeping holiday with
him down by the boat-cove, where, to say the truth, few
shavings were made, except those necessary to adorn the
children's heads with flowing suits of curls of a most ex-
traordinary effect. The aprons of all of them were full of
these most unsubstantial specimens of woody treasure, which
hung out in long festoons, looking of a yellow transparency
in the evening light. But the delight of the children in
their acquisitions was only equalled by that of grown-up
people in possessions equally fanciful in value.
The mirth of the little party, however, came to a sudden
pause as they met the minister. Mara clung tight to the
Captain's neck, and looked out slyly under her curls. But
the little Moses made a step forward, and fixed his bold, dark,
inquisitive eyes upon him. The fact was, that the minister
had been impressed upon the boy, in his few visits to the
" meeting," as such a grand and mysterious reason for good
behavior, that he seemed resolved to embrace the first oppor-
tunity to study him close at hand.
" Well, my little man," said Mr. Sewell, with an affability
which he could readily assume with children, " you seem to
like to look at me."
"I do like to look at you," said the boy gravely, continu*
ing to fix his great black eyes upon him.
" I see you do, my little fellow."
" Are you the Lord? " said the child, solemnly.
124 THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND
" Am I what ? "
The Lord," said the boy.
" No, indeed, ray lad," said Mr. Sewcll, smiling. " Why
what put tha* into your little head?"
" I thought you were," said the boy, still continuing t<
study the pastor with attention. " Miss Roxy said so."
" It 's curious what notions chiPen will get in their heads,*
paid Captain Kittridge. " They put this and that together
and think it over, and come out with such queer things."
" But/' said the minister, " I have brought something for
you all ; " saying which he drew from his pocket three little
bright-cheeked apples, and gave one to each child ; and then
taking the hand of the little Moses in his own, he walked
with Him toward the house-door.
Mrs. Fennel was sitting in her clean kitchen, busily spin-
ning at the little wheel, and rose flushed with pleasure at
the honor that was done her.
" Pray, walk in, Mr. Sewell," she said, rising, and leading
the way toward the penetralia of the best room.
" Now, Mrs. Fennel, I am come here for a good sit-down
by your kitchen-fire this evening," said Mr. Sewell. " Em-
ily has gone out to sit with old Mrs. Broad, who is laid up
with the rheumatism, and so 1 am turned loose to pick up
my living on the parish, and you must give me a seat for a
while in your kitchen corner. Best rooms are always cold."
"The minister's right," said Captain Kittridge. "When
rcoms n'n't much set in, folks never feel so kind o' natural
in 'em. So you jist let me put on a good back-log and fore-
stick, and build up a fire to tell stories by this evening. My
wife's gone out to tea, too," he said, with an elastic skip.
And in a few moments the Captain had produced in the
great cavernous chimney a foundation for a fire that prom
THE PEARL OF ORE'S ISLAND. 125
ised breadth, solidity, and continuance. A great back-log,
embroidered here and there with tufts of green or grayish
moss, was first flung into the capacious arms of the fire-
place, and a smaller log placed above it.
" Now, all you young uns go out and bring in chips," said
the Captain. " There 's capital ones out to the wood-pile."
Mr. Sewell was pleased to see the flash that came from
the eyes of little Moses at this order how energetically
he ran before the others, and came with glowing cheeks and
distended arms, throwing down great white chips with their
green mossy bark, scattering tufts on the floor.
" Good," said he -softly to himself, as he leaned on the top
of his gold-headed cane ; " there's *nergy, ambition, mus-
cle ; " and he nodded his head once or twice to some internal
decision.
" There ! " said the Captain, rising out of a perfect whirl-
wind of chips and pine kindlings with which in his zeal he
had bestrown the wide, black stone hearth, and pointing to
the tongues of flame that were leaping and blazing up
through the crevices of the dry pine wood which he had in-
termingled plentifully with the more substantial fuel,
" there, Mis' Fennel, a'n't I a master-hand at a fire ? But
T'm really sorry I've dirtied your floor," he said, as he
urushed down his pantaloons, which were covered with bits
of grizzly moss, and looked on the surrounding desolations ;
'give me a broom, I can sweep up now as well as any
woman."
" Oh, never mind," said Mrs. Fennel, laughing, " I '11
sweep up."
" Well, now, Mis' Fennel, you 'r3 one of the women that
Jon't get put out easy ; a'n't ye ? " said the Captain, still
contemplating his fire with a proud and watchful eye.
126 THE PEARL OF ORR'S TSLAKD.
"Law me!" he exclaimed, glancing through the window,
f * there 's the Cap'n a-comin'. I 'm jist goin' to give a look at
ivhat he 's brought in. Come, chil'en," and the Captain dis-
appeared with all three of the children at his heels, to go
down to examine the treasures of the fishing-smack.
Mr. Sewell seated himself coseyly in the chimney corner
and sank into a state of half-dreamy revery ; his eyes fixed
on the fairest sight one can see of a frosty autumn twilight
a crackling wood-fire.
Mrs. Fennel moved soft-footed to and fro, arraying her
tea-table in her own finest and pure damask, and bringing
from hidden stores her best china and newest silver, her
choicest sweetmeats and cake whatever was fairest and
nicest in her house to honor her unexpected guest.
Mr. Sewell's eyes followed her occasionally about the
room, with an expression of pleased and curious satisfaction.
He was taking it all in as an artistic picture that simple,
kindly hearth, with its mossy logs, yet steaming with the
moisture of the wild woods the table so neat, so cheery,
with its many little delicacies, and refinements of appoint-
ment, and its ample varieties to tempt the appetite and
then the Captain coming in, yet fresh and hungry from hia
afternoon's toil, with the children trotting before him.
"And this is the inheritance he comes into," he mur-
mured ; " healthy wholesome cheerful secure : how
much better than hot, stifling luxury ! "
Here the minister's meditations were interrupted by the
entrance of all the children, joyful and loquacious. Little
Moseo Leld up a string of mackerel, with their gracefu;
bodies and elegantly cut fins.
" Just a specimen of the best, Mary," said Captain Pen
0*1. " I thought I 'd bring 'em for Miss Emily."
THE PEARL OF ORE'S ISLAND. 127
"Miss Emily will be a thousand times obliged to you,"
laid Mr. Sewell, rising up.
As to Mara and Sally, they were revelling in apronsful of
shells and sea-weed, which they bustled into the other room
to bestow in their spacious baby-house.
And now, after due time for Zephaniah to assume a laud
toilet, all sat down to the evening meal.
After supper was over, the Captain was besieged by the
children. Little Mara mounted first into his lap, and nestled
herself quietly under his coat Moses and Sally stood at
each knee.
" Come, now," said Moses, " you said you would tell ua
about the mermen to-night."
" Yes, and the mermaids," said Sally. " Tell them all you
told me the other night in the trundle-bed."
Sally valued herself no little on the score of the Captain's
talent as a romancer.
" You see, Moses," she said, volubly, " father saw mermen
and mermaids a plenty of them in the "West Indies."
" Oh, never mind about 'ein now," said Captain Kittridge,
looking at Mr. Sewell's corner.
"Why not, father? mother isn't here,* said Sally, inno-
cently.
A smile passed round the faces of the company, and Mr.
Sewell said, " Come, Captain, no modesty ; we all know
you have as good a faculty for telling a story as for making
A fire."
" Do tell me what mermen are ? " said Moses.
" Wai'," said the Captain, sinking his voice confidentially,
and hitching his chair a little around, " mermen and maids
la a kind o' people that have their world jist like our'u,
&nly it 's down in the bottom of the sea, 'cause the bottom
128 THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND.
of the sea has its mountains and its valleys, and its trees
and its bushes, and it stands to reason there should be peo-
ple there too."
Moses opened his broad black eyes wider than usual, and
looked absorbed attention.
" Tell 'em about how you saw 'em," said Sally.
" Wai', yes," said Captain Kittridge, " once when I WEE
to the Bahamas, it was one Sunday morning in June, the
first Sunday in the month, we cast anchor pretty nigh a
reef of coral, and I was jist a-sittin' down to read my
Bible, when up comes a merman over the side of the ship,
all dressed as fine as any old beau that ever ye see, with
cocked-hat and silk stockings, and shoe-buckles, and his
clothes were sea-green, and his shoe-buckles shone like
diamonds."
" Do you suppose they were diamonds, really ? " said
Sally.
" Wai', child, I did n't ask him, but I should n't be sur-
prised, from all I know of their ways, if they was," said the
Captain, who had now got so wholly into the spirit of his
fiction that he no longer felt embarrassed by the minister's
presence, nor saw the look of amusement with which he was
listening to him in his chimney-corner. " But, as I was
sayin', he came up to me, and made the politest bow that
ever ye see, and says he, ' Cap'n Kittridge, I presume,' and
says I, * Yes, sir.' ' I 'm sorry to interrupt your reading/
says he ; and says I 4 ' Oh, no matter, si".' 4 But,' says he,
1 if you would only be so good as to move your anchor
You've cast anchor right before my front-door, and my
wife and family can't get out to go to meetinV "
" Why, do they go to meeting in the bottom of the sea?'
Baid Moses.
THE PEARL OF ORE'S ISLAND. 129
* Law, bless you sonny, yes. Why, Sunday morning,
irhen the sea was all still, I used to hear the bass-viol a-
Boundin' down under the waters, jist as plain as could be,
and psalms and preachin'. I 've reason to think there 's
RS many hopefully pious mermaids as there be folks," said
the Captain.
" But," said Moses, " you said the anchor was before the
fr^nt-door, so the family could n't get out, how did thi
msrraan get out ? "
" Oh ! he got out of the scuttle on the roof," said th
Captain, promptly.
" And did you move your anchor ? " said Moses.
" Why, child, yes, to be sure I did ; he was such a, gen
tleman, I wanted to oblige him, it shows you how impor
tant it is always to be polite," said the Captain, by way of
giving a moral turn to his narrative.
Mr. Sewell, during the progress of this story, examine*
the Captain with eyes of amused curiosity. His counte
nance was as fixed and steady, and his whole manner of
reciting as matter-of-fact and collected, as if he were relat
ing some of the every-day affairs of his boat-building.
" Wai', Sally," said the Captain, rising, after his yarr
had proceeded for an indefinite length in this manner, " yok
and I must be goin'. I promised your ma you should ii'i
be up late, and we have a long walk home, besides it 'a
time these little folks was in bed."
The children all clung round the Captain, and could
hardly be persuaded to let him go.
When he was gone, Mrs. Fennel took the little ones to
their nest in an adjoining room.
Mr. Sewell approached his chair to that of Caplain Pen-
nel, and began talking to him in a tone of voico so low, thai
6*
130 THE PEARL OF ORE'S ISLAND.
\ve have never been able to make out exactly what he was
Raying.
Whatever it might be, however, it seemed to give rise to
an anxious consultation.
" I did not think it advisable to tell any one this but
yourself, Captain 'Fennel. It is for you to decide, in view
3f the probabilities I have told you, what you will do."
" Well," said Zephaniah, " since you leave it to me r I
lay, let us keep him. It certainly seems a marked provi-
ience that he has been thrown upon us as he has, and the
Lord seemed to prepare a way for him in our hearts. I
am well able to afford it, and Mis' Fennel, she agrees to it,
and on the whole I don't think we 'd best go back on our
Bteps ; besides, our little Mara has thrived since he came
, under our roof. He is, to be sure, kind o' masterful, and
I shall have to take him off Mis' Fennel's hands before
long, and put him into the sloop. But, after all, there seems
to be the makin' of a man in him, and when we are called
away, why he '11 be as a brother to poor little Mara. Yes,
I think it's best as 'tis."
The minister, as he flitted across the bay by moonlight,
felt relieved of a burden. His secret was locked up as
safe in the breast of Zephaniah Fennel as it could be if
hifl owe.
THE PEAKL OF ORR'S ISLAND. 1 31
CHAPTER XIIL
ZEPHAXIAH FENNEL was what might be called a Hebrew
of the Hebrews.
New England, in her earlier days, founding her institu-
tions on the Hebrew Scriptures, bred better Jews than
Moses could, because she read Moses with the amendments
of Christ.
The state of society in some of the districts of Maine, in
these days, much resembled in its spirit that which Moses
labored to produce in ruder ages. It was entirely demo-
cratic, simple, grave, hearty, and sincere, solemn and
religious in its daily tone, and yet, as to all material good,
full of wholesome thrift and prosperity. Perhaps, taking
the average mass of the people, a more healthful and desir-
able state of society never existed. Its better specimens
had a simple Doric grandeur unsurpassed in any age.
The bringing up a child in this state of society was a
far more simple enterprise than in our modern times, when
the factitious wants and aspirations are so much more de-
i eloped.
Zephaniah Pennel was as high as anybody in the land
He owned not only the neat little schooner, " Brilliant,"
with divers small fishing-boats, but also a snug farm, ad-
joining the brown house, together with some fresh, juicy
pasture-lots on neighboring islands, where he raised mutton,
nnsurpassed even by the English South-down, and wool.
132 THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND.
which furnished homespun to clothe his family on all ever/-
day occasions.
Mrs. Fennel, to be sure, had silks and satins, and flow-
ered India chintz, and even a Cashmere shawl, (he fruits of
some of her husband's earlier voyages, which were, how-
ever, carefully stowed away for occasions so high and mighty.
that they seldom saw tho light.
Not to wear lest things every day, was a maxim of
New England thrift, as little disputed as any verse of the
catechism ; and so Mrs. Fennel found the stuff gown of her
own dyeing and spinning so respectable for most purposes,
that it figured even in the meeting-house itself, except on
the very finest of Sundays, when heaven and earth seemed
alike propitious.
A person can well afford to wear homespun stuff to meet-
ing, who is buoyed up by a secret consciousness of an abun-
dance of fine things that could be worn, if one were so
disposed, and everybody respected Mrs. Fennel's homespun
the more, because they thought of the things she did n't
wear.
As to advantages of education, the island, like all other
New England districts, had its common school, where one
got the key of knowledge, for having learned to read,
write, and cipher, the young fellow of those regions com-
monly regarded himself as in possession of all that a man
needs, to help himself to any further acquisitions he might
iesire.
The boy3 then made fishing voyages to the Banks, anil
(hose who were so disposed took their books with them. If
A boy did not wish to be bored with study, there was nobody
to force him ; but if a bright one saw visions of future suc-
cess in life lying through the avenues of knowledge, he found
THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND. 133
many a leisure hour to pore over his books, and work out
the problems of navigation directly over the element they
were meant to control.
Four years having glided by since the commencement of
our story, we find in the brown house of Zephaniah Fennel,
a tall, well-knit, handsome boy of ten years, who knows no
fear of wind or sea who can set you over from Orr's
Island to Harpswell, either in sail or row-boat, he thinks, ai
well as any man living who knows every rope of the
schooner " Brilliant," and fancies he could command it as
well as " father " himself and is supporting himself this
spring, during the tamer drudgeries of driving plough, and
dropping potatoes, with the glorious vision of being taken
this year on the annual trip to " the Banks," which comes
on after planting. He reads fluently, witness the " Robin-
son Crusoe," which never departs from under his pillow, and
Goldsmith's " History of Greece and Rome," which good
Mr. Sewell has lent him, and he often brings shrewd criti-
cisms on the character and course of Romulus or Alexander
into the common current of every-day life, in a way that
brings a smile over the grave face of Zephaniah, and makes
Mrs. Fennel think the boy certainly ought to be sent to
college.
As for Mara, she is now a child of seven, still adorned
with long golden curls still looking dreamily out of soft
hazel eyes into some unknown future not her own. She has
no dreams for herself they are all for Moses.
For his sake she has learned all the womanly little ac-
complishments which Mrs. Kittridge has dragooned into
Sally. She knits his mittens and his stockings, and hema
his pocket-handkerchiefs, and aspires to make his shirts all
herself. Whatever book Mose? read?, forthwith she aspires
134 THE PEARL OF ORR'3 I
to rend too, and though three years younger, reads with a
far more precocious insight.
Her little form is slight and frail, and her cheek has a
clear transparent brilliancy quite different from the rounded
one of the boy ; she looks not exactly in ill health, but has
that sort of transparent appearance which one fancies might
be an attribute of fairies and sylphs. All her outward senses
Arc finer and more acute than his, and finer and more deli-
cate all the attributes of her mind. Those who contend
against giving woman the same education as man, do it on
the ground that it would make the woman unfeminine as
if Nature had done her work so slightly that it could be so
easily ravelled and knit over. In fact, there is a masculine
and a feminine element in all knowledge, and a man and a
woman put to the same study extract only what their nature
fi s them to see so that knowledge can be fully orbed only
when the two unite in the search and share the spoils.
When Moses was full of Romulus and Numa, Mara pon-
dered the story of the nymph Egeria sweet parable, in
which lies all we have been saying.
Her trust in him was boundless. He was a constant hero
in her eyes, and in her he found a steadfast believer as to
all possible feats and exploits to which he felt himself com-
petent, for the boy often had privately assured her that he
could command the Brilliant as well as father himself.
Spring had already come, loosing the chains of ice in all
the bays and coves round Harpswell, Orr's Island, Maquoit,
and Middle Bay. The magnificent spruces stood forth in
their gala-dresses, tipped on every point with vivid emerald ;
the silver firs exuded from their tender shoots the fragrance
of ripe pine-apple ; the white pines shot forth long weird
fingers at the end of their fringy bough? ; and even every
THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND. 135
little mimic evergreen in the shadows at their feet was made
beautiful by the addition of a vivid border of green on the
sombre coloring of its last year's leaves. Arbutus, fragrant
with its clean, wholesome odors, gave forth its thousand
dewy pink blossoms, and the trailing Linnea borealis hung
its pendent twin bells round every mossy stump and old
r
off to the Banks long afore I was his age, and a capital time
wo had of it, too. Golly! how them fish did bite! We
THE PKARL OF OER'S ISLAND. 133
rtood up to our knees in fish before we M fished half an
hour."
Mara, who had always a shy affinity for the Captain, now
drew towards him and climbed on his knee.
" Did the wind blow very hard ? " she satf
" What, my little maid ? "
" Does the wind blow at the Banks ? "
"Why, yes, my little girl, that it does, sometimes; but
then there a'n't the least danger. Our craft ride out storms
like live creatures. I 've stood it out in gales that was tight
enough, I 'm sure. 'Member once I turned in 'tween twelve
and one, and had n't more 'n got asleep, afore I came clump
out of my berth, and found everything upside down. And
'stead of goin' up-stairs to get on deck, I had to go right
down. Fact was, that 'ere vessel jist turned clean over in
the water, and come right side up like a duck."
" Well, now, Cap'n, I iSbuld n't be tellin' such a story as
that," said his help-meet.
" Why, Polly, what do you know about it ? you never
was to sea. We did turn clear over, for I 'member I saw a
bunch of sea-weed big as a peck measure stickin' top of the
mast next day. Jist shows how safe them ar little fishing
craft is, for all they look like an egg-shell on the mighty
deep, as Parson Sewell calls it."
" I was very much pleased with Mr. Sewell's exercise in
prayer this morning," said Mrs. Kittridge; "it must hava
been a comfort to you, Mis' Pennel."
" It was, to be sure," said Mrs. Pennel.
a Puts me in mind of poor Mary Jane Simpson. Her
husband went out, you know, last June, and ha' n't been
beard of since. Mary Jane don't really know whether to
put on mourning or not."
140 THE PEARL OF ORE'S ISLAND.
" Law ! I don't think Mary Jane need give up yet," said
the Captain. " 'Member one year I was out, we got blowed
dear up to Baffin's Bay, and got shut up in the ice, and had
to go ashore and live jist as we could among them Esqui-
maux. Did n't get home for a year. Old folks had clean
giv' us up. Don't need never despair of folks gone to sea,
for they's sure to turn up, first or last.'*'
"But I hope," said Mara, apprehensively, "that grand-
papa won't get blown up to Baffin's Bay. I 've seen that
on his chart, it 's a good ways."
" And then there 's them 'ere icebergs," said Mrs. Kit-
tridge ; " I 'm always 'fraid of running into them in the fog."
"Law!" said Captain Kittridge, "I've met 'em bigger
than all the colleges up to Brunswick, great white bears
on 'em, hungry as Time in the Primer. Once we came
hersmash on to one of 'em, and if the Flying Betsy had n't
been made of whalebone and injer-rubber, she 'd a-been
stove all to pieces. Them white bears, they was so hungry,
that they stood there with the water jist runnin' out of their
chops in a perfect stream."
" Oh, dear, dear," said Mara, with wide round eyes, " what
will Moses do if they get on the icebergs ? "
" Yes," said Mrs. Kittridge, looking solemnly at the child
through the black bows of her spectacles, "we can truly
ay :
'Dangers stand thick through all the ground,
To push us to the tomb ; '
ns the hymn-book says."
The kind-hearted Captain, feeling the fluttering heart of
little Mara, and seeing the tears start in her eyes, addressed
himself forthwith to consolation.
" Oh, never you mind, Mara," he said, " there won't notb
THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND. 141
mg hurt 'em. Look at me. Why, I've been everywhere
on the face of the earth. I 've been on icebergs, and among
white bears and Indians, and seen storms that would blow
the very hair off your head, and here I am, dry and tight as
ever. You '11 see 'em back before long."
The cheerful laugh with which the Captain was wont to
chorus his sentences, sounded like the crackling of dry pine
wood on the social hearth. One would hardly hear it with-
out being lightened in heart ; and little Mara gazed at his
long, dry, ropy figure, and wrinkled thin face, as a sort of
monument of hope ; and his uproarious laugh, which Mrs.
Kiftridge sometimes ungraciously compared to "the crack-
ling of thorns under a pot," seemed to her the most delight-
ful thing in the world.
" Mary Jane was a-tellin' me," resumed Mrs. Kittridge,
" that when her husband had been out a month, she
dreamed she see him, and three other men, a-floatin' on
an iceberg."
" Laws," said Captain Kittridge, " that 's jist what my old
mother dreamed about me, and 't was true enough, too, till
we got off the ice on to the shore up in the Esquimaux
territory, as I was a-tellin'. So you tell Mary Jane she
need n't look out for a second husband yet, for that ar
dream 's a sartin sign he '11 be back."
" Cap'n Kittridge ! " said his help-meet, drawing herself
np, and giving him an austere glance over her spectacles ;
"how often must I tell you that there is subjects which
should n't be treated with levity ? "
" Who 's been a-treatin' of 'em with levity ? " said the
Captain. " I 'm sure I a'o't. Mary Jane 's good-lookin',
and there 's plenty of young fellows as sees it as well as me.
I declare she looked as pretty as any young gal when sho
142 THE PEARL OF ORE'S ISLAND.
Hs up in the singers' seats to-day. Put me in mind of you,
Polly, when I first come home from the Injies."
" Oh, come now, Cap'n Kittridge ! we V gettin' too old
for that sort o' talk."
" We a'n't too old, be we, Mara ? " said the Captain, trot-
ling the little girl gayly on his knee ; " and we a'n't afraid
of icebergs and no sich, be we ? I tell you they 's a fine
eight of a bright day ; they has millions of steeples, all white
and glistering, like the New Jerusalem, and the white bears
have capital times trampin' round on 'em. Would n't little
Mara like a great, nice white bear to ride on, with his white
far, so soft and warm, and a saddle made of pearls, and a
gold bridle ? "
" You hav' n't seen any little girls ride so," said Mara,
doubtfully.
" I should n't wonder if I had ; but you see, Mis' Kittridge
there, she won't let me tell all I know," said the Captain,
sinking his voice to a confidential tone; "you jist wait till
we get alone."
"But, you are sure" said Mara, confidingly, in return,
" that white bears will be kind to Moses ? "
"Lord bless you, yes, child, the kindest critturs in the
world they be, if you only get the right side of 'era," said
the Captain.
" Oh, yes ! because," said Mara, " I know how good a
wolf was to Romulus and Remus once, and nursed them
when they were cast out to die. I read that in the Ro-
man history."
" Jist so," said the Captain, enchanted at this historic con-
firmation of his apocrypha.
" And so," said Mara, " if Moses should happen to get o
an iceberg, a bear might take care of him, you know."
THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND. 145
a Jist so, jist so," said the Captain ; " so don't you worry
your little curly head one bit. Some time when you come
down to see Sally, we '11 go down to the cove, and I '11 tell
jou lots of stories about chil'en that have been fetched up
uy white bears, jist like Romulus and what 's his name
there ? "
" Come, Mis' Kittridge," added the cheery Captain ; " you
and I must n't be keepin' the folks up till nine o'clock."
