Chapter 8

_From Miss Helen Jelliffe to Miss Jane Van Zandt_

_Dear Aunt Jennie_:

Harry Lawrence was telling me one day that the proper study of man is girl, and vice versa. It is his modification of the ancient and mossy saw.

Daddy is doing very well, and now that he is asleep through the hypnotic virtues of a best seller which I have read to him in large doses, I resume my correspondence with you, and, incidentally, my study of man. He is really very interesting, Aunt Jennie, with the tiniest bit of secretiveness as to his own purposes in life which, of course, makes one more curious about him. In a frock coat, with gardenia in his button hole, he would make an ideal usher at a fashionable wedding. A few days ago, when we took that trip to Will's Island, I observed that he has capable limbs, properly clean-cut features and a general appearance of energetic efficiency. There are scores just like him, that we meet on golf links and tennis courts, and, in spite of his rough garb, he really is a most presentable young man.

I received your letter yesterday, and of course my own Auntie Jennie could not have foreborne to say that there is no island so deserted that I would not find a nice young man in it. I consider this statement as merely displaying the most ordinary and even superficial acquaintance with the laws of gravitation.

By this time I am naturally entirely at home in the social circles of Sweetapple Cove. The ancient dames grin at me, most toothlessly and pleasantly, and since I recklessly distributed all my stock of Maillard's among the urchins I have a large following among the juvenile population. To guard against the impending famine I have obtained from St. John's some most substantial and highly colored candies at very little a pound which are just now quite as popular to an undiscriminating taste. I wish I had not been so prodigal with the other ones.

I have foregathered with Mrs. Barnett a great deal and have simply fallen in love with her. Aunt Jennie, dear, she is a lady to her poor needle-pricked fingers' ends. She is one of the numerous offspring of an English parson who was the seventh or eighth son of an inpecunious baronet, I believe. Her husband starved as a curate in the most genteel fashion, for some years, and suddenly announced that he was coming here. We don't know whether Ruth was quite so subservient after the wedding was over, for I understand that some brides change to some extent after marriage. Mrs. Barnett was a Ruth before and remained one ever since.

She quietly packed up her trunks and her infants and doubtless bought the tickets, as Mr. Barnett was probably writing a sermon or visiting old ladies up to the last moment. Then she found herself here and immediately made the best of it, and that best is a thing to marvel at. She is a beautiful, tired-looking thing in dreadful clothes who wears an aureola of hair that is a perfect wonder. Her back is beautifully straight and she is capable of a smile I wish I could imitate.

She has the softest, cultured, sweet, English accent, which came with a little quiver of her voice when she told of a little one who died here, before there was any doctor. The three that are left are to her as Cornelia's jewels.

I would just give anything to bring her to New York, give her the run of the best _couturières_ and show her to some of our diamonds-at-breakfast dowagers. As Harry would say, she would make them look like thirty cents. They would perish with jealousy. She holds the savor and fragrance of centuries of refinement.

Yesterday I went to their little church. It was built by Mr. Barnett and the inhabitants, who cheerfully gave their labor. Every board of it represents untold begging and saving. It was a nice, simple, little service, in which the people were much interested and sang hymns with fervor and plenty of false notes. My voice is hardly worth the money that has been squandered upon it, but such as it is I began to sing also. To my intense dismay I was soon singing alone, for the rest of the congregation respectfully stopped. Mr. Barnett looked at me most benevolently over his spectacles, but this was hardly enough to subdue my sudden stage fright.

On the day before the nice little man called on us, soon after dinner, which here is a midday function. Before this particular feast I had apologized to Daddy for leaving him alone and going sailing for a few hours.

"That's the worst of you women-folk," he rebuffed me. "Just because a fellow happens to be fond of you, you must pretend that you are entirely indispensable. I got on very nicely, thank you, and your absence had no deleterious influence upon my leg. There is some slight pain in it, whether you are here or not."

"I know that the charm of my conversation makes you forget it at times," I told him.

"I don't deny the charm," said Daddy, who is the most scrupulously polite man, as you know, "but just now the delight of something to eat is what I'm hankering for."

"You are going to have Newfoundland turkey," I told him.

Daddy looked at me incredulously, and then his countenance fell.

"Don't tell me you are referring to codfish," he said.

"That is the sad news," I told him. "It is going to be perfectly delicious, and you will have to wait a moment."

So I turned up my sleeves and armoured myself in a blue gingham apron before invading the realm of Susie Sweetapple, who only knows how to boil things, including the tea. Like a true artist I engaged in an improvisation. The only really bad thing about codfish, Aunt Jennie, is its intrusive quality when it is prepared by the hundreds and thousands of quintals. Otherwise, like eggs and potatoes, it is capable of a multiplicity of avatars. We brought the dish back in triumph.

"Here, at last, is some return for the money squandered upon my education," I announced. "Aren't you glad I took a course in cookery?"

But Daddy refused to commit himself until after he had thoroughly sampled my effort.

"It is first rate," he said, "and you can take another course if you like."

"You know I brought the cookery book with me," I informed him, "but I've stopped using it. It tells one to take pinches of this, and pints of that, and cupfuls of other things that have never been heard of in Sweetapple Cove. It is dreadfully discouraging. I suggested roast beef to Susie, for to-night, and she stared at me and I laughed at my own folly. There is just one recently imported cow in the place, and a small calf, and they're alive, as are the goats. I can't reconcile my mind to the idea of a live cow being beef, and the calf is a personal friend of mine."

"I have hitherto considered you as being somewhat ornamental," said Daddy. "Now that you are also proving useful I am deeming you a profitable investment."

So we had lunch together, for I can't get used to the custom of calling it dinner.

"That was a splendid sail we had," I said. "The sea was perfectly delightful. And that poor man was so glad to be brought here. Dr. Grant is doing wonderful things."

"A smart chap," commented Daddy. "If he has to do this for a living I'm sorry for him, and if he isn't compelled to he's probably some sort of useful crank."

"At any rate Sweetapple Cove appreciates him," I said.

"I have no doubt he's an angel with pin-feathers sprouting all over him," retorted Dad. "But it isn't business, which I take the liberty of defining as the way of making the best of one's opportunities instead of frittering them away. He has unquestionably done a few dozens of poor devils a lot of good, including myself. But he could find many more cripples in any big city, and a few of them might have bank accounts."

Just then we heard some one whistling. I was interested to note that the tune was from a fairly recent comic opera that can hardly have reached the general population of Sweetapple Cove.

"There is your crank," I said, rather viciously.

He knocked at the door and came in, breezily, as he generally does.

"I've got to be off," he announced. "I shall probably not return till to-morrow night, or perhaps the morning after. You are getting along very well, Mr. Jelliffe. Just let me have another look before I go away."

The inspection seemed to be entirely satisfactory.

"Well, I'll run now," said Dr. Grant. "I'll come and see you the moment I get back."

He hurried out again, and I saw him join Sammy and the Frenchman. I waved my hand at him as the boat was leaving the cove, but I suppose that he wasn't looking for he made no answer, though Yves wigwagged with a flaming bandanna.

"Now wouldn't that jar you?" said Daddy. "Wouldn't it inculcate into you a chastened spirit? Doesn't he consider me as an important patient? Just comes in and grins and runs away again, for a couple of days, as if I were not likely to need him at any moment. He's the limit!"

"I don't really think he is going away just for the fun of it," I objected.

At this moment Susie Sweetapple burst into the room like a Black Hand bomb. It is one of her little ways.

"Parson's coming," she declared, breathlessly, and nodded her head violently to emphasize the importance of her statement.

"I suppose it is Mr. Barnett," I said. "They expected him back to-day. He has been away to a place they call Edward's Bay."

"I presume it is," assented Daddy. "His arrival appears to cause the same sort of excitement on this population as the fire-engines produce among the juveniles of New York, judging from Susie's display."

The girl had run to the door and opened it widely. Then she backed away before a little man who removed a clerical hat that was desperately green from exposure to the elements, and which revealed a shock of hair of a dull flaxen hue doubtless washed free of any pigment by salt spray and rain. His garments were also of distinctive cut, though they frankly exposed well-meant though unvailing efforts at matching buttons and repairing small rents. He bowed to me, his thin face expanding into a most gentle and somewhat professional smile, and he expressed commiseration at the sight of Daddy in his bed.

"I hope I don't intrude upon your privacy," he said, with an intonation just as refined as that of his wife, though scarcely as sweet. "I took the liberty of calling, having been informed of your very distressing accident. I fear you have not finished your repast, and perhaps I had better..."

"Do come in and take a seat," I told him. "It is ever so kind of you to call."

"I am very glad to see you, sir," said Daddy, very cordially. "We have not had many opportunities to welcome visitors here, and even our doctor is too busy a man to pay long calls."

"Yes, quite so. Indeed he is at times exceedingly busy. We think him an extremely nice young man; quite delightful, I assure you, and he does a great deal of good."

The man was rubbing his thin little hands together, with his head cocked to one side, looking like an intellectual and benevolent sparrow.

I must say that I was impressed by him. From conversations with the fishermen I had gathered the impression that Mr. Barnett was a perfectly fearless man on land and water, and I had imagined an individual cast in a rather heroic mold.

It hardly seemed possible that this little parson was the subject of the tales I had heard, for he bore a tiny look of timidity and, I was sorry to see, of overwork and underfeeding. But the latter may have been dyspepsia.

"This is rather a large field to which we have been called," he continued. "It gives one very fine opportunities as well as some difficulties to contend with. But of course we keep on striving. It is not missionary work, you understand, for the people are all very firm believers. It is merely a question of lending a helping hand, to the best of one's ability."

"It must be dreadfully hard at times," I put in. "You had quite a long sail to get here, didn't you? And isn't it perfectly awful in winter?"

"I have been carried out to sea, and things have looked rather badly sometimes," he said, deprecatingly. "But one must expect a little trouble now and then, you know."