" Well now," said Mrs. Kittridge, in a doleful tone, as she
began to put on her bonnet, " Mis' Fennel, you must keep
up your spirits it 's one's duty to take cheerful views of
things. I'm sure many 's the night, when the Captain's
been gone to sea, I 've laid and shook in my bed, hearin*
the wind blow, and thinking what if I should be left a lone
widow."
u There 'd a-been a dozen fellows a- wan ting to get you in
six months, Polly," interposed the Captain. " Well, good-
night, Mis' Fennel ; there '11 be a splendid haul of fish at
the Banks this year, or there 's no truth in signs. Come,
my little Mara, got a kiss for the dry old daddy ? That 's
my good girl. Well, good-night, and the Lord bless you."
And so the cheery Captain took up his line of march
homeward, leaving little Mara's head full of dazzling vis-
ions of the land of romance to which Moses had gone.
She was yet on that shadowy boundary between the
dreamland of childhood and the real land of life ; so all
things looked to her quite possible and gentle white
bears, with warm, soft fur and pearl and gold saddles,
walked through her dreams, and the victorious curls of
Moses appeared, with his bright eyes and cheeks, ovei
glittering pinnacles of first in the ice-land.
144 THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND.
CHAPTER XIV.
and July passed, and the lonely two lived a quiel
lite in the brown house. Everything was so still and fair
no sound but the coming and going tide, and the sway-
ing wind among the pine-trees, and the tick of the clock,
and the whirr of the little wheel as Mrs. Fennel sat spin-
ning in her door in the mild weather.
Mara read the Roman history through again, and began it
a third time, and read over and over again the stories and
prophecies that pleased her in the Bible, arid pondered the
wood-cuts and texts in a very old edition of ^sop's Fables,
and as she wandered in the woods, picking fragrant bay-
berries and gathering hemlock, checkerberry, and sassafras
to put in the beer which her grandmother brewed, she
mused on the things that she read till her little mind be-
came a tabernacle of solemn, quaint, dreamy forms where
old Judean kings and prophets, and Roman senators and
warriors, marched in and out in shadowy rounds. She in-
vented long dramas and conversations in which they per-
formed imaginary parts, and it would not have appeared to
the child in the least degree surprising either to have met
an angel in the woods, or to have formed an intimacy with
some talking wolf or bear, such as she read of in ^E sop's
Fables.
One day, as she was exploring the garret, she found in an
old barrel of cast-off rubbish a bit of reading which shf
begged of her grandmother for her own.
THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND. 145
It was the play of the " Tempest," torn from an old edi
rion of Shakspcare, and was in that delightfully fragmentary
condition which most particularly pleases children, because
they conceive a muiilated treasure thus found to be more
especially their own property something like a rare wild-
flower or sea-shell. The pleasure which thoughtful and im-
aginative children sometimes take in reading that which
lliey do not ana cannot fully comprehend, is one of tho
most common and curious phenomena of childhood.
And so little Mara would lie for hours stretched out on
the pebbly beach, with the broad open ocean before her and
the whispering pines and hemlocks behind her, and pore
over this poem, from which she collected dim, delightful
images of a lonely island, an old enchanter, a beautiful girl,
and a spirit not quite like those in the Bible, but a very
probable one to her mode of thinking.
As for old Caliban, she fancied him with a face much like
that of a huge skate-fish she had once seen drawn ashore in
one of her grandfather's nets, and then there was the beau-
tiful young Prince Ferdinand, much like what Moses would
be when he was grown up and how glad she would be to
pile up his wood for him, if any old enchanter should set
him to work !
One attribute of the child was a peculiar sharaefacedness
and shyness about her inner thoughts, and therefore the
wonder that this new treasure excited, the host of sur-
mises and dreams to which it gave rise, were never men-
tioned to anybody. That it was all of it as much authentic
fact as the Roman history, she did not doubt, but whether it
had happened on Orr's Island or some of the neighboring
pnes, she had not exactly made up her mind.
She resolved at her earliest leisure to consult Captain
7
146 THE PfcARL OF ORR'S ISLAND.
Kittridgc on the subject, wisely considering that it much
resembled some of his fishy and aquatic experiences.
Some of the little songs fixed themselves in her memory,
and she would hum them as she wandered up and down the
beach.
" Come unto these yellow sands
And then take hands,
Courtesied when you have and kissed
(The wild waves wist),
Foot it featly here and there,
And sweet sprites the burden bear."
And another which pleased her still more :
"Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made,
Those are pearls that were his eyes;
Nothing of him that can fade
But doth suffer a sea change
Into something rich and strange ;
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell
Hark, I hear them ding, dong, bell."
These words she pondered very long, gravely revolving
in her little head whether they described the usual course of
things in the mysterious under-world that lay beneath that
blue spangled floor of the sea whether everybody's eyes
changed to pearl, and their bones to coral, if they sunk down
there and whether the sea-nymphs spoken of were the
same as the mermaids that Captain Kittridge had told of.
Had he not said that the bell rung for church of a Sunday
morning down under the waters ?
Mara vividly remembered the scene on the sea-beach, the
rinding ef little Moses and his mother, the dream of the pale
lady that seemed to bring him to her ; and not one of the
lonversations that had transpired before her among differ
ent gossips had been lost on her quiet, listening little earg
THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND. 14V
These pale, still children that play without making any
noise, are deep wells into which drop many things which lie
long and quietly on the bottom, and come up in after years
whole and new, when everybody else has forgotten them.
So she had heard surmises as to the remaining crew of
that unfortunate ship where, perhaps, Moses had a father.
And sometimes she wondered if he were lying fathoms deep
with sea-nymphs ringing his knell, and whether Moses ever
thought about him ; and yet she could no more have asked
him a question about it than if she had been born dumb.
She decided that she should never show him this poetry
it might make him feel unhappy.
One bright aAernoon, when the sea lay all dead asleep, and
the long, steady respiration of its tides scarcely disturbed
the glassy tranquillity of its bosom, Mrs. Fennel sat at her
kitchen-door spinning, when Captain Kittridge appeared.
" Good-afternoon, Mis' Fennel ; how ye gettin* along ? "
" Oh, pretty well, Captain ; won't you walk in and have
a glass of beer ? "
" Well, thank you," said the Captain, raising his hat and
wiping his forehead, " I be pretty dry, it 's a fact."
Mrs. Fennel hastened to a cask which was kept standing
in a corner of the kitchen, and drew from thence a mug of
her own home-brewed, fragrant with the smell of juniper,
hemlock, and wintergreen, which she presented to the Cap-
.ain, who sat down in the door-way and discussed it in lei-
surely sips.
" Wai', s'pose it 's most time to be lookin' for cm home,
iVt it ? " he said.
"I am lockin' every day," said Mrs. Fennel, involuntarily
glancing upward at the sea.
At the word appeared the vision oi little Mam, rlio rose
148 THE PEARL OF ORE'S ISLAND.
Dp like a spirit from a dusky corner, where she had been
stooping over her reading.
" Why, little Mara." said tl^e Captain, " you ris up like a
ghost all of a sudden. I thpught you 's out to play. I como
down a-purpose arter you. Mis' Kittridge has gone shoppin'
up to Brunswick, and left Sally a ' stent ' to do ; and I prom-
ised her if she 'd clap to and do it quick, I 'd go up and fetch
you down, and we 'd have a play in the cove."
Mara's eyes brightened, as they always did at this pros-
pect, and Mrs. Pennel said, " Well, I 'm glad to have the
child go ; she seems so kind o' still and lonesome since
Moses went away ; really one feels as if that boy took all
the noise there was with him. I get tired myself sometimes
hearing the clock tick. Mara, when she 's alone, takes to
her book more than 's good for a child."
" She does, does she ? Well, we '11 see about that. Come,
little Mara, get on your sun-bonnet. Sally 's sewin' fast aa
ever she can, and we Y goin' to dig some clams, and make a
fire, and have a chowder ; that '11 be nice, won't it ? Don't
you want to come, too, Mis' Pennel ? "
" Oh, thank you, Captain, but I 've got so many things on
hand to do afore they come home, I don't really think I can.
I '11 trust Mara to you any day."
Mara had run into her own little room and secured her
precious fragment of treasure, which she wrapped up care-
fully in her handkerchief, resolving to enlighten Sally with
the story, and to consult the Captain on any nice points of
criticism. Arrived at the cove, they found Sally already
there in advance of them, clapping her hands and dancing in
manner which made her black elf-locks fly like those of a
distracted creature.
" Now, Sally," said the Captain, imitating, in a humfcla
THE PEARL OF ORE'S ISLAND. 149
way, his wife *a manner, " are you sure you Ve finished youi
work well?"
" Yos, father, every stitch on V
" And stuck in your needle, and folded it up, and put it in
the drawer, and put away your thimble, and shet the drawer,
and all the rest on 't ? " said the Captain.
" Yes, father," said Sally, gleefully, " I Ve done everything
I could think of."
" 'Cause you know your ma '11 be arter ye, if you don't
leave everything straight."
" Oh, never you fear, father, I Ve done it all half an hour
Rgo, and I've found the most capital bed of clams just lound
the point here ; and you take care of Mara there, and make
up a fire while I dig 'em. If she comes, she '11 be sure to
wet her shoes, or spoil her frock, or something."
" Wai', she likes no better fun now," said the Captain,
watching Sally, as she disappeared round the rock with a
bright tin pan.
He then proceeded to construct an extemporary fireplace
of loose stones, and to put together chips and shavings for
the fire, in which work little Mara eagerly assisted ; but
the fire was crackling and burning cheerily long before Sally
appeared with her clams, and so the Captain, with a pile of
hemlock boughs by his side, sat on a stone feeding the fire
leisurely from time to time with crackling boughs. Now
was the time for Mara to make her inquiries ; her heart
beat, she knew not why, for she was full of those little ti-
midities and shames that so often embarrass children in their
attempts to get at the meanings of things in this great world,
where they are such ignorant spectators.
"Captain Kittridge," she said at last, u do the irermaMi
toll any bells fa r people when they are drowned ? "
150 THE PEARL OF ORE'S ISLAND.
Now the Captain had never been known to indicate th
least ignorance on any subject in heaven or earth, which
any one wished his opinion on ; he therefore leisurely poked
another great crackling bough of green hemlock into the
fire, and, Yankee-like, answered one question by asking
another, " What put that into your curly pate ? " he saiL
" A book I Ve been reading says they do, that is sea-
nymphs do. A'n't sea-nymphs and mermaids the same
thing ? "
" Wai*, I guess they be, pretty much," said the Captain,
rubbing down his pantaloons ; " yes, they be," he added, after
reflection.
" And when people are drowned, how long does it take
for their bones to turn into coral, and their eyes into pearl ? "
said little Mara.
" Well, that depends upon circumstances," said the Cap-
tain, who was n't going to be posed ; " but let me jist see
your book you 've been reading these things out of."
" I found it in a barrel up garret, and grandma gave it to
me," said Mara, unrolling her handkerchief; " it 's a beautiful
book, it tells about an island, and there was an old en-
chanter lived on it, an3 he had one daughter, and there was
a spirit they called Ariel, whom a wicked old witch fastened
in a split of a pine-tree, till the enchanter got him out. He
was a beautiful spirit, and rode in the curled clouds and hung
in flowers, because he could make himself big or little,
you ses."
" Ah, yes, I see, to be sure," said the Captain, nodding his
head.
" Well, that about sea-nymphs ringing his knell is here,"
Mara added, beginning to read the passage with wide, di
lated eyes and great emphasis. " You see," she went on.
THE PEARL OF ORR'S 1SLAXD. 151
ipeaking very fast, ' this enchanter had been a prince, and
a wicked brother had contrived to send him to sea with his
poor little daughter, in a ship so leaky that the very rats had
left it."
"Bad business that!" said the Captain, attentively.
" Well," said Mara, " they got cast ashore on this desolate
island, where they lived together. But once, when a >hip
was going by on the sea that had his wicked brother and hi
isoii a real good, handsome young prince in it, why then
he made a storm by magic arts."
" Jist so," said the Captain ; " that 's been often done, to
my sartin knowledge."
" And he made the ship be wrecked and all the people
thrown ashore, but there was n't any of 'em drowned, and this
handsome prince heard Ariel singing this song about his
father, and it made him think he was dead."
" Well, what became of 'em ? " interposed Sally, who had
come up with her pan of clams in time to hear this story, to
which she had listened with breathless interest.
" Oh, the beautiful young prince married the beautiful
young lady," said Mara.
" Wai'," said the Captain, who by this time had found his
soundings ; " that you 've been a-tellin* is what they call a
play, and I 've seen 'em act it at a theatre, when I was to
Liverpool once. I know all about it. Shakspeare wrote
it, and he 's a great English poet."
" Biu did it ever happen ?" said Mara, trembling between
hope arul fear. " Is it like the Bible and Roman history?"
" Why, no," said Captain Ki^ridge, ft *iot exactly ; but
things jist like it, you know. Mermaids and sich is com-
mon in foreign parts, and they has funerals for drowned
jailors. 'Member once when we was sailing near the Ber-
152 THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND.
mudas by a reef where the Lively Fanny went down, and 1
heard a kind o' ding-dongin', and the waters there is cleat
as the sky, and I looked down and see the coral 'all a-
growin', and the sea-plants a-wavin' as handsome as a pic-
lur', and the mermaids they was a-singin'. It was beautiful ,
they sung kind o' mournful ; and Jack Hubbard, he would
have it they was a-singin' for the poor fellows that was
a-lyin' there round under the sea-w'eed."
" But," said Mara, " did you ever see an enchanter that
could make storms ? "
" Wai', there be witches and conjurers that make storms.
'Member once when we was crossin* the line, about twelve
o'clock at night, there- was an old man with a long white
beard that shone like silver, came and stood at the mast-head,
and he had a pitchfork in one hand, and a lantern in the
other, and there was great balls of fire as big as my fist
came out all round in the rigging. And I '11 tell you if we
did n't get a blow that ar night ! I thought to my soul we
should all go to the bottom."
"Why," said Mara, her eyes staring with excitement,
"that was just like this shipwreck ; and 'twas Ariel made
those balls of fire ; he says so ; he said he * flamed amaze-
ment' all over the ship."
"I've heard Miss Roxy tell about witches that made
storms," said Sally.
The Captain leisurely proceeded to open the clams, sepa-
rating from the shells the contents, which he threw into a
pan, meanwhile placing a black pot over the lire in which
he had previously arranged certain slices of salt pork, which
loon began frizzling in the heat.
" Now, Sally, you peel them potatoes, and mind you slico
em thin," he said, and Sally soon was busy with her work.
THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND. 153
'Yes," said the Captain, going on with his part of the
arrangement, " there was old Polly Twichell, that lived in
that ar old tumble-down house on Mure P'int ; people used
to say she brewed storms, and went to sea in a sieve."
" Went in a sieve ! " said both children ; " why a sieve
would n't swim ! "
" No more it would n't, in any Christian way," said the
Captain ; " but that was to show what a great witch she
was."
" Bet this was a good enchanter," said Mara, " and he did
it all by a book and a rod."
" Yes, yes," said the Captain ; " that ar 's the gen'l way
magicians do, ever since Moses' time in Egypt. 'Member
once I was to Alexandria, in Egypt, and I saw a magician
there that could jist see everything you ever did in your life
in a drop of ink that he held in his hand."
He could, father ! "
" To be sure he could ! told me all about the old folks at
home ; and described our house as natural as if he 'd a-been
there. He used to carry snakes round with him, a kind
so p'ison that it was certain death to have 'em bite you ; but
he played with 'em as if they was kittens."
" Well," said Mara, " my enchanter was a king ; and
when he got through all he wanted, and got his daughter
married to the beautiful young prince, he said he would
break his staff', and deeper than plummet sounded he would
"ury his book.'*
"It was pretty much the best thing he could do," said the
Captain, " because the Bible is agin sudi things."
" Is it ? '' said Mara ; " why, he was a real good man."
" Oh, well, you know, we all on us does what a'n't quite
right sometimes, when we gets pushed up," said tho Captain,
7*
154 THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND.
who now began arranging the clams and sliced potatoes in
alternate layers with sea-biscuit, strewing in salt and pepper
as he went on ; and, in a few moments, a smell, fragrant to
hungry senses, began to steam upward, and Sally began
washing and preparing some mammoth clam-shells, to sei ve
as ladles and plates for the future chowder.
Mara, who sat with her morsel of a book in her lap,
seemed deeply pondering the past conversation. At last she
said, " What did you mean by saying you 'd seen 'em act
that at a theatre ? "
" Why, they make it all seem real ; and they have a ship-
wreck, and you see it all jist right afore your eyes."
"And the Enchanter, and Ariel, and Caliban, and all?"
said Mara.
"Yes, all on 't, plain as printing."
" Why, that is by magic, a'n't it ?" said Mara.
" No ; they hes ways to jist make it up ; but," added
the Captain, " Sally, you need n't say nothin' to your ma
'bout the theatre, 'cause she would n't think I 's fit to go to
meetin' for six months arter, if she heard on 't."
"Why, a'n't theatres good?" said Sally.
" Wai, there 's a middlin' sight o' bad things in 'em," said
the Captain, " that I must say ; but as long as folks is folks,
why, they will be folksy ; but there's never any makin'
women folk understand about them ar things."
" I am sorry they are bad," said Mara ; " I want to see
them."
" Wai', Aval'," said the Captain, " on the hull I 've seen
ivial things a good deal more wonderful than all their shows,
and they ha'n't no make-b'lieve to 'em but theatres is
takin' arter all. But, Sally, mind you don't say nothin' to
Mis' Kittridge."
THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND. 151
A few moments more and all discussion was lost in prep-
arations for the meal, and each one receiving a portion of
the savory stew in a large shell, made a spoon of a small
cockle, and with some slices of bread and butter, the even-
ing meal went off merrily. The sun was sloping toward the
ocean ; the wide blue floor was bedropped here nd there
with rosy shadows of sailing clouds. Suddenly the Cap*
tain sprang up, calling out,
" Sure as I 'm alive, there they be ! "
" Who ? " exclaimed the children.
" Why, Captain Fennel and Moses ; don't you see ? "
And, in fact, on the outer circle of the horizon came drift-
ing a line of small white-breasted vessels, looking like so
many doves.
" Them 's 'em," said ti,c Captain, while Mara danced for
joy-
" How soon will they be here ? " .
" Afore long," said the Captain ; " so, Mara, I guess you '11
want to be getting hum."
156 THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND
CHAPTER XV.
MRS. FENNEL, too, had seen the white, dove-like cloud
on the horizon, and had hurried to make biscuits, and con-
duct other culinary preparations which should welcome lha
wanderers home.
The sun was just dipping into the great blue sea a
round ball of fire and sending long, slanting tracks of
light across the top of each wave, when a boat was moored
at the beach, and the minister sprang out, not in his suit
of ceremony, but attired in fisherman's garb.
" Good-afternoon, Mrs. Pennel," he said. " I was out
fishing, and T thought I saw your husband's schooner in the
distance. I thought I 'd come and tell you."
" Thank you, Mr. Sewell. I thought I saw it, but I was
not certain. Do come in ; the Captain would be delighted
to see you here."
" We miss your husband in our meetings," said Mr. Stw-
ell ; " it will be good news for us all when he comes home ;
he is one of those I depend on to help me preach."
" I 'm sure you don't preach to anybody who enjoys it
more," said Mrs. Pennel. "He often tells me that the
greates: trouble about his voyages to the Banks is that he
loses sc many sanctuary privileges ; though he always keeps
Sunday on his ship, and reads and sings his psalms ; but, he
gays, after all, there 's nothing like going to Mount Zion,"
" And little Moses has gone on his first voyage ? " said
'Jie minister.
THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND. 157
" Yes, indeed ; the child has been teasing to go for more
than a year. Finally the Cap'n told him if he 'd be faithful
in the ploughing and planting he should go. You see, he 's
rather unsteady, and apt to be off after other things, very
different from Mara. Whatever you give her to do sho
alwa) 8 keeps at it till it 's done."
" And pray, where is the little lady ? " said the minister j
u is she gone ? "
"Well, Cap'n Kittridge came in this afternoon to lake her
down to see Sally. The Cap'n 's always so fond of Mara,
and she has always taken to him ever since she was a baby."
" The Captain is a curious creature," said the minister,
smiling.
Mrs. Fennel smiled also ; and it is to be remarked that
nobody ever mentioned the poor Captain's name without the
same curious smile.
" The Cap'n is a good-hearted, obliging creature," said
Mrs. Fennel, " and a master-hand for telling stories to the
children."
" Yes, a perfect ' Arabian Nights' Entertainment,' " said
Mr. Sewell.
"Well, I really believe the Cap'n believes his own
stories," said Mrs. Fennel ; " he always seems to, and cer-
tainly a more obliging man and a kinder neighbor could n't
be. He has been in and out almost every day since I 've
been alone, to see if I wanted anything. He would insist
on chopping wood and splitting kindlings for me, though I
told him the Cap'n and Moses had left a plenty to last till
Ihey came home."
At this moment the subject of their conversation appeared
striding along the beach, with a large, red lobster in one
Uand, while with the other he held little Mara upon his
158 THE PEARL OF ORE'S ISLAND.
shoulder, she the while clapping her hands and singing men
rily, as she saw the Brilliant out on the open blue sea, its
white sails looking of a rosy purple in the evening light,
careering gayly homeward.
" There is Captain Kittridge this very minute," said Mrs.
PennsI, setting down a teacup she had been wiping, and
going to the door.
*' Good-evening, Mis' Fennel," said the Captain. " I
s'pose you see your folks are comin'. I brought down one
of these 'ere ready b'iled, 'cause I thought it might make
01 1 your supper."
" Thank you, Captain ; you must stay and take some with
us."
" Wai', me and the children have pooty much done our
supper," said the Captain. "We made a real fust-rate
chowder down there to the cove ; but I '11 jist stay and see
what the Cap'n's luck is. Massy ! " he added, as he looked
in at the door, " if you ha'n't got the minister there ! Wai',
now, I come jist as I be," he added, with a glance down at
his clothes.
" Never mind, Captain," said Mr. Sewell ; " I 'm in my
fishing-clothes, so we're even."
As to little Mara, she had run down to the beach, and
stood so near the sea, that every dash of the tide-wave forced
her little feet to tread an inch backward, stretching out her
hands eagerly toward the schooner, which was standing
straight toward the small wharf, not far from their door.
Already she could see on deck figures moving about, and
her sharp little eyes made out a small personage in a red
shirt that was among the most active. Soon all the figures
grew distinct, and she could see her grandfather's gray head,
luul alert, active form, and could see, by the signs he made,
THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND. 159
that he had perceived the little blowy figure that stood, with,
hair streaming in the win:.], like some flower bent seaward.
And now they are come nearer, and Moses shouts and
dances on the deck, and the Captain and Mrs. Fennel come
running from the house down to the shore, and a few min-
utes more, and all are landed safe and sound, and little Mara
is carried up to the house in her grandfather's arms, while
Captain Kittridge stops to have a few moments' gossip with
Ben Ilalliday and Tom Scranton before they go to their own
resting-places.
Meanwhile Moses loses not a moment in boasting of his
heroic exploits to Mara.
" Oh, Mara ! you 've no idea what times we Ve had ! I
can fish equal to any of 'em, and I can take in sail and tend
the helm like anything, and I know all the names of every-
thing ; and you ought to have seen us catch fish ! Why,
they bit just as fast as we could throw ; and it was just
throw and bite, throw and bite, throw and bite ; and
my hands got blistered pulling in, but I did n't mind it, I
was determined no one should beat me."
" Oh ! did you blister your hands ? " said Mara, pitifully.
" Oh, to be sure ! Now, you girls think that 's a dreadful
thing, but we men don't mind it. My hands are getting so
hard, you 've no idea. And, Mara, we caught a great
shark."
" A shark ! oh, how dreadful ! Is n't he dangerous ? "
" Dangerous ! I guess not. We served him out, I tell
you. He '11 never eat any more people, I tell you, the old
wretch ! "
"But, poor shark, it isn't h_*s fault that he eats people.
He was made so," said Mara, unconsciously touching a deep
theological mystery.
160 THE PEARL OF ORE'S ISLAND.
" Well, I don't know but he was," said Moses ; " but
eharks that we catch never eat any more, I'll bet you."
" Oh, Moses, did you see any icebergs ? "
" Icebergs ! yes ; we passed right by one, a real grand
one."
" "Were there any bears on it ? "
" Bears ! No ; we did n't see any."