Daddy began to ask him questions. You know how he prides himself on his ability to turn people inside out, as he expresses it. The poor little man answered, slowly, smiling blandly all the time and looking quite unfit, physically, to face the perils of such a hard life. I became persuaded that under that frail exterior there must be a heart full of strength to endure, of determination to carry out that which he considers to be his duty.

"You know I really am afraid I'm a dreadful coward," he suddenly confessed. "I have been rather badly frightened some times."

"My father was the bravest man I ever knew," said Daddy, "and he acknowledged that he was scared half to death whenever he went into battle, during the war. Yet he was several times promoted for gallantry in the field. I feel quite sure that you must have deserved similar advancement, more than once."

Mr. Barnett looked at him, doubtfully, and with a funny little frightened air.

"I am afraid you must be chaffing me," he said, with a tentative smile.

"No, sir, I am not," clamored Daddy. "Bravery lies in facing the odds, when you have to, and putting things through regardless of one's fears. The chap who never gets scared hasn't enough brains to know danger."

The uneasy look of the parson's face gave way to a pleased expression.

It was interesting to watch Daddy getting at all the facts, as he calls it, and I suppose that it is a precious talent. In the shortest possible time he knew the birth rate, the chief family histories, the rates for the transportation of codfish to the remotest parts of the world, and how many barrels of flour it took to keep a large family alive for one year, besides a few hundred other things.

During a lull I asked Mr. Barnett whether he would have some tea. Your cultivated taste is the one I have followed as regards this beverage, and I have an ample provision. Before the full-flavored North China infusion, which I kept out of Susie's devastating hands, and the little biscuits coming from the most British-looking tin box, I saw the Reverend Basil Barnett, late of Magdalen, gradually becoming permeated by a sense of something that had long been missing from his life. When he first caught the aroma he looked incredulous, then his features relaxed in the smile of the expert utterly satisfied.

"Mrs. Barnett and I are exceedingly fond of tea," he said, after I had compelled him to let me fill his cup for the third time.

To-morrow I shall discover some manner of making the dear woman accept a pound or two of it. The appreciation of her spouse made me think of some lion-hearted, little, strenuous lady with an inveterate tea-habit. Can you understand such a confused statement? I realize that it is badly jumbled. At any rate he held his cup daintily, with three fingers, and looked at it as Daddy looks at a glass of his very special Château-Larose.

"I shall have to go now," he announced, perhaps a little regretfully. "I hear, Miss Jelliffe, that you have helped minister to the needs of that poor Dick Will. I am going to see him now. By the way, I trust I may have the pleasure of seeing you to-morrow at our little church, if you can leave your dear patient long enough."

"Of course I'll come," I promised, "and I would be glad to go with you now and see Dick. I know Daddy won't mind, and I should like to see whether I can do anything to make the man more comfortable."

"Run along, my dear," said Daddy.

Mr. Barnett expressed thanks, and we walked away together. I actually had to shorten my steps a little to accommodate myself to his quick, shuffling gait. It is queer, Aunt Jennie, but before this tiny, unpretentious parson I feel a sense of deference and high regard. To think he is able to overcome his fears, that his gracile body has been called upon to withstand the bufferings of storms, and that his notion of duty should appear to raise him, physically, to the level of these rough vikings among whom he labors, is quite bewildering. And the best of it is that when he talks he is entirely free from that didactic authority so often assumed by men of his cloth. He just admits you into his confidence, that is all.

"Mrs. Barnett has told me of your kindness to her and the little chaps," he said. "I am so pleased that you have become acquainted. The thing a woman misses most, in places like this, is her circle of friends. But she is the bravest soul in the world, and although she worries a good deal when I am away in bad weather she always looks cheerful when I return. I have been blessed beyond my deserts, Miss Jelliffe."

The little man looked up at me, and I could see that his face was bright with happiness, so that I had to smile in sympathy. I don't know that I have ever realized before what a huge thing love and affection mean in the lives of some people, how they can cast a glamour over sordid surroundings and reward one for all the hardships.

"I am glad that you are happy," I told him. "I think that you have become very fond of the place and of these people."

"I shall miss them if ever I am called away," he acknowledged, looking at the poor, unpainted houses and the rickety flakes.

Dear Auntie Jennie, it looks to me as if these were people to be envied. To the parson life is the prosecution of a work he deems all-important, and which he carries on with the knowledge that there is always a helping hand lovingly to uphold his own. And yet I admire his wife still more deeply, for she looks like a queen who loves her exile, because the king is with her.

We went into the house in which Dick found shelter. The men were away fishing, of course, but two women were there, with their fair share of the children who swarm in the Cove. At once aprons were produced for the polishing of the two rough chairs of the establishment.

"We has some merlasses now," one of the women told me, proudly. "Th' little bye he be allers a puttin' some on bread an' leavin' it on th' cheers."

Daddy is calling me, so good by for the present. I am so glad the people of Sweetapple Cove interest you.

Lovingly, HELEN.