" Captain Kittridge says there are white bears live on
em."
" Ot, Captain Kittridge," said Moses, with a toss of su-
perb contempt; "if you're going to believe all he says,
you 've got your hands full."
" Why, Moses, you don't think he tells lies ? " said Mara,
the tears actually starting in her eyes. " I think he is real
good, and tells nothing but the truth."
"Well, well, you are young yet," said Moses, turning
away with an air of easy grandeur, " and only a girl be-
sides," he added.
Mara was nettled at this speech. First, it pained her to
have her child's faith shaken in anything, and particularly in
her good old friend, the Captain ; and next, she felt, with
more force than ever she did before, the continual disparag-
ing tone in which Moses spoke of her girlhood.
" I 'm sure," she said to herself, " he ought n't to feel so
about girls and women. There was Deborah was a prophet-
ess, and judged Israel ; and there was Egeria, she taught
Numa Pompilius all his wisdom."
But it was not the little maiden's way to speak when any-
thing thwarted or hurt her, but rather to fold all her feelings
and thoughts inward, as some insects, with fine gauzy wing^
flraw them under a coat of horny concealment
Somehow, there was a shivering sense of disappointmeni
THE PEARL OF OKII'S ISLAND. 161
In all tlii;! meeting with Moses. She had dwelt upon it, and
landed so much, and had so many things to say to him ; and
he had come home so self-absorbed and glorious, and seemed
to have had so little need of or thought for her, that dhe felt
R cold, sad sinking at her heart ; and walking away A ery
still and white, sat down demurely by her grandfather's knee,
" Well, so my little girl is glad grandfather 's come," ho
Baid, lifting her fondly in his arms, and putting her golden"
head under his coat, as he had been wont to do from in-
fancy ; " grandpa thought a great deal about his little Mara."
The small heart swelled against his. Kind, faithful old
grandpa ! how much more he thought about her than Mo-
ses; and yet she had thought so much of Moses.
And there he sat, this same ungrateful Moses, bright-eyed
and rosy-cheeked, full of talk and gayety, full of energy and
vigor, as ignorant as possible of the wound he had given to
the little loving heart that was silently brooding under her
grandfather's butternut-colored sea-coat. Not only was he
ignorant, but he had not even those conditions within him
self which made knowledge possible.
All that there was developed of him, at present, was a
fund of energy, self-esteem, hope, courage, and daring, the
love of action, life, and adventure ; his life was in the out-
ward and present, not in the inward and reflective ; he was
a true ten-year old boy, in its healthiest and most animal
perfection. What she was, the small pearl with the golden
hair, with her frail and high-strung organization, her sen-
sitive nerves, her half-spiritual fibres, her ponderings, and
marvels, and dreams, her power of love, and yearning for
self-devotion, our readers may, perhaps, have seen. But if
ever two children, .or two grown people, thus organized, are
thrown into intimate relations, it follows, from the very laws
162 THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND.
of their being, that one mus. hurt the other, simply by being
itself; one must always hunger for what the other has not
to give.
It was a merry meal, however, when they all sat down to
the tea-table once more, and Mara by her grandfather's side,
who often stopped what he was saying to stroke her head
fondly. Moses bore a more prominent part in the conversa-
tion than he had been wont to do before this voyage, and all
seemed to listen to him with a kind of indulgence elders
often accord to a handsome, manly boy, in the first flush of
some successful enterprise.
That ignorant confidence in one's self and one's future,
which comes in life's first dawn, has a sort of mournful
charm in experienced eyes, who know how much it all
amounts to.
Gradually, little Mara quieted herself with listening to
and admiring him.
It is not comfortable to have any heart-quarrel with one's
cherished idol, and everything of the feminine nature, there-
fore, can speedily find fifty good reasons for seeing one's self
in the wrong and one's graven image in the right ; and little
Mara soon had said to herself, without words, that, of course,
Moses could n't be expected to think as much of her as she
of him. He was handsomer, cleverer, and had a thousand
other things to do and to think of he was a boy, in short,
nnd going to be a glorious man and sail all over the world,
while she could only hem handkerchiefs and knit stockings,
and sit at home and wait for him to come back. This was
fcbout the resume of life as it appeared to the little one, who
went on from the moment worshipping her image with more
undivided idolatry than ever, hoping that by and by b
vould th:n> jaore of her.
THE PEARL OF ORE'S ISLAND. 165
Mr. Seweh appeared to study Moses carefully and thought-
fully, and encouraged the wild, gleeful frankmjss which he
had brought home from his first voyage, as a knowing jockey
tries the paces of a high-mettled colt.
" Did you get any time to read ? " he interposed once,
when the boy stopped in his account of their adventures.
"No, sir," said Moses; "at least," he added, blushing
very deeply, " I did n't feel like reading. I had so much to
do, and there was so much to see."
" It 's all new to him now," said Captain Fennel ; " but
when he comes to being, as I 've been, day after day, with
nothing but sea and sky, he '11 be glad of a book, just to
break the sameness."
"Laws, yes," said Captain Kittridge; "sailor's life a'n't
all apple-pie, as it seems when a boy first goes on a summer
trip with his daddy not by no manner o' means."
" But," said Mara, blushing and looking very eagerly at
Mr. Sewell, " Moses has read a great deal. He read the
Roman and the Grecian history through before he went
away, and knows all about them."
" Indeed ! " said Mr. Sewell, turning with an amused look
towards the tiny little champion ; "do you read them, too,
my little maid ? "
" Yes, indeed," said Mara, her eyes kindling ; " I have
read them a great deal since Moses went away them
and the Bible."
Mara did not dare to name her new-found treasure
there was something so mysterious about that, that she could
oot venture to produce k, except on the score et extreme
intimacy.
" Come, sit by me, little Mara," said the minister, putting
3Ut his hand ; " 3'ou and I must be friends, I see."
164 THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND.
Mr. Sewell had a certain something of mesmeric powei
in his eyes which children seldom resisted ; and with a
shrinking movement, as if both attracted and repelled, the
little girl got upon his knee.
" So you like the Bible and Roman history ? " he said to
her, making a little aside for her, while a brisk conversation
was going on between Captain Kittridge and Captain Fennel
on the fishing bounty for the year.
" Yes, sir," said Mara, blushing in a very guilty way.
" And which do you like the best ? "
;< I don't know, sir ; I sometimes think it is the one, and
sometimes the other."
" Well, what pleases you in the Roman history ? "
" Oh, I like that about Quintus Curtius."
" Quintus Curtius ? " said Mr. Sewell, pretending not to
remember.
" Oh, don't you remember him ? why, there was a great
gulf opened in the Forum, and the Augurs said that the
country would not be saved unless some one would offer
himself up for it, and so he jumped right in, all on horse-
back. I think that was grand. I should like to have dono
that," said little Mara, her eyes blazing out with a kind of
starry light which they had when she was excited.
" And how would you have liked it, if you had been a
Roman girl, and Moses were Quintus Curtius ? would you
like to have him give himself up for the good of the
country ? "
" Oh, no, no ! " said Mara, instinctively shuddering.
" Don't you think it would be very grand of him ? j;
" Oh, yes, sir."
" And should n't we wish our friends to do what is brave
and grand ? "
THE PEARL OF ORE'S ISLAND. 165
" Yes, sir ; but then," she added, " it would be so dread-
ful never to see him any more," and a large tear rolled from
the great soft eyes and fell on the minister's hand.
" Come, come," thought Mr. Sevvell, " this sort of experi-
menting is too bad too much nerve here, too much soli-
tude, too much pine-whispering and sea-dashing are going to
Hie making up of this little piece of workmanship."
* Tell me," he said, motioning Moses to sit by him, " how
you like the Roman history."
" I like it first-rate," said Moses. " The Romans were
such smashers, and beat everybody nobody could stand
against them ; and I like Alexander, too I think he was
splendid."
" True boy," said Mr. Sewell to himself, " unreflecting
brother of the wind and the sea, and all that is vigorous and
active no precocious development of the moral here."
" Now you have come," said Mr. Sewell, " I will lend
you another book."
" Thank you, sir ; I love to read them when I 'm at homo.
it 's so still here. I should be dull if I did n't."
Mara's eyes looked eagerly attentive. Mr. Sewell noticed
their hungry look when a book was spoken of.
" And you must read it, too, my little girl," he said.
" Thank you, sir," said Mara ; " I always want to read
everything Moses does."
" What book is it ? " said Moses.
" It is called Plutarch's * Lives,' " said the minister ; " it
bus more particular accounts of the men you read about in
history."
" Are there any lives of women ? " said Mara.
"No, my dear," said Mr. Sewell; "in the old times,
women did not get their lives written, though J don't dcuU*
166 THE PEARL OF ORE'S ISLAND.
many of them were much better worth writing than the
men's."
" I should like to be a great general," said Moses, with a
toss of his head.
" The way to be great lies through books, now, and not
through battles," said the minister ; " there is more done
with pens than swords ; so, if you want to do anything, you
must read and study."
" Do you think of giving this boy a liberal education ? *
said Mr. Sewell some time later in the evening, after Mosea
and Mara were gone to bed.
" Depends on the boy," said Zephaniah. " I 've been up
to Brunswick, and seen the fellows there in the college.
With a good many of 'em, going to college seems to be just
nothing but a sort of ceremony ; they go because they 're
sent, and don't learn anything more 'n they can help. That 'a
what I call waste of time and money."
" But don't you think Moses shows some taste for reading
and study ? "
"Pretty well, pretty well!" said Zephaniah; "jist keep
him a little hungry ; not let him get all he wants, you see,
and he '11 bite the sharper. If I want to catch cod I don't
begin with flingin' over a barrel o' bait. So with the boys,
jist bait 'em with a book here and a book there, and kind o'
let 'em feel their own way, and then, if nothin' will do but
n fellow must go to college, give in to him that'd be my
way."
" And a very good one, too ! " said Mr. Sewell. " I '11 see
if I can't bait my hook, so as to make Moses take after Latin
this winter. I shall have plenty of time to teach him."
" Now, there 's Mara ! " said the Captain, his face becom-
ing phosphorescent with a sort of mild radiance of pleasure}
THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND. 167
us it usually was when he spoke of her ; " she 's real sharp
set after bojks ; she's ready to fly out of her little skin at
the sight of one."
" That child thinks too much, and feels too much, and
knows too much for her years ! " said Mr. Sewell. " If she
were a boy, and you would take her away cod-fishing, as
you have Moses, the sea-winds would blow away some of
the thinking, and her little body would grow stout, and her
mind less de?icate and sensitive. But she's a woman," he
Baid, with a sigh, " and they are all alike. We can't do
much for them, but let them come up as they will and make
the best of it"
168 THE PEART, OF ORR'S ISLAND.
CHAPTER XVI.
* EMILY," said Mr. Sevvell, "did you ever take much
notice of that little Mara Lincoln ? "
"No, brother; why?"
" Because I think her a very uncommon child."
" She is a pretty little creature," said Miss Emily ; " but
that is all I know ; modest blushing to her eyes when a
stranger speaks to her."
" She has wonderful eyes," said Mr. Sewell ; " when she
gets excited, they grow so large and so bright, it seems al-
most unnatural."
" Dear me ! has she ? " said Miss Emily, in the tone of
one who had been called upon to do something about it
"Well?" she added, inquiringly.
" That little thing is only seven years old," said Mr. Sew
ell ; " and she is thinking and feeling herself all into mere
spirit brain and nerves all active, and her little body so
frail. She reads incessantly, and thinks over and over what
ghe reads."
"Well?" said Miss Emily, winding very swiftly en a
skein of black silk, and giving a little twitch, every now and
then, to a knot to make it subservient.
It was commonly the way, when Mr. Sewell began to talk
with Miss Emily, that she constantly answered him with the
manner of one who expects some immediate, practical prop-
osition to flow from every train of thought. Now Mr
TIIE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND. 16*
Sewell was one of the reflecting kind of men, whose th >ught3
have a thousand meandering paths, that lead nowhere in
particular. His sister's brisk little " Well's ? " and " Ah's ! "
and " Indeed's ! " were sometimes the least bit in the world
annoying.
" What is to be done ? " said Miss Emily ; " shall we
Hpcak to Mrs. Fennel ? "
" Mrs. Pennel would know nothing about her."
" How strangely you talk ! who should, if she does n't?"
"I mean, she wouldn't understand the dangers of her
case."
" Dangers ! Do you think she has any disease ? She
geems to be a healthy child enough, I 'm sure. She has a
lovely color in her cheeks."
Mr. Sewell seemed suddenly to become immersed in a
book he was reading.
" There now," said Miss Emily, with a little tone of pique,
" that 's the way you always do. You begin to talk with me,
and just as I get interested in the conversation, you take up
a book. It 's too bad."
" Emily," said Mr. Sewell, laying down his book, " I
think I shall begin to give Moses Pennel Latin lessons this
winter."
" Why, what do you undertake that for ? " said Miss
Emily. " You have enough to do without that, I 'm
sure."
" lie is an uncommonly bright boy, and he interests
me."
" Now, brother, you need n't tell me; there is some mys-
ury about the interest you take in that child, you know there
L."
u I an fond of children," said Mr. Sewell, dryly.
8
170 THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND.
" Well, but you don't take as much interest in other boys.
I never heard of your teaching any of them Latin before."
" Well, Emily, he is an uncommonly interesting child, and
the providential circumstances under which he came into
our neighborhood"
" Providential fiddlesticks ! " said Miss Emily, with
heightened color. " / believe you knew that boy's mother."
This sudden thrust brought a vivid color into Mr. Sew-
ell's cheeks. To be interrupted so unceremoniously, in the
midst of so very proper and ministerial a remark, was
rather provoking, and he answered, with some asperity,
"And suppose I had, Emily, and supposing there were
any painful subject connected with this past event, you
might have sufficient forbearance not to try to make me
speak on what I do not wish to talk of."
Mr. Sewell was one of your gentle, dignified men, from
whom Heaven deliver an inquisitive female friend ! If
such people would only get angry, and blow some unbecom-
ing blast, one might make something of them ; but speaking,
as they always do, from the serene heights of immaculate
propriety, one gets in the wrong before one knows it, and
has nothing for it but to beg pardon.
Miss Emily had, however, a feminine resource : she began
to cry wisely confining herself to the simple eloquence of
tears and sobs. Mr. Sewell sat as awkwardly as if he had
trodden on a kitten's toe, or brushed down a china cup, feel-
ing as if he were a great, horrid, clumsy boor, and his pool
liJtle sister a martyr.
" Come, Emily," he said, in a softer tone, when the sobs
lubsided a little.
But Emily didn't "come," but went at it with a frssl
turst.
TH PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND. 171
Mr. Sewell had a vision like that which drowning men
are said to have, in which all Miss Emily's sisterly devo-
tions, stocking-darnings, account-keepings, nursings and tend-
ings, and infinite self-sacrifices, rose up before him : and
there she was crying !
" I 'm sorry I spoke harshly, Emily. Come, come ; that 'a
a good girl."
" 1 'm a silly fool," said Miss Emily, lifting her head, and
wiping the tears from her merry little eyes, as she went on
winding her silk.
" Perhaps he will tell me now," she thought, as she
wound.
But he did n't.
" What I was going to say, Emily," said her brother,
" was, that I thought it would be a good plan for little
Mara to come sometimes with Moses; and then, by ob-
serving her more particularly, you might be of use to
her ; her little, active mind needs good practical guidance
like yours."
Mr. Sewell spoke in a gentle, flattering tone, and Miss
Emily was flattered ; but she soon saw that she had gained
nothing by the whole breeze, except a little kind of dread,
which made her inwardly resolve never to touch the knocker
of his fortress again. But she entered into her brother's
scheme with the facile alacrity with which she usually sec-
onded any schemes of his proposing.
" I might teach her painting and embroidery," said Mi.-s
Emily, glancing, with a satisfied air, at a framed piece of
bor own work which hung over the mantel-piece, revealing
ihe state of the fine arts m this country, as exhibited in the
performances of well-instructed young ladies of that period
Miss Emily had performed it under the tuition of a cele
172 THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND.
orated teacher of female accomplishments. It represented a
white marble obelisk, which an inscription, in legible India
ink letters, stated to be u Sacred to the memory of Theoplii-
lus Sewell," &c. This obelisk stood in the midst of a
ground made very green by an embroidery of different
shades of chenille and silk, and was overshadowed by an
embroidered weeping-willow. Leaning on it, with her face
concealed in a plentiful flow of white handkerchief, was a
female figure in deep mourning, designed to represent the
desolate widow. A young girl, in a very black dress, knelt
in front of it, and a very lugubrious-looking young man,
standing bolt upright on the other side, seemed to hold in
his hand one end of a wreath of roses, which the girl was
presenting, as an appropriate decoration for the tomb. The
girl and gentleman were, of course, the young Theophilus
and Miss Emily, and the appalling grief conveyed by the
expression of their faces was a triumph of the pictorial
art.
Miss Emily had in her bedroom a similar funeral trophy,
sacred to the memory of her deceased mother, besides
which there were, framed and glazed, in the little sitting-
room, two embroidered shepherdesses standing with rueful
faces, in charge of certain animals of an uncertain breed
between sheep and pigs. The poor little soul had mentally
resolved to make Mara the heiress of all the skill and knowl-
edge of the arts by which she had been enabled to consum-
mate these marvels.
" She is naturally a lady-like little thing," she said to her-
self, " and if I know anything of accomplishments, she shall
have them."
Just about the time that Miss Emily came to this resolu.
non, had she been clairvoyant, she might have seen Mars
THE PEARL OF ORE'S ISLAND. 175
Bitting very quietly, busy in the solitude of her own room
with a little sprig of partridge-berry before her, whose round
green leaves and brilliant scarlet berries she had been for
hours trying to imitate, as appeared from the scattered
sketches and fragments around her. In fact, before Zeph-
aniah started on his spring fishing, he had caught her one
day very busy at work of the same kind, with bits of char-
coal, and some colors compounded out of wild berries ; and
so out of his capacious pocket, after his return, he drew a
little box of water-colors and a lead-pencil and square of
india-rubber, which he had bought for her in Portland on
his way home.
Hour after hour the child works, so still, so fervent,
so earnest, going over and over, time after time, her
simple, ignorant methods to make it " look like," and stop-
ping, at times, to give the true artist's sigh, as the little
green and scarlet fragment lies there hopelessly, unapproach-
ably perfect. Ignorantly to herself, the hands of the little
pilgrim are knocking at the very door where Giotto and
Cimabue knocked in the innocent child-life of Italian art.
" "Why won't it look round ? " she said to Moses, who had
come in behind her.
" Why, Mara, did you do these ? " said Moses, astonished;
* "why, how well they are done ! I should know in a minute
what they were meant for."
Mara flushed up at being praised by Moses, but heaved a
deep sigh as she looked back.
" It 's so pretty, that sprig," she said ; " if I cnly could
it just like " -
" Why, nobody expects that" said Moses, " it 's like
sLough, if people only know what you mean it for. But
urne, now, get your bonnet, and come with mn in the boat
174 THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND.
Captain Kittndge has just broughi down our new one, and
I 'm going to take you over to Eagle Island, and we '11 take
our dinner and stay all day ; mother says so."
"Oh, how nice !" said the little girl, running cheerfully for
her sun-bonnet.
At the house-door they met Mrs. Pennel, with a little
closely-covered tin pail.
"Here's your dinner, children; and, Moses, mini and
take good care of her."
" Never fear me, mother, I Ve been to the Banks ; there
wasn't a man there could manage a boat better than I
could."
" Yes, grandmother," said Mara, " you ought to see how
strong his arms are ; I believe he will be like Samson one
Df these days if he keeps on."
So away they went. It was a glorious August forenoon,
and the sombre spruces and shaggy hemlocks that dipped
and rippled in the waters were penetrated to their deepest
recesses with the clear brilliancy of the sky, a true north-
ern sky, without a cloud, without even a softening haze, de-
fining every outline, revealing every minute point, cutting
with sharp decision the form of every promontory and rock,
and distant island.
The blue of the sea and the blue of the sky were so much
the same, that when the children had rowed far out, the lit-
fle boat seemed to float midway, poised in the centre of an
azure sphere, with a firmament above and a firmament bo-
low. Mara leaned dreamily over the side of the boat, and
drew her little hands through the waters as they rippled
along to the swift oars' strokes, and she saw as the waves
broke, and divided and shivered around the boat, a hundred
little faces, with brown eyes and golden hair, gleaming up
THE PEARL OF ORE'S ISLAND. 175
through the water, and dancing away over rippling waves,
and thought that so the sea-nymphs might look who
oame up from the coral caves when they ring the knell
of drowned people. Moses sat opposite to her, with his
coat off, and his heavy black curls more wavy and glossy
than ever, as the exercise made them damp with perspi-
ration.
Eagle Island lay on the blue sea, a tangled thicket of ever-
greens, white pine, spruce, arbor vitce, and fragrant silver
firs. A little strip of white beach bound it, like a silver set-
ting to a gem. And there Moses at length moored his boat,
and the children landed. The island was wholly solitary, and
there is something to children quite delightful in feeling that
they have a little lonely world all to themselves. Childhood
is itself such an enchanted island, separated by mysterious
depths from the main-land of nature, life, and reality.
Moses had subsided a little from the glorious heights on
which he seemed to be in the first flush of his return, and
he and Mara, in consequence, were the friends of old time.
It is true he thought himself quite a man, but the manhood
of a boy is only a tiny masquerade, a fantastic, dreamy
prevision of real manhood. It was curious that Mara, who
was by all odds the most precociously-developed of the two,
never thought of asserting herself a woman ; in fact, she
seldom thought of herself at all, but dreamed and pondered
of almost everything else.
" I declare," said Moses, looking up into a thick-branched,
rugged old hemlock, which stood all shaggy, with heavy
beards of gray moss drooping from its branches > " there 'a
ED eagle's nest up there ; I mean to go and see."
And up he went into the gloomy embrace of the old tree,
crackling the dead branches, wrenching off handfuls of graj
176 THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND.
moss, rising higher and higher, every once in a while tu t*
ing and showing to Mara his glowing face and curly } aif
through a dusky green frame of boughs, and then mounting
again. " I 'm coming to it," he kept exclaiming.
Meanwhile his proceedings seemed to create a sensation
amcng the feathered house-keepers, one of whom rose and
sailed screaming away into the air. In a moment after
there was a swoop of wings, and two eagles returned and
began flapping and screaming about the head of the boy.
Mara, wlo stood at the foot of the tree, could not see
clearly what was going on, for the thickness of the boughs ;
she only heard a great commotion and rattling of the
branches, the scream of the birds, and the swooping of their
wings, and Moses' valorous exclamations, as he seemed to
be laying about him with a branch which he had broken
off.
At last he descended victorious, with the eggs in his
pocket. Mara stood at the foot of the tree, with her sun-
bonnet blown back, her hair streaming, and her little arms
upstretched, as if to catch him if he fell.
" Oh, I was so afraid ! " she said, as he set foot on the
ground.
"Afraid? Pooh! Who's afraid? Why, you might
know the old eagles could n't beat me."
" Ah, well, I know how strong you are ; but, you know,
I could n't help it. But the poor birds, do hear 'em
Bcream. Moses, don't you suppose they feel bad ? "
" No, they 're only mad, to think they could n't beat me,
I beat them just as the Romans used to beat folks, 1
played their nest was a city, and I spoiled it."
"I should n't want to spoil cities ! " said Mara.
** That 's 'cause you are a girl, I 'm a man, and me*
THE PEARL OF ORE'S ISLAND. 177
always like war ; I 've taken one city this afternoon, and
mean to take a great many more."
" But, Moses, do you think war is right ? "
" Right ? why, yes, to be sure ; if it a'n't, it 's a pity ; for
it 's all that has ever been done in this world. In the Bible,
or out, certainly it 's right. I wish I had a gun now, I 'd
stop those old eagles' screeching."
" But. Moses, we should n't want any one to come ao 5
bteal all our things, and then shoot us."
" How long you do think about things ! " said Moses, im
patient at her pertinacity. " I am older than you, and when
I tell you a thing 's right, you ought to believe it. Besides,
don't you take hens' eggs every day, in the barn ? How do
you suppose the hens like that?"
This was a home-thrust, and for the moment, threw the
little casuist off the track. She carefully folded up the idea,
and laid it away on the inner shelves of her mind, till she
2ould think more about it.
Pliable as she was to all outward appearances, the child
had her own still, interior world, where all her little notions
and opinions stood up crisp and fresh, like flowers that grow
in cool, shady places. If anybody too rudely assailed a
thought or suggestion she put forth, she drew it back again
into this quiet inner chamber, and went on. Reader, there
are some women of this habit; and there is no independence
and pertinacity of opinion like that of these seemingly soft,
quiet creatures, whom it is so easy to silence, and so difficult
to convince. Mara, little and unformed as she yet was, be-
longed to the race of those spirits to -^hom is deputed the
office of the angel in the Apocalypse to whom was given
the golden rod which measured the New Jerusalem. Infant
Ihough she was, she had ever in her hand? that invisible
8*
178 THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND.
measuring rod, which she was laying to the fcjndatiors ol
all actions and thoughts. There may, perhaps, come a time
when the saucy boy, who now steps so superbly, and pre-
dominates so proudly in virtue of his physical strength and
daring, will learn to tremble at the golden measuring-rod,
held in the hand of a woman.
u Howbeit, that is not first which is spiritual, but that
which is natural." Moses is the type of the first unreflect-
ing stage of development, in which are only the out-reach-
ings of active faculties, the aspirations that tend toward
manly accomplishments.
Seldom do we meet sensitiveness of conscience or dis-
criminating reflection as the indigenous growth o' a very
vigorous physical development.
Your true healthy boy has the breezy, hearty Tr.tues of
a Newfoundland dog, the wild fulness of life of the young
race-colt. Sentiment, sensibility, delicate percept' ons, spirit-
ual aspirations, are plants of later growth.
But there are, both of men and women, bein^o born into
this world in whom from childhood the spiritual and the
reflective predominate over the physical. In relation to
other human beings, they seem to be organized much as
birds are in relation to other animals. They are the artists,
the poets, the unconscious seers, to whom the purer truths
of spiritual instruction are open. Surveying man merely
as an animal, these sensitively-organized beings, with their
feebler physical powers, are imperfect specimens of life.
Looking from the spiritual side, they seem to have a noblo
strength, a divine force. The types of this latter class ara
more commonly among women than among men. Multi
tudes of them pass away in earlier years, and leave behind
in many hearts the anxious wonder, why they came so fail
THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND. 179
only to mock the love they kindled. They who live tc
maturity are the priests and priestesses of the spiritual life,
ordained of God to keep the balance between the rude but
absolute necessities of physical life and the higher sphere to
which that must at length give place.
18C THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND.
CHAPTER XVII.
MOSES felt elevated some inches in the world by the gift
f a new Latin grammar, which had been bought for him
in Brunswick. It was a step upward in life ; no graduate
from a college ever felt more ennobled.
" Wai*, now, I tell ye, Moses Fennel," said Miss Roxy,
who, with her press-board and big flat-iron, was making her
autumn sojourn in the brown house, " I tell ye Latin a'n't
just what you think 't is, steppin' round so crank ; you must
remember what the king of Israel said to Benhadad, king
of Syria."
" I don't remember ; what did he say ? "
" I remember," said the soft voice of Mara ; " he said,
1 Let not him that putteth on the harness boast as him that
putteth it off/"
" Good for you, Mara," said Miss Roxy ; " if some other
folks read their Bibles as much as you do, they 'd know
more."
Between Moses and Miss Roxy there had always been a
state of sub-acute warfare since the days of his first arri-
val, she regarding him as an unhopeful interloper, and he
regarding her as a grim-visaged, interfering gnome, whom
he disliked with all the intense, unreasoning antipathy of
childhood.
"I hate that old woman," he said to Mara, as he flung
out of the door.
THE PEAKL OF ORR'S ISLAND. 181
" Why, Moses, what for ? " said Mara, who never could
x>mprehend hating anybody.
" I do hate her, and Aunt Ruey, too. They are two old
scratching cats ; they hate me, and I hate them ; they 're
always trying to bring me down, and I won't be brought
down."
Mara had sufficient instinctive insight into the feminine
role in the domestic concert not to adventure a direct argu-
ment just now in favor of her friends, and therefore she
proposed that they should sit down together under a cedar
hard by, and look over the first lesson.
" Miss Emily invited me to go over with you," she said,
"and I should like so much to hear you recite."
Moses thought this very proper, as would any other male
person, young or old, who has been habitually admired by
any other female one.
He did not doubt that, as in fishing and rowing, and all
other things he had undertaken as yet, he should win him-
self distinguished honors.
" See here," he said ; " Mr. Sewell told me I might go
as far as I liked, and I mean to take all the declensions to
begin with, there 's five of 'em, and I shall learn them
for the first lesson, and then I shall take the adjectives
next, and next the verbs, and so in a fortnight get intc
reading."
Mara heaved a sort of sigh. She wished she had been
invited to share this glorious race ; but she looked on ad-
miring when Moses read, in a loud voice, " Penna, pennce,
Dennac, pennam," &c.
" There now, I believe I 've got it," he said, handing
Mara the book; and he was perfectly astonished to find
ihat, with the book withdrawn, he boggled, and blundered.
182 THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND.
and stumbled ingloriously. In vain Mara softly prompted,
and looked at him with pitiful eyes as he grew red in the
face with his efforts to remember.
" Confound it all ! " he said, with an angry flush, snatch-
ing back the book ; " it 's more trouble than it 's worth."
Again he began the repetition, saying it very loud and
plain ; he said it over and over till his mind wandered far
out to sea, and while his tongue repeated " penna, pennce,"
he was counting the white sails of the fishing-smacks, and
thinking of pulling up codfish at the Banks.
" There now, Mara, try me," he said, and handed her the
book again ; " I 'm sure I must know it now."
But, alas ! with the book the sounds glided away ; and
" penna " and " pennam " and " pennis " and " pennae " were
confusedly and indiscriminately mingled.
He thought it must be Mara's fault ; she did n't read
right, or she told him just as he was going to say it, or she
did n't tell him right ; or was he a fool ? or had he lost his
senses ?
That first declension has been a valley of humiliation to
many a sturdy boy to many a bright one, too ; and often
it is, that the more full of thought and vigor the mind is, the
more difficult is it to narrow it down to the single dry issue
of learning those sounds.
Heinrich Heine said the Romans would never have found
time to conquer the world, if they had had to learn their owe
language ; but that, luckily for them, they were born into
the knowledge of what nouns form their accusatives in " urn/'
Long before Moses had learned the first declension, Mara
knew it by heart ; for her intense anxiety for him, and the
eagerness and zeal with which she listened for each termi'
nation, fixed them in her mind. Besides, she was natural! j
THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND. 183
>f a more quiet and scholar-like turn than he, more in-
tellectually developed.
Moses began to think, before that memorable day was
through, that there was some sense in Aunt Roxy's quota-
tion of the saying of the King of Israel, and materially to
retrench his expectations as to the time it might take to
master the grammar ; but still, his pride and will were both
committed, and he worked away in this new sort of labor
with energy.
It was a fine frosty, November morning, when he rowed
Mara across the bay in a little boat to recite his first lesson
to Mr. Sewell.
Miss Emily had provided a plate of seed-cake, otherwise
called cookies, for the children, as was a kindly custom of
old times, when the little people were expected.
Miss Emily had a dim idea that she was to do something
for Mara in her own department, while Moses was reciting
his lesson ; and therefore producing a large sampler, dis-
playing every form and variety of marking-stitch, she began
questioning the little girl, in a low tone, as to her proficiency
in that useful accomplishment.
Presently, however, she discovered that the child was
restless and uneasy, and that she answered without knowing
what she was saying. The fact was that she was listening,
with her whole soul in her eyes, and feeling through all her
nerves, every word Moses was saying. She knew all the
critical places, where he was likely to go wrong ; and when
at last, in one place, he gave the wrong termination, she in-
voluntarily called out the right one, starting up and turning
towards them. In a moment she blushed deeply, seeing
Mr. Sewell and Miss Emily both looking af her with sur
prise.
184 THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND.
" Come here, pussy," said Mr. Sewell, stretching out his
hand to her. " Can you say this ? "
" I believe I could, sir."
" Well, try it."
She went through without missing a word. Mr. Sewell
Ihen, lor curiosity, heard her repeat all the other forms of
the lesson. She had them perfectly.
" Very well, my little girl,"' he said, " have you beer
studying, too?"
"I heard Moses say them so often," said Mara, in an
apologetic manner, " I could n't help learning them."
" Would you like to recite with Moses every day ? "
" Oh, yes, sir, so much."
" Well, you shall. It is better for him to have company."
Mara's face brightened, and Miss Emily looked with a
puzzled air at her brother.
" So," she said, when the children had gone home, " 1
thought you wanted me to take Mara under my care. I
was going to begin and teach her some marking stitches,
and you put her up to studying Latin. I don't under-
stand you."
" Well, Emily, the fact is, the child has a natural turn for
study, that no child of her age ought to have ; and I have
done just as people always will with such children ; there 'a
no sense in it, but I wanted to do it. You can teach her
marking and embroidery all the same ; it would break her
little heart, now, if I were to turn her back."
" I do not see of what use Latin can be to a woman."
" Of what use is embroidery ? "
" Why, that is an accomplishment."
" Ah, indeed ! " said Mr. Sewell, contemplating the weep
ing willow and tombstone trophy with a singular expression.
1HE PEARL OF ORE'S ISLAND. 185
tthich it was lucky for Miss Emily'? peace she did not
understand. The fact was, that Mr. Sewell had, at one
period of his life, had an opportunity of studying and ob-
serving minutely some really fine works of art, and the
remembrance of them sometimes rose up to his mind, in thr
presence of the chefs-cC&uvre on which his sister rested with
so much complacency. It was a part of his quiet inteiiof
store of amusement to look at these bits of Byzantine em-
broidery round the room, which affected him always Avith a
subtle sense of drollery.
" You see, brother," said Miss Emily, " it is far better
for women to be accomplished than learned."
" You are quite right in the main," said Mr. Sewell,
" only you must let me have my own way just for once.
One can't be consistent always."
So another Latin grammar was brought, and Moses began
to feel a secret respect for his little companion, that he had
never done before, when he saw how easily she walked
through the labyrinths which at first so confused him.
Before this, the comparison had been wholly in points
where superiority arose from physical daring and vigor ;
now he became aware of the existence of another kind of
strength with which he had not measured himself. Mara's
opinion in their mutual studies began to assume a value in
his eyes that her opinions on other subjects had never done,
and she saw and felt, with a secret gratification, that she was
becoming more to him through their mutual pursuit. To
say the truth, it required this fellowship to inspire Moses
with the patience and perseverance necessary for this species
of acquisition. His active, daring temperament little inclined
him to patient, quiet study. For anything that could be
done by two hands, hi was always ready ; but to hold handf
186 THE PEARL OF ORE'S ISLAND.
gtill and work silently in the inner forces, was to him a
species of undertaking that seemed against his very nature
but then he would do it he would not disgrace himself
before Mr. Sewell, and let a girl younger than himself
outdo him.
But the thing, after all, that absorbed more of Moses'
thoughts than all his lessons was the building and rigging of
a small schooner, at which he worked assiduously in all his
leisure moments. He had dozens of blocks of wood, into
which he had cut anchor moulds ; and the melting of lead,
the running and shaping of anchors, the whittling of masta
and spars took up many an hour. Mara entered into all
these things readily, and was too happy to make herself
useful in hemming the sails.
When the schooner was finished, they built some ways
down by the sea, and invited Sally Kittridge over to see
it launched.
" There ! " he said, when the little thing skimmed down
prosperously into the sea and floated gayly on the waters
" when I 'm a man, I '11 have a big ship ; I '11 build her, and
launch her, and command her, all myself; and I '11 give you
and Sally both a passage in it, and we '11 go off to the East
Indies we '11 sail round the world ! "
None of the three doubted the feasibility of this scheme ;
the little vessel they had just launched seemed the visible
prophecy of such a future ; and how pleasant it would be to
Bail off, with the world all before them, and winds ready to
blow them to any port they might wish !
The three children arranged some bread and cheese and
doughnuts on a rock on the shore, to represent the collation
that was usually spread in those parts at a ship launch
\ud frit quite like grown people acting life beforehand
HIE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND. 187
in that sort of shadowy pantomime which so delights little
people.
Happy, happy days when ships can be made with a
jack-knife and anchors run in pine blocks, and three chil-
dren together can launch a schooner, and the voyage of the
world can all be made in one sunny Saturday afternoon !
" Mother says you are going to college," said Sally to
Moses.
"Not I, indeed," said Moses; "as soon as I get old
enough, I 'm going up to Umbagog among the lumberero,
and I 'm going to cut real, splendid timber for my ship, and
I 'm going to get it on the stocks, and have it built to suit
myself."
" What will you call her ? " said Sally.
" I have n't thought of that," said Moses.
* Call her the Ariel," said Mara.
" What ! after the spirit you were telling us about ? " said
Sally.
" Ariel is a pretty name," said Moses. " But what is that
about a spirit ? "
" Why," said Sally, " Mara read us a story about a ship
that was wrecked, and a spirit called Ariel, that sang a song
about the drowned mariners."
Mara gave a shy, apprehensive glance at Moses, to see if
this allusion called up any painful recollections.
No ; instead of this, he was following the motions of his
little schooner on the waters with the briskest and most un-
concerned air in the world.
" Why did n't you ever show me that story, Mara ? " said
Moses.
Mara colored and hesitated; the real reason she dared
not say.
88 THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLANTX
" Why, she read it to father and me down by the cove,
said Sally, " the afternoon that you came home from thft
Banks ; I remember how we saw you coming in ; don't you,
Mara?"
" What have you done with it ? " said Moses.
" I Ve got it at home," said Mara, in a faint voice ; " I '11
show it tc you, if you want to see it ; there are such beauti-
ful things in it."
That evening, as Moses sat busy, making some alterations
in his darling schooner, Mara produced her treasure, and
read and explained to him the story. He listened with
interest, though without any of the extreme feeling which
Mara had thought possible, and even interrupted her once in
tli3 middle of the celebrated
" Full fathom five thy father lies,"
by asking her to hold up the mast a minute, while he drove
in a peg to make it rake a little more. He was, evidently,
thinking of no drowned father, and dreaming of no possible
sea-caves, but acutely busy in fashioning a present reality ;
nnd yet he liked to hear Mara read, and, when she had done,
told her that he thought it was a pretty, quite a pretty
story, with such a total absence of recognition that the story
had any affinities with his own history, that Mara was quite
astonished.
She lay and thought about him hours, that night, after she
had gone to bed ; and he lay and thought about a new way
of disposing a pulley for raising a sail, which he determined
to try the effect of early in the morning.
What was the absolute truth in regard to the boy ? Had
he forgotten the scenes of his early life, the strange catas-
trophe that cast him into his present circumstances? Tc
this we answei that all the efforts of Nature, during th
THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND. 189
early years of a healthy childhood, are bent on effacing and
obliterating painful impressions, wiping out from each day
the sorrows of the List, as the daily tide effaces the furrows
on the sea-shore.
The child that broods, day after day, over some fixed idea,
is so far forth not a healthy one. It is Nature's way to
make first a healthy animal, and then develop in it gradually
higher faculties. We have seen our two children unequally
matched hitherto, because unequally developed.
There will come a time, by and by in the history of the
boy, when the haze of dreamy curiosity will steam up like-
wise from his mind, and vague yearnings, and questionings,
and longings possess and trouble him, but it must be some
years hence.
Here for a season we leave both our child friends, and
when ten years have passed over their heads, when Moses
shall be twenty, and Mara seventeen, we will return again
to tell their story, for then there will be one to tell. Let us
suppose in the interval, how Moses and Mara read Virgil
with the minister, and how Mara works a shepherdess with
Miss Emily, which astonishes the neighborhood, but how
by herself she learns, after divers trials, to paint partridge,
and checkerberry, and trailing arbutus, how Moses makes
better and better ships, and Sally grows up a handsome girl,
and goes up to Brunswick to the high school, how Cap-
tain Kittridge tells stories, and Miss Roxy and Miss Ruey
nurse and cut and make and mend, for the still rising gen-
eration, how there are quillings and tea-drinkings and
prayer-meetings and Sunday sermons, how Zephaniah
and Mary Pennel grow old gradually and graciously, as the
sun rises and sets, and the eternal silver tide rises and falls
around our little gem, Orr's Island
190 THE PEA.RL OF ORR'S ISLAND
CHAPTER XVIII.
"Now, where's Sally Kittridge ? There's the clock
striking five, and nobody to set the table. Sally, I say!
Sally!"
" Why, Mis' Kittridge," said the Captain, " Sally 's gone
out more 'n an hour ago, and I expect she 's gone down to
Fennel's to see Mara; 'cause, you know, she come home
from Portland to-day."
" Well, if she 's come home, I s'pose I may as well give
up havin' any good of Sally, for that girl fairly bows down
to Mara Lincoln and worships her."
" Well, good reason," said the Captain. " There a'n't a
puttier creature breathin'. I'm a'most a mind to worship
her myself."
" Captain Kittridge, you ought to be ashamed of yourself,
at your age, talking as you do."
" Why, laws, mother, I don't feel my age," said the frisky
Captain, giving a sort of skip. " It don't seem more 'n yes-
lerday since you and I was a-courtin', Polly. What a life
you did lead me in them days ! I think you kep' me on the
anxious seat a pretty middlin' spell."
" I do wish you would n't talk so. You ought to be
ashamed to be triflin' round as you do. Come, now, can't
you jest tramp over to Pennel's and tell Sally I wan)
her?"
" Not I, mother. There a'n't but two gals in two miles
THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND. 191
iquare here, and I a'n't a-goin' to be the feller to shoo 'em
npart. What 's the use of bein* gals, and young, and putty,
if they can't get together and talk about their new gownds
and the fellers ? That ar 's what gals is for."
" I do wish you would n't talk in that way before Sally,
father, for her head is full of all sorts of vanity now ; and a8
to Mara, I never did see a more slack-twisted, flimsy thing
than she 's grown up to be. Now Sally 's learnt to do
something, thanks to me. She can brew, and she can make
bread and cake and pickles, and spin, and cut, and make.
But as to Mara, what does she do ? Why, she paints pic-
tur's. Mis' Fennel was a-showin' on me a blue-jay she
painted, and I was a-thinkin' whether she could brile a bird
fit to be eat if she tried ; and she don't know the price of
nothin'," continued Mrs. Kittridge, with wasteful profusion
of negatives.
" Well," said the Captain, " the Lord makes some things
jist to be looked at. Their work is to be putty, and that
ar 's Mara's sphere. It never seemed to me she was cut out
for hard work ; but she 's got sweet ways and kind words
for everybody, and it 's as good as a psalm to look at her."
" And what sort of a wife '11 she make, Captain Kit-
tridge ? "
" A real sweet, putty one," said the Captain, persistently.
" Well, as to beauty, I 'd rather have our Sally any day,"
said Mrs. Kittridge ; " and she looks strong and hearty, and
seems to be good for use."
" So she is, so she is," said the Captain, with fatherly
pride. " Sally 's the very image of her ma at her age .
black eyes, black hair, tall and trim as a spruce-tree, and
Steps off as if she had springs in her heels. I tell you, tho
feller '11 have to be spry that catches her. There 'a two or
192 THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND.
three of 'em at it, I see ; but Sally won't have nothin' to say
to 'em. I hope she won't, yet awhile."
" Sally is a girl that has as good an eddication as money
can give," said Mrs. Kittridge. " If I 'd a-had her advan-
tages at her age, I should a-been a great deal more 'n I am.
But we ha'n't spared nothin' for Sally ; and when nothin'
would do but Mara must be sent to Miss Plucher's school
orer in Portland, why, I sent Sally too for all she 's our
seventh child, and Fennel has n't but the one."
" You forget Moses," said the Captain.
" Well, he 's settin' up on his own account^ I guess. They
did talk o' giving him college eddication ; but he was so un-
stiddy, there were n't no use in trying. A real wild ass's
colt he was."
" Wai', wal', Moses was in the right on 't. He took the
cross-lot track into life," said the Captain. " Colleges is
well enough for your smooth, straight-grained lumber, for
gen'ral buildin' ; but come to fellers that 's got knots, and
streaks, and cross-grains, like Moses Fennel, and the best
way is to let 'em eddicate 'emselves, as he 's a-doin'. He 's
cut out for the sea, plain enough, and he 'd better be up to
Umbagog, cuttin' timber for his ship, than havin' rows with
'utors, and blowin' the roof off the colleges, as one o' them
tere kind o' fellers is ap' to when he don't have work to use
up his steam. Why, mother, there 's more gas got up in them
Brunswick buildin's, from young men that are spilin' for
hard work, than you could shake a stick at ! But Mis' Fen-
nel told me yesterday she was 'spectin' Moses home to
day."
" Oho ! that 's at the bottom of Sally's bein' up there," saiJ,
THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND. 211
the vision of a pale mother had led the beautiful boy to her
arms, Mara had accepted him as something exclusively her
own, with an intensity of ownership that seemed almost to
merge her personal identity with his. She felt, and saw,
and enjoyed, and suffered in him, and yet was conscious of a
higher nature in herself, by which unwillingly he was often
judged and condemned. His faults affected her with a kind
of guilty pain, as if they were her own ; his sins were borne
bleeding in her heart in silence, and with a jealous watch-
fulness to hide them from every eye but hers. She busied
herself day and night interceding and making excuses for
him, first to her own sensitive moral nature, and then with
everybody around, for with one or another he was coming
into constant collision. She felt at this time a fearful load
of euspicion, which she dared not express to a human being.
Up to this period she had always been the only confidant
of Moses, who poured into her ear without reserve all the
good and the evil of his nature, and who loved her with all
the intensity with which he was capable of loving anything.
Nothing so much shows what a human being is in moral
advancement as the quality of his love. Moses Fennel's
love was egotistic, exacting, tyrannical, and capricious
sometimes venting itself in expressions of a passionate fond-
ness, which had a savor of protecting generosity in them,
and then receding to the icy pole of surly petulance. For
all that, there was no resisting the magnetic attraction with
which in his amiable moods he drew those whom he liked to
himself.
Such people are not very wholesome companions for those
who are sensitively organized and predisposed to self sacrific-
ing love. They keep the heart in a perpetual freeze and
thaw, which, like the American northern climate, is so par-
212 THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND.
iicularly fatal to plants of a delicate habit. They could live
through the hot summer and the cold winter, but they can-
not endure the three or four months when it freezes one day
and melts the next, when all the buds are started out by a
week of genial sunshine, and then frozen for a fortnight.
These fitful persons are of all others most engrossing, be-
cause you are always sure in their good moods that they are
just going to be angels, an expectation which no number
of disappointments seems finally to do away. Mara believed
in Moses' future as she did in her own existence. He was
going to do something great and good, that she was certain
of. He would be a splendid man ! Nobody, she thought,
knew him as she did ; nobody could know how good and
generous he was sometimes, and how frankly he would con-
fess his faults, and what noble aspirations he had !
But there was no concealing from her watchful sense that
Moses was beginning to have secrets from her. He was
cloudy and murky ; and at some of the most harmless in-
quiries in the world, would flash out with a sudden temper,
as if she had touched some sore spot.
Her bedroom was opposite to his ; and she became quite
sure that night after night, while she lay thinking of him,
she heard him steal down out of the house between two and
three o'clock, and not return till a little before day-dawn.
Where he went, and with whom, and what he was doing,
was to her an awful mystery, and it was one she dared
not share with a human being. If she told her kind old
grandfather, she feared that any inquiry from him would
only light as a spark on that inflammable spirit of pride and
insubordination that was rising within him, and bring on an
instantaneous explosion. Mr. Sewell's influence she could
hope litlle more from ; and as to poor Mrs. Fennel, such
THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND. 213
communications would only weary and distress her, without
doing any manner of good. There was, therefore, only that
one unfailing Confidant the Invisible Friend to whom the
solitary child could pour out her heart, and whose inspira-
tions of comfort and guidance never fail to come again in
return to true souls.
One moonlight night, as she lay thus praying, her senses,
sharpened by watching, discerned a sound of steps treading
under her window, and then a low whistle. Her heart beat
violently, and she soon heard the door of Moses' room
open, and then the old chamber-stairs gave forth those incon-
siderate creaks and snaps that garrulous old stairs always
will when anybody is desirous of making them accomplices
in a night-secret. Mara rose, and undrawing her curtain,
saw three men standing before the house, and saw Moses
come out and join them. Quick as thought she threw on
her clothes, and wrapping her little form in a dark cloak,
with a hood, followed them out. She kept at a safe distance
behind them, so far back as just to keep them in sight.
They never looked back, arid seemed to say but little till
they approached the edge of that deep belt of forest which
shrouds so large a portion of the island. She hurried along,
now nearer to them lest they should be lost to view in the
deep shadows, while they went on crackling and plunging
through the dBnse underbrush.
211 THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND.
CHAPTER XXL
IT was well for Mara that so much of her life had bcefl
passed in wild forest rambles. She looked frail as the rays
of moonbeam which slid down the old white-bearded hem-
locks, but her limbs were agile and supple as steel ; and
while the party went crashing on before, she followed with
such lightness that the slight sound of her movements was
entirely lost in the heavy crackling plunges of the party.
Her little heart was beating fast and hard ; but could any
one have seen her face, as it now and then came into a spot
of moonshine, they might have seen it fixed in a deadly ex-
pression of resolve and determination. She was going after
him no matter where ; she was resolved to know who and
what it was that was leading him away, as her heart told
her, to no good. Deeper and deeper into the shadows of
the forest they went, and the child easily kept up with them.
Mara had often rambled for whole solitary days in this
lonely wood, and knew all its rocks and dells the whole
three miles to the long bridge at the other end of the island.
But she had never before seen it under the solemn stillness
of midnight moonlight, which gives to the most familiar ob'
jects such a strange, ghostly charm. After they had gone A
mile into the forest, she could see through the black spruces
silver gleams of the sea, and hear, amid the whirr and swaj
of the pine-tops, the dash of the ever restless tide which
pushed up the long cove. It was at the full, as she coultf
THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND. 215
discern with a rapid glance of her practised eye, expertly
versed in the knowledge of every change of the solitary
nature around.
And now the party began to plunge straight down the
rocky ledge of the Devil's Back, on which they had been
walking hitherto, into the deep ravine where lay the core.
It was a scrambling, precipitous way, over perpendicular
walls of rock, whose crevices furnished anchoring-places for
grand old hemlocks or silver-birches, and whose rough sides,
leathery with black flaps of lichen, were all tangled and in-
terlaced with thick netted bushes.
The men plunged down laughing, shouting, and swearing
at their occasional missteps, and silently as moon-beam or
thistle-down the light-footed shadow went down after them.
She suddenly paused behind a pile of rock, as, through an
opening between two great spruces, the sea gleamed out like
a sheet of looking-glass set in a black frame. And here the
child saw a small vessel swinging at anchor, with the moon-
light full on its slack sails, and she could hear the gentle
gurgle and lick of the green-tongued waves as they dashed
under it toward the rocky shore.
Mara stopped with a beating heart as she saw the com-
pany making for the schooner. The tide is high ; will they
go on board and sail away with him where she cannot fol-
low ? What could she do ? In an ecstasy of fear she
kneeled down and asked God not to let him go, to give
her at least one more chance to save him.
For the pure and pious child had heard enough of the
tfords of these men, as she walked behind them, to fill her
with horror. She had never before heard an oath, but
there came back from these men coarse, brutal tones and
words of blasphemy thaf froze her blood with horror. And
216 THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND.
Moses was going with them ! She felt somehow as if the}
must be a company of fiends bearing him to his ruin.
For some time she kneeled there watching behind the
rock, while Moses and his companions went on board the lit-
tle schooner. She had no feeling of horror at the loneliness
of her own situation, for her solitary life had made every
woodland thing dear and familiar to her. She was cowering
down on a loose, spongy bed of moss, which was all threaded
through and through with the green vines and pale pink
blossoms of the may flower, and she felt its fragrant breath
steaming up in the moist moonlight. As she leaned forward
to look through a rocky crevice, her arms rested on a bed of
that brittle white moss she had often gathered with so much
admiration, and a scarlet rock-columbine, such as she loved
to paint, brushed her cheek, and all these mute fair things
seemed to strive to keep her company in her chill suspense
of watchfulness. Two whippoorwills, from a clump of sil-
very birches, kept calling to each other in melancholy iter-
ation, while she staid there still listening, and knowing by
an occasional sound of laughing, or the explosion of some
oath, that the men were not yet gone. At last they all ap-
peared again, and came to a cleared place among the dry
\eaves, quite near to the rock where she was concealed, and
kindled a fire, which they kept snapping and crackling by a
constant supply of green resinous hemlock branches.
The red flame danced and leaped through the green fuel,
and leaping upward in tongues of flame, cast ruddy bronze
reflections on the old pine-trees with their long branches wav-
ing with beards of white moss, and by the firelight Mara
could see two men in sailor's dress with pistols in their belts,
and the man Atkinson, whom she had recollected as having
seen once or twice at her grandfather's. She remembered
THE PKARL OF ORE'S ISLAND. 217
how she had always shrunk from him with a strange instinc-
tive dislike, half fear, half disgust, when he had addressed
her with that kind of free admiration, which men of his class
often feel themselves at liberty to express to a pretty girl of
her early age. He was a man that might have been hand-
some, had it not been for a certain strange expression of
covert wickedness. It was as if some vile evil spirit, walk-
ing, as the Scriptures say, through dry places, had lighted
oc a comely man's body, in which he had set up house-keep-
ing, making it look like a fair house abused by an unclean
owner.
As Mara watched his demeanor with Moses, she could
think only of a loathsome black snake that she had once
seen in those solitary rocks ; she felt as if his handsome
but evil eye were charming him with an evil charm to his
destruction.
" Well, Mo, my boy," she heard him say, slapping
Moses on the shoulder, " this is something like. We '11
have a ' tempus,' as the college fellows say, put down the
clams to roast, and I '11 mix the punch," he said, setting over
the fire a tea-kettle which they brought from the ship.
After their preparations were finished, all sat down to eat
and drink. Mara listened with anxiety and horror to a con-
versation such as she never heard or conceived before. It
is not often that women hear men talk in the undisguised
manner which they use among themselves ; but the conver-
sation of men of unprincipled lives, and low, brutal habits,
unchecked by the presence of respectable female society,
might well convey to the horror-struck child a feeling as if
she were listening at the mouth of hell. Almost every word
was preceded or emphasized by an oath ; and what struck
with a death chill to her heart was, that Moses swore too.
10
218 THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND.
and seemed to show that desperate anxiety to seem an fail
in the language of wickedness, which boys often do at that
age, when they fancy that to be ignorant of vice is a
mark of disgraceful greenness. Moses evidently was bent
on showing that he was not green, ignorant of the pure
ear to which every such word came like the blast of death.
lie drank a great deal, too, and the mirth among them
giew furious and terrific. Mara, horrified and shocked a&
she was, did not, however, lose that intense and alert pres-
ence of mil d, natural to persons in whom there is moral
strength, however delicate be their physical frame. She
felt at once that these men were playing upon Moses ; that
they had an object in view ; that they were flattering and
cajoling him, and leading him to drink, that they might work
out some fiendish purpose of their own. The man called
Atkinson related story after story of wild adventure, in
which sudden fortunes had been made by men who, he said,
were not afraid to take " the short cut across lots." He told
of piratical adventures in the West Indies, of the fun of
chasing and overhauling ships, and gave dazzling ac-
counts of the treasures found on board. It was observable
that all these stories were told on the line between joke and
earnest, as frolics, as specimens of good fun, and seeing
life, etc.
At last came a suggestion, What if they should start off
together some fine day "just for a spree," and try a cruise
in the West Indies, to see what they could pick up ? They
had arms, and a gang of fine, whole-souled fellows. Moses
had been tied to Ma'am Fennel's apron-string long enough.
And " hark ye," said one of them, " Moses, they say old
fennel has lots of dollars in that old sea-chest of his'n. L
would be a kindc^ss to him to invest them for him in at
Adventure."
THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND. 210
answered with a streak of the boy innocence which
often remains under the tramping of evil men, like ribbons
of green turf in the middle of roads :
" You don't know Father Fennel, why, he 'd no more
come into it than "
A perfect roar of laughter cut short this declaration, and
Atkinson, slapping Moses on the back, said,
" By , Mo ! you are the jolliest green dog ! I shall
die a-laughing of your innocence some day. Why, my boy,
can't you see ? Fennel's money can be invested without
asking him."
" Why, he keeps it locked," said Moses.
" And supposing you pick the lock ? "
" Not T, indeed," said Moses, making a sudden movement
to rise.
Mara almost screamed in her ecstasy, but she had sense
enough to hold her breath.
" Ho ! see him now," said Atkinson, lying back, and hold-
ing his sides while he laughed, and rolled over ; " you can
get off anything on that muff, any hoax in the world,
he 's so soft ! Come, come, my dear boy, sit down. I was
only seeing how wide I could make you open those great
black eyes of your'n, that 's all."
" You 'd better take care how you joke with me," said
Moses, with that look of gloomy determination which Mara
was quite familiar with of old. It was the rallying effort of
ft boy who had abandoned the first outworks of virtue to
make a stand for the citadel. And Atkinson, like a prudent
besieger after a repulse, returned to lie on his arras.
He began talking volubly on other subjects, telling stories,
\nd singing songs, and pressing Moses to drink.
Mara was comforted to see that he declined drinking,
220 THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND.
that he looked gloomy and thoughtful, in spite of the jokes
of his companions ; but she trembled to see, by the follow
ing conversation, how Atkinson was skilfully and prudently
making apparent to Moses the extent to which he had him
in his power. He seemed to Mara like an ugly spider skil-
fully weaving his web around a fly. She felt cold and faint;
bat within her there was a heroic strength.
She was not going to faint ; she would make herself bear
op. She was going to do something to get Moses out of
this snare, but what ? At last they rose.
" It is past three o'clock," she heard one of them say.
" I say, Mo," said Atkinson, " you must make tracks for
home, or you won't be in bed when Mother Pennel calls
you."
The men all laughed at this joke as they turned to go on
board the schooner.
When they were gone, Moses threw himself down and hvd
his face in his hands. He knew not what pitying little face
was looking down upon him from the hemlock shadows,
what brave little heart was determined to save him. He
was in one of those great crises of agony that boys pass
through when they first awake from the fun and frolic of
unlawful enterprises to find themselves sold under sin, and
ieel the terrible logic of evil which constrains them to pass
from the less to greater crime. He felt that he was in the
power of bad, unprincipled, heartless men, who, if he refused
to do their bidding, had the power to expose him. All he
bad been doing would come out. His kind old foster-parents
A'ould know it. Mara would know it. Mr. Sewell and Misg
Emily would know the secrets of his life that past month
He felt as if they were all looking at him now. He had dis
graced himself, had sunk below his education, had been
THE PEAjSL OF ORR S ISLANT). 221
false to all his better knowledge and the past expectations of
his friends, living a mean, miserable, dishonorable life,
and now the ground was fast sliding from under him, and the
next plunge might be down a precipice from which there
would be no return. What he had done up to this hour had
been done in the roystering, inconsiderate garnesomeness of
boyhood. It had been represented to himself only as " sow-
ing wild oats," u having steep times," " seeing a little of life,"
and so on ; but this night he had had propositions of piracy
and robbery made to him, and he had not dared to knock
down the man that made them, had not dared at once to
break away from his company. He must meet him again,
must go on with him, or he groaned in agony at the thought.
It was a strong indication of that repressed, considerate
habit of mind which love had wrought in the child, that
when Mara heard the boy's sobs rising in the stillness, she
did not, as she wished to, rush out and throw her arms
around his neck and try to comfort him.
But she felt instinctively that she must not do this. She
must not let him know that she had discovered his secret by
stealing after him thus in the night shadows. She knew how
nervously he had resented even the compassionate glances
she had cast upon him in his restless, turbid intervals during
the past few weeks, and the fierceness with which he had
replied to a few timid inquiries. No, though her heart
was breaking for him, it was a shrewd, wise little heart, and
resolved not to spoil all by yielding to its first untaught im-
pulses. She repressed herself as the mother does who re-
frains from crying out when she sees her unconscious little
one on the verge of a precipice.
When Moses rose and moodily began walking homeward,
the follovred at a disfance. She could now keep farther off,
222 THE PEARL OF ORE'S ISLAXD.
for she knew the way through every part of the forest, ami
she only wanted to keep within sound of his footsteps tt
make sure that he was going home.
When he emerged from the forest into the open moonlight,
she sat down in its shadows and watched him as he walked
over the open distance between her and the house. He went
in ; and then she waited a little longer for him to be quite
retired. She thought he would throw himself on the bed,
and then she could steal in after him. So she sat there quite
in the shadows.
The grand full moon was riding high and calm in the pur-
ple sky, and Harpswell Bay on the one hand, and the wide,
open ocean on the other, lay all in a silver shimmer of light.
There was not a soun/ J . save the plash of the tide, now be-
ginning to go out, and rolling and rattling the pebbles up
and down as it came and went, and once in a while the dis-
tant, mournful intoning of the whippoorwill. There were
silent, lonely ships, sailing slowly to and fro far out to sea,
turning their fair wings now into bright light and now into
shadow, as they moved over the glassy stillness. Mara
could see all the hoises on Harpswell Neck and the white
church as clear as in the daylight. It seemed to her some
strange, unearthly dream.
As she sat there she thought over her whole little life, all
full of one thought, one purpose, one love, one prayer, for
this being so strangely given to her out of that silent sea,
which lay so like a still eternity around her, and she re-
volved again what meant the vision of her childhood. Did
it not mean that she was to watch over him and save him
from some dreadful danger ? That poor mother was lying
now silent and peaceful under the turf in the little graveyard
not far off, and she must care for her boy.
THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND. 223
A strong motherly feeling swelled out the girl's heart,
ihe felt that she must, she would, somehow save that treasure
which had so mysteriously been committed to her.
So, when she thought she had given time enough for
Moses to be quietly asleep in his room, she arose and
ran with quick footsteps across the moonlit plain to the
house.
The front-door was standing wide open, as was always tho
innocent fashion in these regions, with a half-angle of moon-
light and shadow lying within its dusky depth?. Mara
listened a moment, no sound: he had gone to bed thea,
" Poor boy," she said, " I hope he is asleep ; how he must
feel ! poor fellow. It 's all the fault of those dreadful men ! "
said the little dark shadow to herself, as she stole up the
stairs past his room as guiltily as if she were the sinner.
Once the stairs creaked, and her heart was in her mouth,
but she gained her room and shut and bolted the door.
She kneeled down by her little white bed, and thanked
God that she had come in safe, and then prayed him to
teach her what to do next.
She felt chilly and shivering, and crept into bed, and lay
ivith her great soft brown eyes wide open, intently thinking
what she should do.
Should she tell her grandfather ? Something instinctively
said No ; that the first word from him which showed Moses
he was detected, would at once send him off with those
wicked men. " He would never, never bear to have this
known," she said. Mr. Sewell ? ah, that was worse,
She herself shrank from letting him know what Moses had
been doing ; she could not bear to lower him so much in hia
eyes. He could not make allowances, she thought. He is
good to be sure but he is so old and grave, and doesn't
224 THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND.
know how much Moses has been tempted by these dreadful
men ; and then perhaps he would tell Miss Emily, and they
never would want Moses to come there any more.
" What shall I do ? " she said to herself. " I must gel
somebody to help me or tell me what to do. I can't tell
grandmamma ; it would only make her ill, and she would n't
know what to do any more than I. Ah, I know what I will
do, I '11 tell Captain Kittridge ; he was always so kind to
me ; and he has been to sea and seen all sorts of men, and
Moses won't care so much perhaps to have him know, be-
cause the Captain is such a funny man, and don't take
everything so seriously. Yes, that's it. I'll go right
down to the cove in the morning. God will bring me
through, I know He will ; " and the little weary head fell
back on the pillow asleep. And as she slept, a smile set-
tled over her face, perhaps a reflection from the face of her
good angel, who always beholdeth the face of our Father in
Heaven.
THE PEARL OF ORK'S ISLAND. 225
CHAPTER XXII.
MARA was so wearied with her night walk and the agita-
tion she had been through, that once asleep she slept long
after the early breakfast hour of the family. She was sur-
prised on awaking to hear the slow old clock down-stairs
striking eight.
She hastily jumped up and looked around with a confused
wonder, and then slowly the events of the past night came
back upon her like a remembered dream. She dressed
herself quickly, and went down to find the breakfast things
all washed and put away, and Mrs. Fennel spinning.
" "Why, dear heart," said the old lady, " how came you to
sleep so ? I spoke to you twice, but I could not make you
hear."
" Has Moses been down, grandma ? " said Mara, intent on
the sole thought in her heart.
" Why, yes, dear, long ago, and cross enough he was ;
that boy does get to be a trial, but come, dear, I 've
taved some hot cakes for you, sit down now and eat
your breakfast."
Mara made a feint of eating what her grandmother with
fond officiousness would put before her, and then rising up
die put on her sun-bonnet and started down toward the cove
to find her old friend.
The queer, dry, lean old Captain had been to her all her
life like a faithful kobold or brownie, an unquestioning sei>
10*
226 THE PEARL OF ORE'S ISLAND.
rant of all her gentle biddings. She dared tell him any
thing without diffidence or shamefacedness ; and she felt that
in this trial of her life he might have in his sea-receptacle
some odd old amulet or spell that should be of power to help
her. Instinctively she avoided the house, lest Sally should
see and fl} out and seize her. She took a narrow path
through the cedars down to the little boat cove where the
old Captain worked so merrily ten years ago, in the begin
ning of our story, and where she found him now with his
coat off busily planing a board.
" Wai', now, if this 'ere don't beat all ! " he said, look-
ing up and seeing her ; " why, you 're looking after Sally, I
s'pose ? She 's up to the house."
" No, Captain Kittridge, I 'm come to see you."
' You be ? " said the Captain, " I swow ! if I a'n't a lucky
feller. But what 's the matter ? " he said, suddenly observ-
ing her pale face, and the tears in her eyes. " Ha' n't
nothin' bad happened, hes there ? "
" Oh ! Captain Kittridge, something dreadful ; and nobody
but you can help me."
" Want to know now ? " said the Captain, with a grave
face. " Well, come here now and sit down, and tell me all
about it. Don t you cry, there 's a good girl ! Don't now."
Mara began her story, and went through with it in a
rapid and agitated manner ; and the good Captain listened
in a fidgety state of interest, occasionally relieving his mind
by interjecting " Do tell now ! " "I swan, if that ar
a'n't too bad."
"That ar's rediculous conduct in Atkinson. He ought to
be talked to," said the Captain when she had finished, and
then he whistled and put a shaving in his mouth, which he
ehewed reflectively.
THE PEARL OF ORE'S ISLAND. 227
** Don't you be a mite worried, Mara," he said. " You
iid a, great deal better to co|fte to me than to go to Mr
Sewell or your grand'ther either ; 'cause you see these 'ere
wild chaps they '11 take things from me they would n't from
a church-member or a minister. Folks must n't pull 'em up
with too short a rein, they must kind o' flatter 'em off.
But that ar Atkinson 's too rediculous for anything ; and if
he don't mind, I '11 serve him out. I know a thing or two
about him that I shall shake over his head if he don't be-
have. Now I don't think so much of smugglin* as some
folks," said the Captain, lowering his voice to a confidential
tone. " I reely don't, now ; but come to goin' off piratin',
and tryin' to put a young boy up to robbin' his best
friends, why, there a'n't no kind o' sense in that. It 'a
p'ison mean of Atkinson. I shall tell him so, and I shall
talk to Moses."
" Oh ! I 'm afraid to have you," said Mara, apprehensively.
" Why, chickabiddy," said the old Captain, " you don't
understand me. I a'n't goin' at him with no sermons, I
shall jest talk to him this way : Look here now, Moses, I
shall say, there 's Badger's ship goin' to sail in a fortnight
for China, and they want likely fellers aboard, and I 've got
a hundred dollars that I 'd like to send on a venture ; if
you '11 take it and go, why, we '11 share the profits. I shall
talk like that, you know. Mebbe I sha' n't let him know
what I know, and mebbe I shall ; jest tip him a wink, you
know ; it depends on circumstances. But bless you, child,
these 'ere fellers a'n't none of 'em 'fraid o' me, you see,
'cause they know I know the ropes."
"And can you make that horrid man let him alone?"
Baid Mara, fearfully.
" Calculate I can. 'Spect if I s to tell Atkinson a fen
228 THE PEARL OF ORE'S ISLAND.
things I knotf , he 'd be for bein' scase in our parts. Now,
you see, I ha' n't minded doin' a small bit o' trade now and
then with them ar fellers myself; but this 'ere," said the
Captain, stopping and looking extremely disgusted, " why,
it 's contemptible, it 's rediculous !""
" Do you think I 'd better tell grandpapa ? " said Mara.
" Don't worry your little head. I '11 step up and have a
talk with Fennel this evening. He knows as well as I that
there is times when chaps must be seen to, and no remarks
made. Fennel knows that ar. Why, now, Mis' Kittridge
thinks our boys turned out so well all along of her bringin'
up, and I let her think so ; keeps her sort o' in spirits, you
see. But Lord bless ye, child, there 's been times with
Job, and Sam, and Fass, and Dass, and Dile, and all on 'era
finally, when, if I had n't jest pulled a rope here and turned
a screw there, and said nothin' to nobody, they 'd a-been all
gone to smash. I never told Mis' Kittridge none o' their
didos ; bless you, 't would n't been o' no use. I never told
them, neither ; but I jest kind o' worked 'em off, you know ;
and they 's all putty 'spectable men now, as men go, you
know ; not like Parson Sewell, but good, honest mates and
ship-masters, kind o' middlin' people, you know. It takes
a good many o' sich to make up a world, d' ye see."
" But oh, Captain Kittridge, did any of them use to
twear?" said Mara, in a faltering voice.
K Wai', they did consid'able," said the Captain ; then
Beeing the trembling of Mara's lip, he added,
" Ef you could a-found this 'ere out any other way, it 's
most a pity you 'd a-heard him ; 'cause he would n't never
have let out afore you. It don't do for gals to hear the
fellers talk when they 's alone, 'cause fellers, wal', you
gee, fellers will be fellers, partic'larly when they Y young
THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND. 229
Some on em, they never gits over it all tneir lives
finally."
" But oh ! Captain Kittridge, that talk last night was so
dreadfully wicked ! and Moses ! oh, it was dreadful to
hear him!"
" Wai', yes, it was," said the Captain, consolingly ; " but
don't you cry and don't you break your little heart. I ex*
pect lie '11 come all right, and jine the church one of these
days ; 'cause there 's old Fennel, he prays, fact now, I
think there 's consicTable in some people's prayers, and he '3
one of the sort. And you pray, too ; and I 'm quite sure
the good Lord must hear you. I declare sometimes I wish
you 'd jest say a good word to Him for me ; I should like
to get the hang o' things a little better than I do somehow,
I reely should. I 've gi'n up swearing years ago. Mis'
Kittridge, she broke me o' that, and now I don't never go
further than ' I vum' or
unconscious looks, and walk, singing and scattering flowers,
over abysses of fear, while their hearts are dying within
them.
She talked more volubly than was her wont with Mrs.
Fennel, and with her old grandfather ; she laughed and
seemed in more than usual spirits, and only once did sho
look up and catch the gloomy eye of Moses. It had that
murky, troubled look that one may see in the eye of a boy
when those evil waters which cast up mire and dirt have
once been stirred in his soul. They fell under her clear
glance, and he made a rapid, impatient movement, as if
it hurt him to be looked at. The evil spirit in boy or man
cannot bear the " touch of celestial temper ; " and the sen-
sitiveness to eyebeams is one of the earliest signs of con-
scious, inward guilt.
Mara was relieved, as he ilung out of the house after din-
ner, to see the long, dry figure of Captain Kittridge coming
up and seizing Moses by the button.
From the window she saw the Captain assuming a con-
fidential air with him ; and when they had talked together
a few moments, she saw Moses going with great readiness
after him down the road to his house.
In less than a fortnight, it was settled Moses was to sail
fjr China, and Mara was deep in the preparations for his
outfit. Once she would have felt this departure as the most
dreadful trial of her life. Now it seemed to her a deliver-
ance for him, and she worked with a cheerful alacrity, which
seemed to Moses was more than was proper, considering ht
was going away.
For Moses, like many others of his sex, boy or man, had
quietly settled in his own mind that the whole love of
THE PEARL OF ORR S ISLAND. 231
Mara's heart, was to be his, to have and to hold, to use and
lo draw on, when and as he liked. He reckoned on it as a
sort of inexhaustible, uncounted treasure that was his own
peculiar right and property, and therefore he felt abused at
what he supposed was a disclosure of some deficiency on her
part.
" You seem to be very glad to be rid of me," he said to
her in a bitter tone one day, as she was earnestly busy in
her preparations.
Now the fact was, that Moses had been assiduously mak-
ing himself disagreeable to Mara for the fortnight past, by
all sorts of unkind sayings and doings ; and he knew it too ;
yet he felt a right to feel very much abused at the thought
that she could possibly want him to be going.
If she had been utterly desolate about it, and torn her
nair and sobbed and wailed, he would have asked what she
c.ould be crying about, and begged not to be bored with
scenes; but as it was, this cheerful composure was quite
unfeeling.
Now pray don't suppose Moses to be a monster of an un-
common species. We take him to be an average specimen
of a boy of a certain kind of temperament in the transition
period of life. Everything is chaos within the flesh
lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh,
and " light and darkness, and mind and dust, and passion
and pure thoughts, mingle and contend," without end or
order.
He wondered at himself sometimes that he could say
such cruel things as he did to his faithful little friend
to one whom, after all, he did love and trust before all other
human beings.
There is no saying why it is that a man or a boy, not
232 THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND.
radically destitute of generous comprehensions, will often
cruelly torture and tyrannize over a woman whom he
both loves and reveres who stands in his soul in his
best hours as the very impersonation of all that is good
and beautiful.
It is as if some evil spirit at times possessed him, and
compelled him to utter words which were felt at the mo-
ment to be mean and hateful.
Moses often wondered at himself, as he lay awake nights,
how he could have said and done the things he had, and felt
miserably resolved to make it up somehow before he went
away but he did not.
He could not say, " Mara, I have done wrong," though he
every day meant to do it, and sometimes sat an hour in her
presence, feeling murky and stony, as if possessed by a
dumb spirit then he would get up and fling stormily
out of the house.
Poor Mara wondered if he really would go without one
kind word. She thought of all the years they had been to-
gether, and how he had been her only thought and love.
What had become of her brother ? the Moses that once
she used to know frank, careless, not ill tempered, and
who sometimes seemed to love her and think she was the
best little girl in the world ? Where was he gone to this
friend and brother of her childhood, and would he never
come back ?
At last came the evening before his parting ; the sea-chest
was all mad3 up and packed ; and Mara's fingers had been
busy with everything, from more substantial garments down
to all those little comforts and nameless conveniences that
anly a woman knows how to improvise. Mara thought cer
tainly she should get a few kind words as Mose? looked i*
THE PEARL OF ORE'S ISLAND. 233
over. But he only said, " All right ; " and then added that
" there was a button off one of the shirts." Mara's busy
fingers quickly replaced it, and Moses was annoyed at the
tear that fell on the button. What was she crying for now ?
He knew very well, but he felt stubborn and cruel. After-
wards he lay awake many a night in his berth, and acted
this last scene over differently. He took Mara in his aims
and kissed her ; he told her she was his best friend, his good
angel, and that he was not worthy to kiss the hem of her
garment ; but the next day, when he thought of writing a
letter to her, he did n't, and the good mood passed away.
Boys do not acquire an ease of expression in letter-writ-
ing as early as girls, and a voyage to China furnished oppor-
tunities few and far between of sending letters.
Now and then, through some sailing ship, came missives
which seemed to Mara altogether colder and more unsatis-
factory than they would have done could she have appre-
ciated the difference between a boy and a girl in power of
epistolary expression ; for the power of really representing
one's heart on paper, which is one of the first spring flowers
of early womanhood, is the latest blossom on the slow grow-
ing tree of manhood. To do Moses justice, these seeming
cold letters were often written with a choking lump in his
throat, caused by thinking over his many sinj against his
little good angel; but then that past account was so long,
and had so much that it pained him to think of, that he
dashed it all off in the shortest fashion, and said to himself,
" One of these days when I see her I '11 make it all up. 3 *
No man especially one that is living a rough, busy, out-
of-doors life can form the slightest conception of thai
veiled and secluded life which exists in the heart of a sensi-
tive woman, whose sphere is narrow, whose external diver
234 THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND.
sions are few, and whose mind, therefore, acts by a continual
introversion upon itself. They know nothing how theif
careless words and actions are pondered and turned again in
weary, quiet hours of fruitless questioning. What did he
mean by this ? and what did he intend by that ? while he,
the careless buffalo, meant nothing, or has forgotten what it
was, if he did.
Man's utter ignorance of woman's nature is a cause of a
great deal of unsuspected cruelty which he practises toward
her.
Mara found one or two opportunities of writing to Moses ;
but her letters were timid and constrained by a sort of frosty,
discouraged sense of loneliness ; and Moses, though he knew
he had no earthly right to expect this to be otherwise, took
upon him to feel as an abused individual, whom nobody
loved whose way in the world was destined to be lonely
and desolate. So when, at the end of three years, he arrived
suddenly at Brunswick in the beginning of winter, and came
all burning with impatience to the home at Orr's Island, and
found that Mara had gone to Boston on a visit, he resented
it as a personal slight.
He might have inquired why she should expect him, and
whether her whole life was to be spent in looking out of the
window to watch for him. He might have remembered that
he had warned her of his approach by no letter. But no.
" Mara did n't care for him she had forgotten all about
him she was having a good time in Boston, just as likely
as not with some train of admirers, and he had been tossing
on the stormy ocean, and she had thought nothing of it."
How many things he had meant to say ! He had never
felt so good and so affectionate. He would have confessed
all the sins of his life to her, and asked her pardon and
she was n't there !
THE PEARL OF ORE'S ISLAND. 235
Mrs. Fennel suggested that he might go to Boston after
her.
No, he was not going to do that. He would not intrude
on her pleasures with the memory of a rough, hard-working
Bailor. He was alone in the world, and had his o\vn way to
make, and so best go at once up among lumbermen, and cut
the timber for the ship that was to carry Caesar and his
fortunes.
When Mara was informed by a letter from Mrs. Pennel,
expressed in the few brief words in which that good woman
generally embodied her epistolary communications, that Mo-
ses had been at home, and gone to Umbagog without seeing
her, she felt at her heart only a little closer stricture of a
cold quiet pain, which had become a habit of her inner life.
" He did not love her he was cold and selfish," said
the inner voice. And faintly she pleaded, in answer, " He
is a man he has seen the world and has so much to do
and think of, no wonder."
In fact, during the last three years that had parted them,
the great change of life had been consummated in both.
They had parted boy and girl ; they would meet man and
woman. The time of this meeting had been announced.
And all this is the history of that sigh so very quiet
that Sally Kittridge never checked the rattling flo tr of hei
ronversation to observe it.
236 THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND
CHAPTER XXIII.
WE have in the last three chapters brought up the history
of our characters to the time when our story opens, when
Mara and Sally Kittridge were discussing the expected re-
turn of Moses.
Sally was persuaded by Mara to stay and spend the night
with her, and did so without much fear of what her mother
would say when she returned ; for though Mrs. Kittridge
still made bustling demonstrations of authority, it was quite
evident to every one that the handsome grown-up girl had
got the sceptre into her own hands, and was reigning in the
full confidence of being, in one way or another, able to bring
her mother into all her views.
So Sally stayed to have one of those long night-talks in
which girls delight, in the course of which all sorts of inti-
macies and confidences, that shun the daylight, open like the
uight-blooming cereus in strange successions.
One often wonders by daylight at the things one say?
very naturally in the dark.
So the two girls talked about Moses, and Sally dilated
jpon his handsome, manly air the one Sunday that he had
appeared in Harpswell meeting-house.
" He did n't know me at all, if you '11 believe it," said
Sally. " I was standing with father when he came out, and
he shook hands with him, and looked at me as if I M been
an entire stranger."
THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND. 237
"I'm not in the least surprised," said Mara; "you're
grown so and altered."
" Well, now, you 'd hardly know him, Mara," said Sally.
" He is a man a real man ; everything about him is dif-
ferent ; he holds up his head in such a proud way. Well,
he always did that when he was a boy ; but when he speaks,
he has such a deep voice ! How boys do alter in a year or
" Do you think 1 have altered much, Sally ? " said Mara ;
u at least, do you think Tie would think so ? "
" Why, Mara, you and I have been together so much, I
can't tell. We don't notice what goes on before us every
day. I really should like to see what Moses Pennel will
think when he sees you. At any rate, he can't order you
about with such a grand air as he used to when you were
younger."
" I think sometimes he has quite forgotten about me," said
Mara.
" Well, if I were you, I should put him in mind of my-
self by one or two little ways," said Sally. " I 'd plague
him and tease him. I 'd lead him such a life that he could
n't forget me, that 's what I would."
" I don't doubt you would, Sally ; and he might like you
all the better for it. But you know that sort of thing is n't
my way. People must act in character."
" Do you know, Mara," said Sally, " I always thought
Moses was hateful in his treatment of you ? Now I 'd no
more marry that fellow than I 'd walk into the fire ; but it
would be a just punishment for his sins to hhve to marry
me ! Would n't I serve him out, though ! "
With which threat of vengeance on her mind Sally Kit-
tridge fell asleep, while Mara lay awake pondering, won
238 THE PEARL OF ORE'S ISLAND.
tiering if Moses would come to-morrow, and what he would
be like if he did come.
The next morning, as the two girls were wiping breakfast
dishes in a room adjoining the kitchen, a step was heard on
the kitchen-floor, and the first that Mara knew she found
herself lifted from the floor in the arms of a tall dark-eyed
young man, who was kissing her just as if he had a right to.
She knew it must be Moses, but it seemed strange as a
dream, for all she had tried to imagine it beforehand.
Her kissed her over and over, and then holding her off at
arm's length, said, "Why, Mara, you have grown to be a
beauty ! "
" And what was she, I 'd like to know, when you went
away, Mr. Moses ? " said Sally, who could not long keep out
of a conversation. " She was handsome when you were
only a great ugly boy."
" Thank you, Miss Sally ! " said Moses, making a profound
b>w.
" Thank me for what ? * said Sally, with a toss.
" For your intimation that I am a handsome young man
now," said Moses, sitting with his arm around Mara, and her
Land in his.
And in truth he was as handsome now for a man as he
was in the promise of his early childhood.
All the oafishness and surly awkwardness of the half-boy
fieriod was gone. His great black eyes were clear and con-
fident : his dark hair clustering in short curls round his well-
shaped head ; his black lashes, and fine form, and a certain
confident ease of manner, set him off to the greatest advan-
tage.
Mara felt a peculiar dreamy sense of strangeness at this
brother who was not a brother, this Moses so different
THE PEARL OF ORE'S ISLAND. 239
from the one she had known. The very tone of his voice,
which when he left had the uncertain cracked notes which
indicate the unformed man, were now mellowed and settled.
Mara regarded him shyly as he talked, blushed uneasily,
and drew away from his arm around her, as if this hand-
some, self-confident young man were being too familiar. la
fact, she made apology to go out into the other room to call
Mrs. Fennel.
Moses looked after her as she went with admiration.
" What a little woman she has grown ! " he said, naively.
" And what did you expect she would grow ? " said Sally.
" You did n't expect to find her a girl in short clothes, did
you ? "
" Not exactly, Miss Sally," said Moses, turning his atten-
tion to her ; " and some other people are changed too."
" Like enough," said Sally, carelessly. " I should think
BO, since somebody never spoke a word to one the Sunday
he was at meeting."
" Oh, you remember that, do you ? On my word, Sal-
]y-
" Miss Kittridge, if you please, sir," said Sally, turning
round with the air of an empress.
" Well, then, Miss Kittridge," said Moses, making a bow ;
u now let me finish my sentence. I never dreamed who you
were."
" Complimentary," said Sally, pouting.
" Well, hear me through," said Moses ; " you tad grown
BO handsome, Miss Kittridge."
" Oh ! that indeed ! I suppose you mean to say I was a
fright when you left ? "
" Not at all not af all," said Moses ; " but handsome
linings may grow handsomer, you know."
MO THE PEARL OF ORE'S ISLAND.
" I don t like flattery," said Sally.
" I never flatter, Miss Kittridge," said Moses.
Our young gentleman and young lady of Orr's Island
went through with this customary little lie of civilized so*
ciety with as much gravity as if they were practising in the
court of Versailles, she looking out from the corner of
her eye to watch the effect of her words, and he laying his
hand on his heart in the most edifying gravity. They per-
fectly understood one another.
But, says the reader, seems to me Sally Kittridge does
all the talking ! So she does, so she always will, for it
is her nature to be bright, noisy, and restless ; and one of
these girls always overcrows a timid and thoughtful one,
and makes her, for the time, seem dim and faded, as does
rose color when put beside scarlet.
Sally was a born coquette. It was as natural for her to
want to flirt with every man she saw, as for a kitten to
scamper after a pin-ball. Does the kitten care a fig for the
pin-ball, or the dry leaves, which she whisks, and frisks, and
boxes, and pats, and races round and round after? No; it's
nothing but kittenhood ; every hair of her fur is alive with
it. Her sleepy green eyes, when she pretends to be dozing,
are full of it ; and though she looks wise a moment, and
$ecms resolved to be a discreet young cat, let but a leaf
sway off" she goes again, with a frisk and a rap. So,
though Sally had scolded and flounced about Moses* inat-
tention to Mara in advance, she contrived even in this first
interview to keep him talking with nobody but herself;
not because she wanted to draw him from Mara, or meant
to ; not because she cared a pin for him ; but because
was her nature as a frisky young cat.
And Moses let himself be drawn, between bantering and
THE PEARL OF ORE'S ISLAND. 241
contradicting, and jest and earnest, at some moments almost
to forget that Mara was in the room.
She took her sewing and sat with a pleased smile, some-
times breaking into the lively flow of conversation, or
eagerly appealed to by both parties to settle some rising
quarrel.
On.ie, as they were talking, Moses looked up and saw
Hara's head, as a stray sunbeam falling upon the golden hair
seemed to make a halo around her face.
Her large eyes were fixed upon him with an expression
BO intense and penetrative, that he felt a sort of wincing un-
easiness.
" What makes you look at me so, Mara ? " he said, sud-
denly.
A bright flush came in her cheek as she answered, "I
did n't know I was looking. It all seems so strange to me.
I km trying to make out who and what you are."
"It's not best to look too deep," Moses said, laughing,
but with a slight shade of uneasiness.
When Sally, late in the afternoon, declared that she must
go home, she could n't stay another minute, Moses rose to go
with her.
" What are you getting up for ? " she said to Moses, as he
took his hat.
" To go home with you, to be sure."
" Nobody asked you to," said Sally.
" I 'm accustomed to asking myself," said Moses.
" Well, I suppose I must have you . along," said Sally.
v Father will be glad to see you, of course."
" You '11 be back to tea, Moses," said Mara, " will
you not? Grandfather will be home, and want to see
11
242 THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND.
" Oh, I shall be right back," said Moses, " I have a little
business to settle with Captain Kittridge."
But Moses, however, did stay at tea with Mrs. Kittridge,
who looked graciously at him through the bows of her black
horn spectacles, having heard her liege lord observe that
Moses was a smart chap, and had done pretty well ill a
money way.
How came he to stay ? Sally told him every other min-
ute to go ; and then when he had got fairly out of the door,
called him back to tell him that there was something she had
heard about him.
And Moses of course came back ; wanted to know what il
was; and couldn't be told, it was a secret; and then he
would be ordered off, and reminded that he promised to go
straight home ; and then when he got a little farther off she
called after him a second time, to tell him that he would be
very much surprised if he knew how she found it out, etc.,
etc., till at last tea being ready, there was no reason why
he should n't have a cup. And so it was sober moonrise
before Moses found himself going home.
" Hang that girl ! " he said to himself; " don't she know
what she's about, though?"
There our hero was mistaken. Sally never did know
what she was about, had no plan or purpose more than a
blackbird ; and when Moses was gone laughed to think how
many times she had made him come back.
" Now, confound it all," said Moses, " I care more for our
Httlo Mara than a dozen of her ; and what have I been fool-
ing all this time for? now Mara will think I don't love
her."
And, in fact, our young gentleman rather set his heart OD
the sensation he was going to make when he got home.
THE PEARL OF ORE'S ISLAND. 248
It is flattering, after all, to feel one's power over a suscep-
tible nature; and Moses, remembering how entirely and
devotedly Mara had loved him all through childhood, never
doubted but he was the sole possessor of uncounted treasure
in her heart, which he could develop at his leisure and use
as he pleased.
He did not calculate for one force which had grown up in
the mean while between them, and that was the power of
womanhood. He did not know the intensity of that kind
of pride, which is the very life of the female nature, and
which is most vivid and vigorous in the most timid and
retiring.
Our little Mara was tender, self-devoting, humble, and
religious, but she was woman after all to the tips of her
fingers, quick to feel slights, and determined, with the
intensest determination, that no man should wrest from her
one of those few humble rights and privileges, which Nature
allows to woman.
Something swelled and trembled in her when she felt the
confident pressure of that bold arm around her waist, like
the instinct of a wild bird to fly. Something in the deep,
manly voice, the determined, self-confident air, aroused a
vague feeling of defiance and resistance in her which she
could scarcely explain to herself. Was he to assume a right
to her in this way without even asking ? When he did not
some to tea nor long after, and Mrs. Pennel and her grand-
lather wondered, she laughed, and said gayly,
" Oh, he knows he '11 have time enough to see me. Sally
seems more like a stranger."
But when Moses came home after moonrise, determined
to 150 and console Mara for his absence, he was surprised to
bear the sound of a rapid and pleasant conversation, in
244 THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND.
which a masculine and feminine voice were intermingled in
a lively duet.
Coming a little nearer, he saw Mara sitting knitting in
the door-way, and a very good-looking young man seated on
a stone at her feet, with his straw hat flung on the ground,
while he was looking up into her face, as young men often
do into pretty faces seen by moonlight. Mara rose and in-
troduced Mr. Adams of Boston to Mr. Moses Fennel.
Moses measured the young man with his eye as if he
could have shot him with a good will. And his temper wag
not at all bettered as he observed that he had the easy air of
a man of fashion and culture, and learned by a few moments
of the succeeding conversation, that the acquaintance had
commenced during Mara's winter visit to Boston.
" I was staying a day or two at Mr. Sewell's," he said,
carelessly, " and the night was so fine I could n't resist the
temptation to row over."
It was now Moses' turn to listen to a conversation in
which he could bear little part, it being about persons and
places and things unfamiliar to him ; and though he could
give no earthly reason why the conversation was not the
most proper in the world, yet he found that it made him
angry.
In the pauses, Mara inquired, prettily, how he found the
Xittridges, and reproved him playfully for staying, in de-
epite of his promise to come home.
Moses answered with an effort to appear easy and playful,
that there was no reason, it appeared, to hurry on her ac-
count, since she had been so pleasantly engaged.
" That is true," said Mara, quietly ; " but then grandpapa
and grandmamma expected you, and they have gone to bed
ts you know they always do after tea."
THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND. 245
"They '11 keep till morning, I suppose," said Moses, rathe?
gruffly.
" Oh yes ; but then as you had been gone two or three
months, naturally they wanted to see a little of you at
first."
The stranger now joined in the conversation, and began
talking with Moses about his experiences in foreign parts,
in a manner which showed a man of sense and breeding.
Moses had a jealous fear of people of breeding, an appre*
hension lest they should look down on one whose life had
been laid out of the course of their conventional ideas ; and
therefore, though he had sufficient ability and vigor of mind
to acquit himself to advantage in this conversation, it gave
him all the while a secret uneasiness.
After a few moments, he rose up moodily, and saying that
he was very much fatigued, he went into the house to retire.
Mr. Adams rose to go also, and Moses might have felt in
a more Christian frame of mind, had he listened to the last
words of the conversation between him and Mara.
" Do you remain long in Harpswell ? " she asked.
" That depends on circumstances," he replied. " If I do,
paay I be permitted to visit you ? "
" As a friend yes," said Mara ; " I shall always bft
happy to see you."
No more ? "
" No more," replied Mara.
" I had hoped," he said, u that you would reconsider."
"It is impossible," said she; and soft voices can pro-
nounce that word, impossible, in a very fateful and decisive
manner.
" Well, God bless you, then, Miss Lincoln," he eai ^ and
was gone,
846 THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND.
Mara stood in the door-way and saw him loosen his boat
from its moorings and float off in the moonlight, with a long
train of silver sparkles behind.
A moment after Moses was looking gloomily over her
shoulder.
" Who is that puppy ?" he said.
" He is not a puppy, but a very fine young man," said
Mara.
" Well, that very fine young man, then ? "
" I thought I told you. He is a Mr. Adams of Boston,
and a distant connection of the Sewells'. I met him when
I was visiting at Judge Sewell's in Boston."
"You seemed to be having a very pleasant time to-
gether?"
" We were," said Mara, quietly.
" It 's a pity I came home as I did. I 'm sorry I inter-
rupted you," said Moses, with a sarcastic laugh.
" You did n't interrupt us ; he had been here almost two
hours."
Now Mara saw plainly enough that Moses was displeased
and hurt, and had it been in the days of her fourteenth sum-
mer, she would have thrown her arms around his neck, and
flaid, "Moses, I don't care a fig for that man, and I love
you better than all the world." But this the young lady of
seventeen would not do ; so she wished him good-night very
prettily, and pretended not to see anything about it.
Mara was as near being a saint as human dust ever is ;
but she was a woman saint ; and therefore may be ex-
cused for a little gentle vindictiveness. She was, in a merci-
ful way, rather glad that Moses had gone to bed dissatisfied,
Rnd rather glad that he did not know what she might have
V>id him quite resolved that he should not know at pres
THE PFARf, OF ORR'S ISLAND. 247
ent. Was he to know that she liked nobody so much as
him ? Not he, unless he loved her more than all the world,
and said so first.
Mara was resolved upon that. He might go where he
liked flirt with whom he liked come back as late as he
pleased never would she, by word or lock, give him re&son
to think she cared.
218 THE PEAKL OF ORK'S ISLAND
CHAPTER XXIV.
MOSES passed rather a restless and uneasy night on hii
return to the home-roof which had sheltered his childhood.
All his life past, and all his life expected, seemed to boil
and seethe and ferment in his thoughts, and to go round and
round in never-ceasing circles before him.
Moses was par excellence proud, ambitious, and wilful
These words, generally supposed to describe positive vicej
of the mind, in fact are only the overaction of certain very
valuable portions of our nature, since one can conceive all
three to raise a man immensely in the scale of moral being,
simply by being applied to right objects.
He who is too proud even to admit a mean thought
who is ambitious only of ideal excellence who has an in-
flexible will only in the pursuit of truth and righteousness
may be a saint and a hero.
But Moses was neither a saint nor a hero, but an unde-
veloped chaotic young man, whose pride made him sensitive
and restless ; whose ambition was fixed on wealth and worldly
success ; whose wilfulness was for the most part a blind de-
termination to compass his own points with the leave of
Providence or without.
There was nc God in his estimate of life and a sort of
secret unsuspected determination at the bottom of his heart
that there should be none.
He feared religion, from a suspicion which he entertained
that it might hamper some of his future schemes.
THE PEARL OF ORE'S ISLAND. 249
He did not wish to put himself under its rules, lest he
might find them ia some future time inconveniently strict
With such determinations and feelings, the Bible neces-
sarily an excessively uninteresting book to him he never
read, and satisfied himself with determining in a general way
that it was not worth reading, and as was the custom with
many young men in America, at that period announced him-
self as a sceptic, and seemed to value himself not a little on
the distinction.
Pride in scepticism is a peculiar distinction of young men.
It takes years and maturity to make the discovery that the
power of faith is nobler than the power of doubt ; and that
there is a celestial wisdom in the ingenuous propensity tc
trust, which belongs to honest and noble natures. Elderly
sceptics generally regard their unbelief as a misfortune.
Not that Moses was, after all, without "the angel in him.'
He had a good deal of the susceptibility to poetic feeling, the
power of vague and dreamy aspiration, the longing after the
good and beautiful, which is God's witness in the soul. A
noble sentiment in poetry, a fine scene in nature, had power
to bring tears in his great dark eyes, and he had, under the
influence of such things, brief inspired moments in which he
vaguely longed to do, or be, something grand or noble.
But this, however, was something apart from the real pur-
pose of his life, a sort of voice crying in the wilderness,
to which he gave little heed.
Practically, he was determined with all his might, to have
n good time in this life, whatever another might be, if
there were one ; and that he would do it by the strength of
his right arm. Wealth he saw to be the lamp of Aladdin,
which commanded all other things. And the pursuit of
wealth was therefore the first step in his programme.
11*
250 THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND.
As f always found that a good fairy had been before him and
prepared his dinner, daintily sometimes adding thereto a fra-
grant little bunch of flowers. But when his boat returned
home at evening, he no longer saw her as in the days of
girlhood waiting far out on the farthest point of rock for
his return. Not that she did not watch for it and run out
many times toward sunset ; but the moment she had mado
out that it was surely he, she would run back into the house,
and very likely find an errand in her own room, where sho
would be so deeply engaged that it would be necessary foi
him to call her down before she could make her appearance
Then she came smiling, chatty, always gracious, and ready
to go or to come as he requested, the very cheerfulest
of household fairies, but yet for all that there was a cob-
web invisible barrier around her that for some reason or
other he could not break ove.. It vexed and perplexed
him, and day after day he determined to whistle it down,
ride over it rough-shod, and be as free as he chose with
this apparently soft, unresistant, airy being, who seemed so
accessible. Why should n't he kiss her when he chose, and
sit with his arm around her waist, and draw her familiarly
apon his keee, this little child-woman, who was as a sister
to him ? Why, to be sure ? Had she ever frowned or
icolded as Sally Kittridge did when he attempted to pass
the air-line that divides man from womanhood ? Not at all.
She had neither blushed nor laughed, nor ran away. If he
kissed her, she took it with the most matter-of-fact compo-
Bure ; if he passed his arm around her, she let it remain
with uninoved calmness ; and so somehow he did these
things less and less, and wondered why.
The fact is, our hero had begun an experiment with hii
291 THE PEARL OF ORE'S ISLAND.
little friend that we would never advise a young man to
try on one of these intense, quiet, soft-seeming women
whose whole life is inward. He had determined to find out
whether she loved him before he committed himself to her
and the strength of a whole book of martyrs is in women
to endure and to bear without flinching before they will
surrender the gate of this citadel of silence. Moreover,
our hero had begun his siege with precisely the worst
weapons.
For on the night that he returned and found Mara con-
versing with a stranger, the suspicion arose in his mind
that somehow Mara might be particularly interested in
him, and instead of asking her, which anybody might
consider the most feasible step in the case, he asked Sally
Kittridge.
Sally's inborn, inherent \>ve of teasing was up in a
moment.
Did she know anything of that Mr. Adams ? Of course
she did, a young lawyer of one of the best Boston fam-
ilies, a splendid fellow, she wished any such luck might
happen to her ! Was Mara engaged to him ? What would
he give to know ? Why did n't he ask Mara ? Did he
expect her to reveal her friend's secrets ? Well, she
should n't, report said Mr. Adams was well to do in the
world, and had expectations from an uncle, and did n't
Moses think he was interesting in conversation ? Every-
body said what a conquest it was for an Orr's Island girl,
etc., etc. And Sally said the rest with many a malicious
toss and wink and sly twinkle of the dimples of her cheek,
Which might mean more or less as a young man of imag
inative temperament was disposed to view it. Now tlm
WHS all done in pure simple love of teasing. We incline
THE PEARL OF ORE'S ISLAND. 293
U> thiiik phrenologists have as yet been very incomplete in
their classification of faculties, or they would have ap-
oomted a separate organ for this propensity of human na-
ture. Certain persons, often the most kind-hearted in the
world, and who would not give pain in any serious matter,
seem to have an insatiable appetite for those small annoy-
ances we commonly denominate teasing, and Sally was
one of this number.
She diverted herself infinitely in playing upon the excit-
ability of Moses, in awaking his curiosity, and baffling
it, and tormenting him with a whole phantasmagoria of
suggestions and assertions, which played along so near the
line of probability, that one could never tell which might be.
fancy and whicli might be fact.
Moses therefore pursued the line of tactics for such cases
made and provided, and strove to awaken jealousy in Mara
by paying marked and violent attentions to Sally. He went
there evening . after evening, leaving Mara to sit alone at
home. He made secrets with her, and alluded to them be-
fore Mara. He proposed calling his new vessel the Sally
Kittridge ; but whether all these things made Mara jealous
or not, he crald never determine. Mara had no peculiar
gift for acting, except in this one point ; but here all the
vitality of nature rallied to her support, and enabled her
to preserve a air of the most unperceiving serenity. If
tthe shed any tears when she spent a long, lonesome even-
ing, she was quite particular to be looking in a very placid
frame when Moses returned, and to give such an account
of the books, or the work, or paintings which had interested
her, that Moses was sure to be vexed. Never were her
inquiries for Sally more cordial, never did she seem in
spired by a more ardent affection for her
296 THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND.
Whatever may have been the result of this stale ol
things in regard to Mara, it is certain that Moses succeeded
in convincing the common fame of that district that he and
Sally were destined for each other, and the thing was reg-
ularly discussed at quilting frolics and tea-drinkings around,
much to Miss Emily's disgust and Aunt Roxy's grave sat-
isfaction, who declared that " Mara was altogether too good
for Moses Fennel, but Sally Kittridge would make him
stand round," by which expression she was understood
to intimate that Sally had in her the rudiments of the same
kind of domestic discipline which had operated so favorably
in the case of Captain Kittridge.
These things, of course, had come to Mara's ears. She
had overheard the discussions on Sunday noons as the peo-
ple between meetings sat over their doughnuts and cheese,
and analyzed their neighbors' affairs, and she seemed to
smile at them all. Sally only laughed, and declared that
it was no such thing ; that she would no more marry Moses
Fennel or any other fellow than she would put her head
into the fire. What did she want of any of them ? She
knew too much to get married, that she did. She waa
going to have her liberty for one while yet to come, etc.,
etc. ; but all these assertions were of course supposed to
mean nothing but the usual declarations in such cases.
Mara among the rest thought it quite likely that this thing
was yet to be.
So she struggled and tried to reason down a pain which
.Constantly ached in her heart when she thought of this
She ought to have foreseen that it must some time end ir
this way. Of course she must have known that Moses
would some time choose a wife ; and how fortunate that,
instead of a stranger, he had chosen her most intimate
THE PEARL OF ORE'S ISLAND. 297
friend. Sally was careless and thoughtless, to be sure, but
she had a good generous heart at the bottom, and she hoped
phe would love Moses at least as well as she did, and the?
she would always live with them, and think of any littl*
things that Sally might forget.
After all, Sally was so much more capable and efficient a
person than herself, so much more bustling and energetic,
fihe would make altogether a better house-keeper, and doubt-
less a better wife for Moses.
But then it was so hard that he did not tell her about
it. Was she not his sister ? his confidant for all his
childhood ? and why should he shut up his heart from
her now ? But then she must guard herself from being
jealous, that would be mean and wicked. So Mara, in
her zeal of self-discipline, pushed on matters ; invited Sally
to tea to meet Moses ; and when she came, left them alone
together while she busied herself in hospitable cares. She
sent Moses with errands and commissions to Sally, which
he was sure to improve into protracted visits ; and in short,
no young match-maker ever showed more good-will to for-
ward the union of two chosen friends than Mara showed to
unite Moses and Sally.
So the flirtation went on all summer, like a ship under
full sail, wnh prosperous breezes ; and Mara, in the many
hours that her two best friends were together, tried heroi-
cally to persuade herself that she was not unhappy. She
said to herself constantly that she never had loved Moses
other than as a brother, and repeated and dwelt upon the
fact to her own mind with a pertinacity which might have
Jed her to suspect the reality of the fact, had she had ex
perience enough to look closer. True, it was rather lonely,
she said, but that she was used to, sL3 always had been
13*
298 THE PEARL OF ORE'S ISLAND.
and always should be. Nobody would ever love her il
return as she loved; which sentence she did not analyze
very closely, or she might have remembered Mr. Adami
and one or two others, who had professed more for her
than she had found herself able to return. That general
proposition about nobody is commonly found, if sifted to
the bottom, to have specific relation to somebody whose name
never appears in the record.
Nobody could have conjectured from Mara's calm, gen-
tle cheerfulness of demeanor, that any sorrow lay at the
bottom of her heart ; she would not have owned it to
herself.
There are griefs which grow with years, which have no
marked beginnings, no especial dates; they are not events,
but slow perceptions of disappointment, which bear down on
the heart with a constant and equable pressure like the
weight of the atmosphere, and these things are never named
or counted in words among life's sorrows; yet through them,
as through an unsuspected inward wound, life, energy, and
vigor, slowly bleed away, and the persons, never owning
even to themselves the weight of the pressure, standing,
to all appearance, fair and cheerful, are still undermined with
a secret wear of this inner current, and ready to fall with the
first external pressure.
There are persons often brought into near contact by the
relations of life, and bound to each other by a love so
close, that they are perfectly indispensable to each other
vLo yot act upon each other as a file upon a diamond, by a
slow and gradual friction, the pain of which is so equablts
10 constantly diffused through life, as scarcely ever at any
tfine to force itself upon the mind as a reality.
Such had Veen the history of the affection of Mara fof
THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND. 29$
Moses, It had been a deep, inward, concentrated passion
that had almost absorbed self-consciousness, and made her
keenly alive to all the moody, restless, passionate changes
of his nature ; it had brought with it that craving for sym-
pathy and return which such love ever will, and yet it waa
fixed upon a nature so different and so uncomprehending
that the action had for years been one of pain more than
pleasure. Even now, when she had him at home with her
and busied herself with constant cares for him, there was
a sort of disturbing, unquiet element in the history of every
day. The longing for him to come home at night, the wish
that he would stay with hei the uncertainty whether he
would or would not go and spend the evening with Sally,
the musing during the day over all that he had done and
said the day before, were a constant interior excitement.
For Moses, besides being in his moods quite variable and
changeable, had also a good deal of the dramatic element
in him, and put on sundry appearances in the way of ex-
periment.
He would feign to have quarrelled with Sally, that he
might detect whether Mara would betray some gladness ;
but she only evinced concern and a desire to make up the
difficulty. He would discuss her character and her fitness
to make a man happy in matrimony in the style that young
gentlemen use who think their happiness a point of great
consequence in the creation ; and Mara, always cool, and
firm, and sensible, Avould talk with him in the most maternal
style possible, and caution him against trifling with her af-
fections. Then again he would be lavish in his praise of
Sally's beauty, vivacity, and energy, and Mara would join
with the most apparently unaffected delight. Sometimes he
ventured, on the Mher side, to rally her on some fufur*
NX) THL PEARL OF ORR'S
husband, and predict the days when all the attentions which
she was daily bestowing on him would be for another ; and
here, as everywhere else, he found his little Sphinx per-
fectly inscrutable. Instinct teaches the grass-bird, who hides
her eggs under long meadow grass, to creep timidly yarda
from the nest, and then fly up boldly in the wrong place ;
and a like instinct teaches shy girls all kinds of unconscious
stratagems when the one secret of their life is approached.
They may be as truthful in all other things as the strictest
Puritan, but here they deceive by an infallible necessity.
And meanwhile where was Sally Kittridge in all this mat-
ter ? Was her heart in the least touched by the black eyes
and long lashes ? Who can say ? Had she a heart ? Well,
Sally was a good girl. When one got sufficiently far down
through the foam and froth of the surface, to find what was
in the depths of her nature, there was abundance there of
good womanly feeling, generous and strong, if one could but
get at it.
She was the best and brightest of daughters to the old
Captain, whose accounts she kept, whose clothes she mended,
whose dinner she often dressed and carried to him, from lov*
ing choice ; and Mrs. Kittridge regarded her housewifely
accomplishments with "pride, though she never spoke to he*
otherwise than in words of criticism and rebuke, as in hex
view an honest mother should who means to keep a flourish,
ing sprig of a daughter within limits of a proper humility.
But as for any sentiment or love toward any person of tlu
other sex, Sally, as yet, had it not. Her numerous admirer*
were only so many subjects for the exercise of her dear de-
light of teasing, and Moses Pennel, the last and most con
siderable, differed from the rest only in the fact that he was
match for her in this redoubtable art and science, and thii
THE PEARL OF ORE'S ISLAND. 301
made the game she was playing with him altogether morf
stimulating than that she had carried on with any other of
her admirers. For Moses could sulk and storm for effect,
and clear off as bright as Harpswell Bay after a thunder-
storm for effect also. Moses could play jealous, and
make believe all those thousand-and-one shadowy nothings
that coquettes, male and female, get up to carry their poiutfl
with ; and so their quarrels and their makings-up were as
manifold as the sea-breezes that ruffled the ocean before the
Captain's door.
There is but one danger in play of this kind, and that 13,
that deep down in the breast of every slippery, frothy, elfish
Undine sleeps the germ of an unawakened soul, which sud-
denly, in the course of some such trafficking with the out-
ward shows and seemings of affection, may wake up and
make of the teasing, tricksy elf a sad and earnest woman
a creature of loves and self-denials and faithfulness unto
death in short, something altogether too good, too sacred
to be trifled with ; and when a man enters the game pro-
tected by a previous attachment which absorbs all his nature,
and the woman awakes in all her depth and strength to fee
the real meaning of love and life, she finds that she has
played with one stronger than she, at a terrible disad-
vantage.
Is this mine lying'dark and evil under the saucy littia
feet of our Sally ? Well, we should not of course be ew
prised some day to find it so.
302 THE PEARL OF ORE'S ISLAND
CHAPTER XXIX.
OCTOBER is come, and among the black glooms of thi
pine forests flare out the scarlet branches of the rock-maple,
and the beech-groves are all arrayed in gold, through which
the sunlight streams in subdued richness. October is come
with long, bright, hazy days, swathing in purple mists the
rainbow brightness of the forests, and blending the otherwise
gaudy and flaunting colors into wondrous harmonies of
splendor. And Moses Fennel's ship is all built and ready,
waiting only a favorable day for her launching. .
And just at this moment Moses is sauntering home from
Captain Kittridge's in company with Sally, for Mara has
sent him to bring her to tea with them. Moses is in high
spirits ; everything has succeeded to his wishes ; and as the
two walk along the high, bold, rocky shore, his eye glances
out to the open ocean, where the sun is setting, and the
fresh wind blowing, and the white sails flying, and already
fancies himself a sea-king, commanding his own palace, and
going from land to land.
" There has n't been a more beautiful ship built here these
twenty years," he says, in triumph.
" Oho, Mr. Conceit," said Sally, " that 's only because it 'g
yours now your geese are all swans. I wish you could
have seen the Typhoon, that Ben Drummond sailed in ?
real handsome fellow he was. What a pity there ar* n' 4
more like him ! "
THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND. 303
" I don't enter on the merits of Ben Drummond's beauty,"
said Moses , " but I don't believe the Typhoon was one
whit superior to our ship. Besides, Miss Sally, I thought
you were going to take it under your especial patronage, and
let me honor it with your name."
" How absurd you always will be talking about that
why don't you call it after Mara ? "
" After Mara ? " said Moses. " I don't want to it
would n't be appropriate one wants a different kind of
girl to name a ship after something bold and bright
and dashing ! "
" Thank you, sir, but I prefer not to have my bold and
dashing qualities immortalized in this way," said Sally ;
* besides, sir, how do I know that you would n't run me on a
rock the very first thing ? When I give my name to a ship,
it must have an experienced commander,'' she added, mali-
ciously, for she knew that Moses was specially vulnerable
on this point.
"As you please," said Moses, with heightened color.
*' Allow me to remark that he who shall ever undertake to
command the * Sally Kittridge ' will have need of all his
experience and then, perhaps, not be able to know the
ways of the craft."
" See him now," said Sally, with a malicious laugh ; " we
are getting wrathy, are we ? "
" Not I," said Moses ; " it would cost altogether too much
exertion to get angry at every teasing thing you choose to
Bay, Miss Sally. By and by I shall be gone, and then won't
vour conscience trouble you ? "
" My conscience is all easy, so far as you are concerned,
sir ; your self-esteem is too deep-rooted to suffer much from
my poor little nips they produce no more impiession than
804 THE PEARL OF ORE'S ISLAND.
a cat-bird pecking at the cones of that spruce-tree yonder
Now don't you put your hand where your heart is supposed
to be there 's nobody at home there, you know. There 's
Mara coming to meet us ; " and Sally bounded forward to
meet Mara with all those demonstrations of extreme deliglA
which young girls are fond of showering on each other.
" It 's such a beautiful evening," said Mara, " and we arc
all in such good spirits about Moses' ship, and I told him you
must come down and hold counsel with us as to what was to
be done about the launching and the name, you knov,
that is to be decided on are you going to let it be called
after you ? "
" Not I, indeed. I should always be reading in the papers
of horrible accidents that had happened to the ' Sally Kit-
tridge.' "
" Sally has so set her heart on my being unlucky," said
Moses, " that I believe if I make a prosperous voyage, the
disappointment would injure her health."
" She does n't mean what she says/' said Mara ; " but I
think there are some objections in a young lady's name
oeing given to a ship."
"Then I suppose, Mara," said Moses, "that you would
not have yours either ? "
" I would be glad to accommodate you in anything but
that," said Mara, quietly ; but she added, " Why need the
ship be named for anybody ? A ship is such s beautiful,
graceful thing, it should have a fancy name."
" Well, suggest one," said Moses.
" Don't you remember," said Mara, " one Satuiday after-
noon, when you and Sally and I launched your little ship
down in the cove after you had come home from your firsf
royage at the Banks."
THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND. 305
" I do," said Sally. " We called that the Ariel, Mara,
lifter that old torn play you were so fond of. That 's a
pretty name for a ship."
" Why not take that ? " said Mara.
"1 bow to the decree," said Moses. "The Ariel it shall
be."
" Yes ; and you remember," said Sally, " Mr. Moses here
promised at that time that he would build a ship, and Jike
us two round the world with him."
Moses' eyes fell upon Mara as Sally said these words
with a sort of sudden earnestness of expression which struck
her. He was really feeling very much about something,
under all the bantering disguise of his demeanor, she said
to herself. Could it be that he felt unhappy about his pros-
pects with Sally ? That careless liveliness of hers might
wound him perhaps now, when he felt that he was soon to
leave her.
Mara was conscious herself of a deep undercurrent of
sadness as the time approached for the ship to sail that
should carry Moses from her, and she could not but think
some such feeling must possess her mind. In vain sh
looked into Sally's great Spanish eyes for any signs of a
lurking softness or tenderness concealed under her sparkling
vivacity. Sally's eyes were admirable windows of exactly
the right size and color for an earnest, tender spirit to look
out of, but just now there was nobody at the casement but 9
slippery elf peering out in tricksy defiance.
When the three arrived at the house, tea was waiting OB
the table for them. Mara fancied that Moses looked sa
and kept me from all evil ; the one pure motive and holy in-
fluence of my life ? If you call this the chastening of a lov-
ing father, I must say it looks more to me like the caprice
of an evil spirit."
" Had you ever thanked the God of your life for this gift,
or felt your dependence on him to keep it ? Have you not
blindly idolized the creature and forgotten Him who gave
it?" said Mr. Sewell.
Moses was silent a moment.
" I cannot believe there is a God," he said. " Since this
fear came on me I have prayed, yes, and humbled myself;
for I know I have not always been what I ought. I prom-
ised if he would grant me this one thing, I would seek him
in future; but it did no good, it's of no use to pray. I
would have been good in this way, if she might be spared,
and I cannot in any other."
" My son, our Lord and Master will have no such condi-
tions from us," said Mr. Sewell. " We must submit uncon-
ditionally. She has done it, and her peace is as firm as the
everlasting hills. God's will is a great current that flows
in spite of us ; if we go with it, it carries us to endless
est, if we resist, we only wear our lives out in useless
struggles."
Moses stood a moment in silence, and then, turning away
without a word, hurried from the house. He strode along the
high rocky bluff, through tangled junipers and pine thick-
ets, till he came above the rocky cove which had been his
favorite retreat on so many occasions. He swung himself
down over the cliffs into the grotto, where, shut in by the
aigh tide ; he felt himself alone. There he had read Mr
414 THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND.
Sewell's letter, and dreamed vain dreams of wealth and
worldly success, now all to him so void. He felt to-day,
as he sat there and watched the ships go by, how utterly
nothing all the wealth in the world was, in the loss of thai
one heart. Unconsciously, even to himself, sorrow was do-
ing her ennobling ministry within him, melting off in her
fierce fires trivial ambitions and low desires, and making
him feel the sole worth and value of love. That which in
other days had seemed only as one good thing among many
now seemed the only thing in life. And he who has learned
the paramount value of love has taken one step from an
earthly to a spiritual existence.
But as he lay there on the pebbly shore, hour after hour
glided by, his whole past life lived itself over to his eye ;
he saw a thousand actions, he heard a thousand words,
whose beauty and significance never came to him till now.
And alas ! he saw so many when, on his part, the respon-
sive word that should have been spoken, and the deed that
should have been done, was forever wanting. He had all his
life carried within him a vague consciousness that he had not
been to Mara what he should have been, but he had hoped
to make amends for all in that future which lay before him,
that future now, alas! dissolving and fading away like the
white cloud-islands which the wind was drifting from the
sky. A roice seemed saying in his ears, " Ye know that
when he would have inherited a blessing he was rejected ;
for he found no place for repentance, though he sought it
carefully with tears." Something that he had never felt
before struck him as appalling in the awful fixedness of
all past deeds and words, the unkind words once said,
which no tears could unsay, the kind ones suppressed, to
which u< agony of wishfulness could give a past reality
THE PEARL OF ORE'S ISLAND. 415
There were particular times in their past history that he re*
membered so vividly, when he saw her so clearly, doing
Borne little thing for him, and shyly watching for the word
of acknowledgment, which he did not give. Some wilful
wayward demon withheld him at the moment, and the light
on the little wishful face slowly faded. True, all had been &
thousand times forgiven and forgotten between them, but it
is the ministry of these great vital hours of sorrow to
teach us that nothing in the soul's history ever dies or is
forgotten, and when the beloved one lies stricken and ready
to pass away, comes the judgment-day of love, and all the
dead moments of the past arise and live again.
He lay there musing and dreaming till the sun grew low
in the afternoon sky, and the tide that isolated the little
grotto had gone far out into the ocean, leaving long low reefs
of sunken rocks, all matted and tangled with the yellow
hair of the sea-weed, with little crystal pools of salt water
between. He heard the sound of approaching footsteps,
and Captain Kittridge came slowly picking his way round
among the shingle and pebbles.
Wai' now, I thought I 'd find ye here ! " he said. I
kind o' thought I wanted to see ye, ye see."
Moses looked up half moody, half astonished, while the
Captain seated himself upon a fragment of rock and began
brushing the knees of his trousers industriously, until soon
I he tears rained down from his eyes upon his dry withered
hands
" Wai' now ye see, I can't help it, darned if I can j
knowed her ever since she 'a that high. She 's done me
good, she has. Mis' Kittridge has been pretty faithful.
[ 've had folks here and there talk to me consid'able, but
Lord ble^s you, I never had nothin' go to roy heart like
416 THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND.
this 'ere Why to look on her there couldn't nobody
doubt but what there was somethin' in religion. You never
knew half what she did for you, Moses Fennel, you did n't
know that the night you was off down to the long cove with
Skipper Atkinson, that 'ere blessed child was a-follerin' you,
but she was, and she come to me next day to get me to do
somethin' for you. That was how your grand'ther and I
got ye off to sea so quick, and she such a little thing then ;
that ar child was the savin* of ye, Moses Fennel." Moses
hid his head in his hands with a sort of groan.
" Wai', wal'," said the Captain, " I don't wonder now ye
feel so, I don't see how ye can stan' it no ways only
by thinkin' o' where she 's goin' to Them ar bells in
the Celestial City must all be a-ringin' for her, there '11
be joy that side o' the river I reckon when she gets acrost.
If she 'd jest leave me a hem o' her garment to get in by, I 'd
be glad ; but she was one o' the sort that was jest made to
go to heaven. She only stopped a few days in our world,
like the robins when they 's goin' South ; but there '11 be a
good many fust and last that'll get into the kingdom for
love of her. She never said much to me, but she kind o'
drew me. Ef ever I should get in there, it '11 be she led
me. But come, now, Moses, ye ought n't fur to be a-set-
tin' here catchin' cold jest come round to ciir house and
let Sally gin you a warm cup o' tea do come, now."
" Thank you, Captain," said Moses, " but I will go home ;
I must see her again to-night."
" Wal', don't let her see you grieve too much, ye know ;
we must be a little sort o' manly, ye know, 'cause her body 's
*eak, if her heart is strong."
Now Moses was in a mood of dry, proud, fierce, self-con-
suming sorrow, least likely to open his heart or seek syra
THE PEARL OF ORE'S ISLAND. 417
pathy from any one ; and no friend or acquaintance would
probably have dared to intrude on his grief. But there are
moods of the mind which cannot be touched or handled by
one on an equal level with us that yield at once to the
sympathy of something below. A dog who comes with his
great honest, sorrowful face and lays his mute paw of inquiry
on your knee, will sometimes open floodgates of softer feel-
ing, that have remained closed to every human touch ;
the dumb simplicity and ignorance of his sympathy makes
it irresistible. In like manner the downright grief of the
good-natured old Captain, and the child-like ignorance with
which he ventured upon a ministry of consolation from which
a more cultivated person would have shrunk away, were ir-
resistibly touching. Moses grasped the dry, withered hand
and said, " Thank you, thank you, Captain Kittridge ; you 're
a true friend."
" Wai', I be, that 's a fact, Moses Lord bless me, I a'n't
no great I a'n't nobody I 'm jest an old last-year's mul-
lein-stalk in the Lord's vineyard but that 'ere blessed lit-
tle thing allers had a good word for me. She gave me a
hymn-book and marked some hymns in it, and read 'em to
me herself, and her voice was jest as sweet as the sea of a
warm evening. Them hymns come to me kind o' powerful
when I 'in at my work planin' and sawin'. Mis' Kittridge,
ghe allers talks to me as ef I was a terrible sinner ; and I
suppose I be, but this 'ere blessed child, she's so kind o' good
and innocent, she thinks I 'm good ; kind o' takes it for
granted I 'm one o' the Lord's people, ye know. It kind o'
makes me want to be, ye know."
The Captain here produced from his coat-pocket a much
worn hymn-book, and showed Moses where leaves were
ye rove and ramble, and cut up round the world without'
THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND. 419
her a spell, and mebbe think the old woman a'n't so fashion-
able as some ; but when sickness and sorrow comes, why,
there a'n't nothin' else to go back to. Is there, now ? "
Moses did not answer, but he shook the hand of the Cap-
tain and turned away.
42 J THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND.
CHAPTER XLII.
TUE setting sun gleamed in at the window oi Mara'a
chamber, tinted with rose and violet hues from a great cloud-
castle that lay upon the smooth ocean over against the win-
dow. Mara was lying upon the bed, but she raised herself
upon her elbow to look out.
" Dear Aunt Roxy," she said, u raise me up and put the
pillows behind me, so that I can see out it is splendid."
Aunt Roxy came and arranged the pillows, and lifted the
girl with her long, strong arms, then stooping over her a
moment she finished her arrangements by softly smoothing
the hair from her forehead with a caressing movement most
unlike her usual precise business-like proceedings.
" I love you, Aunt Roxy," said Mara, looking up with a
tmile.
Aunt Roxy made a strange wry face, which caused her
to look harder than usual. She was choked with tender-
ness, and had only this uncomely way of showing it.
" Law now, Mara, I don't see how ye can ; I a'n't nothin*
but an old burdock-bush ; love a'n't for me."
" Yes it is too," said Mara, drawing her down and kissing
her withered cheek, " and you sha'n't call yourself an old
burdock. God sees that you are beautiful, and in the res-
urrection everybody will see it."
" I was always homely as an owl," said Miss Roxy, un-
tonsciously speaking out what had lain like a stone at tlw
THE PEARL OF GRITS ISLAND. 42?
bottom of even her sensible heart. " I always had sense to
know it, and knew my sphere. Homely folks would like to
say pretty things, and to have pretty things said to them, but
they never do. I made up my mind pretty early that my
part in the vineyard was to have hard work and no posies."
" Well, you will have all the more in heaven ; I love
you dearly, and I like your looks, too. You look kind and
true and good, and that's beauty in the country where we
are going."
Miss Roxy sprang up quickly from the bed, and turning
her back began to arrange the bottles on the table with great
zeal.
" Has Moses come in yet ? " said Mara.
" No, there Vn't nobody seen a thing of him since he
went out this morning."
" Poor boy ! " said Mara, " it is too hard upon him. Aunt
Roxy, please pick some roses off the bush from under the
window and put in the vases ; let 's have the room as sweet
and cheerful as we can. I hope God will let me live long
enough to comfort him. It is not so very terrible, if one
would only think so, to cross that river. All looks so bright
to me now that I have forgotten how sorrow seemed. Poor
Moses ! he will have a hard struggle, but he will get the
victory, too. I am very weak to-night, but to-morrow I
shall feel better, and I shall sit up, and perhaps I can paint
a little on that flower I was doing for him. We will not
have things look sickly or deathly. There, Aunt Roxy, he
has come in ; I hear his step."
" I did n't hear it," said Mi*s Ro'xy, surprised at the acute
senses which sickness had etherealized to an almost spirit-
like intensity. Shall I call him ? "
422 THE PEARL OF ORE'S ISLAND.
" Yes, do,' said Mara. " He can sit with me a little
while to-night."
The light in the room was a strange dusky mingling of
gold and gloom, when Moses stole softly in. The great
cloud-castle that a little while since had glowed like living
gold from turret and battlement, now dim, changed for the
most part to a sombre gray, enlivened with a dull glow of
crimson ; but there was still a golden light where the sun
had sunk into the sea. Moses saw the little thin hand
stretched out to him.
" Sit down," she said ; " it has been such a beautiful sun-
set. Did you notice it ? "
He sat down by the bed, leaning his forehead on his hand,
but saying nothing
She drew her fingers through his dark hair. "lam so
glad to see you," she said. " It is such a comfort to me that
you have come ; and I hope it will be to you. You know I
shall be better to-morrow than I am to-night, and I hope we
shall have some pleasant days together yet. We must n't
reject what little we may have, because it cannot be more."
" Oh, Mara," said Moses, " I would give my life, if I could
take back the past. I have never been worthy of you ;
never knew your worth ; never made you happy. You al
ways lived for me, and I lived for myself. I deserve to
lose you, but it is none the less bitter."
" Don't say lose. Why must you ? I cannot think of
losing you. I know I shall not God has given you to me.
You will come to me and be mine at last. I feel sure of it.'
" You don't know me," said Moses.
" Christ does, though," she said ; " and He has promised to
care for you. Yes, you will live to see many flowers grout
THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND. 423
out of my grave. You cannot think so now ; but it will be
so believe me."
" Mara,'* said Moses, " I never lived through such a day
as this. It seems as if every moment of my life had
been passing before me, and every moment of yours. I
have seen how true and loving in thought and word and deed
you have been, and I have been doing nothing but take
take. You have given love as the skies give rain, and I
have drunk it up like the hot dusty earth."
Mara knew in her own heart that this was all true, and
she was too real to use any of the terms of affected humili-
ation which many think a kind of spiritual court language.
She looked at him and answered, " Moses, I always knew I
loved most. It was my nature ; God gave it to me, and it
was a gift for which I give Him thanks not a merit. I
knew you had a larger, wider nature than mine, a wider
sphere to live in, and that you could not live in your heart
as I did. Mine was all thought and feeling, and the narrow
little duties of this little home. Yours went all round the
world."
"But, oh Mara oh, my angel ! to think I should lose
you when I am just beginning to know your worth. I al-
ways had a sort of superstitious feeling, a sacred presenti-
ment about you, that my spiritual life, if ever I had any,
would come through you. It seemed if there ever was such
a thing as God's providence, which some folks believe in, it
was in leading me to you, and giving you to me. And now,
to have all lashed all destroyed It makes me feel as
if all was blind chance ; no guiding God ; for if He wanted
me to be good, He would spare you."
Mara lay with her large eyes fixed on the now faded sky.
The dusky shadows had dropped like a black crape veil
424 THE PEARL OF ORE'S ISLAND.
around her pale face. In a few moments she repeated to
herself, as if she were musing upon them, those mysterious
words of Him who liveth and was dead, " Except a corn of
wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone ; if it die,
it bringeth forth much fruit."
" Moses," she said, " for all I know you have loved me
dearly, yet I have felt that in #11 that was deepest and dear-
est to me, I was alone. You did not come near to me, nor
touch me where I feel most deeply. If I had lived to be
your wife, I cannot say but this distance in our spiritual
nature might have widened. You know, what we live with
we get used to; it grows an old story. Your love to me
might have grown old and worn out. If we lived together
in the commonplace toils of life, you would see only a poor
threadbare wife. I might have lost what little charm I ever
had for you ; but I feel that if I die, this will not be. There
is something sacred and beautiful in death ; and I may have
more power over you, when I seem to be gone, than I should
have had living."
" Oh, Mara, Mara, don't say that."
" Dear Moses, it is so. Think how many lovers marry,
and how few lovers are left in middle life ; and how few love
and reverence living friends as they do the dead. There
are only a very few to whom it is given to do that."
Something in the heart of Moses told him that this was
true. In this one day the sacred revealing light of ap-
proaching death he had seen more of the real spiritual
beauty and significance of Mara's life than in years before,
and felt upspringing in his heart, from the deep pathetic
influence of the approaching spiritual world, a new and
stronger power of loving. It may he that it is not merely a
perception of love that we were not aware of before, thaf
THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND. 425
wakes up when we approach the solemn shadows with a
friend. It may be that the soul has compressed and uncon-
scious powers which are stirred and wrought upon as it looks
over the borders into its future home, its loves and its
longings so swell and beat, that they astonish itself. We
are greater than we know, and dimly feel it with every ap-
proach to the great hereafter. " It doth not yet appear what
we shall be."
*******
" Now, I '11 tell you what 't is," said Aunt Roxy, opening
the door, " all the strength this 'ere girl spends a-talkin' to-
night, will be so much taken out o' the whole cloth to-mor-
row."
Moses started up. " I ought to have thought of that,
Mara."
" Ye see," said Miss Roxy, " she 's been through a good
deal to-day, and she must be got to sleep at some rate or
other to-night. 'Lord, if he sleep he shall do well,' the
Bible says, and it's one of my best nussin' maxims."
" And a good one, too, Aunt Roxy " said Mara. " Good-
night, dear boy, you see we must all mind Aunt Roxy."
Moses bent down and kissed her, and felt her arms around
his neck.
" Let not your heart be troubled," she whispered. lo
spite of himself Moses felt the storm that had risen in his
bosom that morning soothed by the gentle influences which
Mara breathed upon it. There is a sympathetic power in
all states of mind, and they who have reached the deep se-
cret of eternal rest have a strange power of imparting calm
to others.
It was in the very crisis of the battle that Christ said to
his disciples, " My peace 1 give unto you" and they that are
426 THE PEARL OF ORE'S ISLAND.
made one with him acquire like precious power of shedding
round them repose, as evening flowers shed odors. Moses
went to his pillow sorrowful and heart-stricken, but bitter
or despairing he could not be with the consciousness of tliat
present angel in the house,.
THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND. 427
CHAPTER XLIII.
THE next morning rose calm and bright with that won-
derful and mystical stillness and serenity which glorify au-
tumn days. It was impossible that such skies could smile
and such gentle airs blow the sea into one great waving
floor of sparkling sapphires without bringing cheerfulness to
human hearts. You must be very despairing indeed when
Nature is doing her best, to look her in the face sullen and
defiant. So long as there is a drop of good in your cup, a
penny in your exchequer of happiness, a bright day reminds
you to look at it, and feel that all is not gone yet.
So felt Moses when he stood in the door of the brown
house, while Mrs. Fennel was clinking plates and spoons
as she set the breakfast-table, and Zephaniah Fennel in his
shirt-sleeves was washing in the back-room, while Miss Roxy
came down-stairs in a business-like fashion bringing sundry
bowls, plates, dishes, and mysterious pitchers from the sick-
room.
" Well, Aunt Roxy, you a'n't one that lets the grass grow
under your feet," said Mrs. Fennel. " How is the dear child
this morning ? "
" Well, she had a better night than one could have ex-
pected," said Miss Roxy, " and by the time she 's had her
breakfast, she expects to sit up a little and see her friends."
Miss Roxy said this in a cheerful tone, looking encourag-
ingly at Moses whom she began to pity and patronize, now
she saw how real was his affliction.
128 THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND.
After breakfast Moses went to see her ; she was sitting up
in her white dressing-gown looking so thin and poorly, and
everything in the room was fragrant with the spicy smell
of the monthly roses, whose late buds and blossoms Miss
Roxy had gathered for the vases. She seemed so natural, so
calm and cheerful, so interested in all that went on around
her, that one almost forgot that the time of her stay must be
so short. She called Moses to come and look at her drawings,
and paintings of flowers and birds, full of reminders they
were of old times, and then she would have her pencils and
colors, and work a little on a bunch of red rock-columbine,
that she had begun to do for him ; and she chatted of all the
old familiar places where flowers grew, and of the old talks
they had had there, till Moses quite forgot himself; forgot
that he was in a sick room, till Aunt Roxy, warned by the
deepening color on Mara's cheeks, interposed her "missing"
authority, that she must do no more that day.
Then Moses laid her down, and arranged her pillows so
that she could look out on the sea, and sat and read to her
till it was time for her afternoon nap ; and when the evening
shadows drew on, he marvelled with himself how the day
had gone.
Many such there were all that pleasant month of Septem-
ber, and he was with her all the time, watching her wants
and doing her bidding, reading over and over with a soft-
ened modulation her favorite hymns and chapters, arranging
Her flowers, and bringing her home wild bouquets from all
hsr favorite wood-haunts, which made her sick-room seem
like some sylvan bower. Sally Kittridge, was there too, al-
most every day, with always some friendly offering or some
helpful deed of kindness, and sometimes they two together
would keep guard over the invalid while Miss Roxy went
THE PEARL OF ORE'S ISLAND. 429
home to attend to some of her own more peculiar concerns,
Mara seemed to rule all around her with calm sweetness and
wisdom, speaking unconsciously only the speech of heaven,
talking of spiritual things, not in an excited rapture or wild
ecstasy, but with the sober certainty of waking bliss. She
seemed like one of the sweet friendly angels one reads of in
tiie Old Testament, so lovingly companionable, walking and
miking, eating and drinking, with mortals, yet ready at any
unknown moment to ascend with the flame of some sacrifice
and be gone. There are those (a few at least), whose bless-
ing it has been to have kept for many days in bonds of
earthly fellowship, a perfected spirit in whom the work of
purifying love was wholly done, who lived in calm victory
over sin and sorrow and death, ready at any moment to be
called to the final mystery of joy.
Yet it must come at last, the moment when heaven
alaims its own, and it came at last in the cottage on Orr's
Island. There came a day when the room so sacredly cheer-
ful was hushed to a breathless stillness ; the bed was then
all snowy white, and that soft still sealed face, the parted
waves of golden hair, the little hands folded over the white
robe, all had a sacred and wonderful calm, a rapture of re-
pose that seemed to say " it is done."
They who looked on her wondered ; it was a look that
sunk deep into every heart ; it hushed down the common
cant of those who, according to country custom, went to
stare blindly at the great mystery of death, for all that
came out of that chamber smote upon their breasts and
went away in silence, revolving strangely whence might
come that unearthly beauty, that celestial joy.
Once more, in that very room where James and Naomi
Lincoln had lain side by side in their coffins, sleeping rest-
430 THE PEARL OF ORE'S ISLAND.
fully, there was laid another form, shrouded and coffined,
but with such a fairness and tender purity, such a mysteri-
ous fulness of joy in its expression, that it seemed more
natural to speak of that rest as some higher form of life
than of death.
Once more were gathered the neighborhood ; all the faces,
known in this history, shone out in one solemn picture, of
which that sweet restful form was the centre. Zephaniah
Pennel and Mary his wife, Moses and Sally, the dry form
of Captain Kittridge and the solemn face of his wife, Aunt
Roxy and Aunt Ruey, Miss Emily and Mr. Sewell ; but
their faces all wore a tender brightness, such as we see fall-
ing like a thin celestial veil over all the (aces in an old Flo-
rentine painting. The room was full of sweet memories, of
words of cheer, words of assurance, words of triumph, and
the mysterious brightness of that young face forbade them
to weep. Solemnly Mr. Sewell read,
" He will swallow up death in victory ; and the Lord God
will wipe away tears from off all faces ; and the rebuke of
his people shall he take away from off all the earth ; for
the Lord hath spoken it. And it shall be said in that day,
Lo this is our God ; we have waited for him, and he will
gave us ; this is the Lord ; we have waited for him, we
will be glad and rejoice in his salvation."
Then the prayer trembled up to heaven with thanksgiv-
ing, for the early entrance of that fair young saint into
glory, and then the same old funeral hymn, with >ts
ful triumph:
" Why should we mourn departed friend*
Or shake at death's alarms,
T is but the voice that Jesus sends
To call them to his arms."
THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND. 431
Then in a few words Mr. Sewell reminded them how
that hymn had been sung in this room so many years ago,
when that frail fluttering orphan soul had been baptized into
the love and care of Jesus, and how her whole life passing
before them in its simplicity and beauty, had come to be so
holy and beautiful a close, and when, pointing to the calm
sleeping face he asked, "Would we call her back ? " there
was not a heart at that moment that dared answer, Yes.
Even he that should have been her bridegroom could not
at that moment have unsealed the holy charm, and so they
bore her away, and laid the calm smiling face beneath the
soil, by the side of poor Dolores.
***** * *
"I had a beautiful dream last night," said Zephaniah
Fennel, the next morning after the funeral, as he opened his
Bible to conduct family worship.
" What was it ? " said Miss Roxy.
" Well ye see, I thought I was out a-walkin' up and down
and lookin' and lookin' for something that I 'd lost. What it
was I could n't quite make out, but my heart felt heavy as
if it would break, and I was lookin' all up and down the
sands by the sea-shore, and somebody said I was like the
merchantman, seeking goodly pearls. I said I had lost my
pearl my pearl of great price and then I looked up, and
far off on the beach, shining softly on the wet sands, lay my
pearl. I thought it was Mara, but it seemed a great pearl
with a soft moonlight on it ; and I was running for it when
gome one said ' hush,' and I looked and I saw Him a-com-
tng Jesus of Nazareth, jist as he walked by the sea of
Galilee. It was all dark night around Him, but I could
see Him by the light that came from his face, and the long
hair was hanging down on his shoulders. He came and took
432 THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND.
up my pearl and put it on his forehead, and it shone out
like a star, and shone into my heart, and I felt happy ;
and he looked at me steadily, and rose and rose in the air,
and, melted in the clouds, and I awoke so happy, and so
calm!"
THE PEABL OF ORR'S ISLAND. 433
CHAPTER XLIY.
IT was a splendid evening in July, and the sky was filled
high with gorgeous tabernacles of purple, and gold, the re-
mains of a grand thunder-shower which had freshened the
air, and set a separate jewel on every needle leaf of the old
pines.
Four years had passed since the fair Pearl of Orr's Island
had been laid beneath the gentle soil, which every year sent
monthly tributes of flowers to adorn her rest, great blue
violets, and starry flocks of ethereal eye-brights in spring, and
fringy asters, and golden rod in autumn. In those days the
tender sentiment which now makes the burial-place a culti-
vated garden, was excluded by the rigid spiritualism of the
Puritan life, which, ever jealous of that which concerned the
body, lest it should claim what belonged to the immortal
alone, had frowned on all watching of graves, as an earth-
ward tendency, and enjoined the flight of faith with the
spirit, rather than the yearning for its cast-off garments.
But Sally Kittridge being lonely, found something in her
Ueart which could only be comforted by visits to that grave.
So she had planted there roses and trailing myrtle, and
tended and watered them ; a proceeding which was much
commented on Sunday noons, when people were eating
their dinners and discussing their neighbors.
It is possible good Mrs. Kittridge might have been much
scandalized by it, had she been in a condition to think on
19
434 THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND.
the matter at all; but a very short time after the funeral
she was seized with a paralytic shock, which left her for a
while as helpless as an infant ; and then she sank away into
the grave, leaving Sally the sole care of the old Captain.
A cheerful home she made, too, for his old age, adorning
the house with many little tasteful fancies unknown in her
mother's days ; reading the Bible to him and singing ManVs
favorite hymns, with a voice as sweet as the spring blue-bird.
The spirit of the departed friend seemed to hallow the
dwelling where these two worshipped her memory, in simple-
hearted love. Her paintings, framed in quaint woodland
frames of moss and pine-cones by Sally's own ingenuity,
adorned the walls. Her books were on the table, and among
them many that she had given to Moses.
" I am going to be a wanderer for many years," he said
in parting, " keep these for me until I come back."
And so from time to time passed long letters between the
two friends, each telling to the other the same story, that
they were lonely, and that their hearts yearned for the com-
munion of one who could no longer be manifest to the senses.
And each spoke to the other of a world of hopes and memo-
ries buried with her, " Which," each so constantly said, " no
one could understand but you." Each, too, was firm in the
taith that buried love must have no earthly resurrection.
Every letter strenuously insisted that they should call each
other brother and sister, and under cover of those names
the letters grew longer and more frequent, and with every
chance opportunity came presents from the absent brother,
which made the little old cottage quaintly suggestive with
smell of spice and sandal-wood.
But, as we said, this is a glorious July evening, and
you may discern two figures picking their way over tbos
THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND. 435
low sunken rocks, yellowed with sea-weed, of which we have
often spoken. They are Moses and Sally going on an even-
ing walk to that favorite grotto retreat, which has so often
been spoken of in the course of this history.
Moses has come home from long wanderings. It is four
years since they parted, and now they meet and have looked
into each other's eyes, not as of old, when they met in the first
giddy flush of youth, but as fully developed man and woman.
Moses and Sally had just risen from the tea-table where she
had presided with a thoughtful housewifery gravity, just pleas-
antly dashed with quaint streaks of her old merry wilfulness,
while the old Captain, warmed up like a rheumatic grass-
hopper in a fine autumn day, chirruped feebly, and told
some of his old stories, which now he told every day, for-
getting that they had ever been heard before. Somehow all
three had been very happy ; the more so, from a shadowy
sense of some sympathizing presence which was rejoicing to
see them together again, and which, stealing soft-footed and
noiseless everywhere, touched and lighted up every old fa-
miliar object with sweet memories.
And so they had gone out together to walk ; to walk tow-
ards the grotto where Sally had caused a seat to be made,
and where she declared she had passed hours and hours,
knitting, sewing, or reading.
" Sally," said Moses, " do you know I am tired of wander-
ing ? I am coming home now. I begin to want a home of
my own." This he said as they sat together on the rustic
eat and looked off on the blue sea.
" Yes, you must," said Sally. " How lonely that ship
looks, just coming in there."
" Yes, they are beautiful," said Moses abstractedly ; and
Sally rattled on about the difference between sloops and
436 THE PEARL OF OER'S ISLAND.
brigs ; seeming determined that there should be no silence,
such as often comes in ominous gaps between two friends
who have long been separated, and have each many things
lo say with which the other is not familiar.
" Sally ! " said Moses, breaking in with a deep voice on
one of these monologues. tt Do you remember some pre
sumptuous things I once said to you, in this place ? "
Sally did not answer, and there was a dead silence in which
they could hear the tide gently dashing on the weedy rocks-
" You and I are neither of us what we were then, Sally,"
said Moses. "We are as different as if we were each
another person. We have been trained in another life,
educated by a great sorrow, is it not so ? "
" I know it," said Sally.
" And why should we two, who have a world of thoughts
and memories which no one can understand but the other,
why should we, each of us, go on alone ? If we must, why
then, Sally, I must leave you, and I must write and receive
no more letters, for I have found that you are becoming so
wholly necessary to me, that if any other should claim you,
I could not feel as I ought. Must I go ? "
Sally's answer is not on record ; but one infers what it was
from the fact that they sat there very late, and before they
knew it, the tide rose up and shut them in, and the moon
rose up in full glory out of the water, and still they sat and
lalked, leaning on each other, till a cracked, feeble voice
i ailed down through the pine-trees above, like a hoarse
old cricket,
" Children, be you there ? "
" Yes, father," said Sally, blushing and conscious.
" Yes, all right," said the deep bass of Moses. " I '11 bring
Her back when I 've done with her, Captain."
THE PEARL OF ORE'S ISLAND. 437
" "Wai', wal* ; I was gettin* consarued ; but I see I don't
Deed to. I hope you won't get no colds nor nothin'."
They did not ; but in the course of a month there was a
wedding at the brown house of the old Captain, which every-
body in the parish was glad of, and was voted without dis-
sent to be just the thing.
Miss Roxy, grimly approbative, presided over the prep-
arations, and all the characters of our story appeared, and
more, having on their wedding-garments. Nor was the
wedding less joyful, that all felt the presence of a heavenly
guest, silent and loving, seeing and blessing all, whose voioe
seemed to say in every heart,
" He turneth the shadow of death into morning."
THE END.
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