Chapter 13

So much to leave!--but who knows ever to how much going! Not so Mrs. Garrison. The bright way ended at this pass, in blank darkness.

And Notely slept on, wearied, heedless; soft, luxurious trappings of life all about him; his reconciled young wife; his hope now of an heir for his name and fortune; the work he had struggled at last so unrestingly to do; and the dear, lost love of his youth, Vesty, bending over him.

Leaving them, not able to be heedful, so deep-wrapped in unknown dreams. Waking once more and turning from them vaguely (ah, the sublime, unconscious contempt of death!); turning from them vaguely, as though in some far Basin the dawn were breaking!

"Uncle Benny," said he, holding out his wasted hand, "the school-house is very dark--I'll go home now."

* * * * * *

So Vesty's heart was broken in her, and to me she came, as to a father, or more as to a friendly, favoring ghost.

"Take me back to the Basin!"

"Yes."

She sat in a kind of patient apathy, numb, her heart faithful with the dead.

"How little Gurd will call for you when he sees you again!" I spoke; but to waken her was to bring such a torrent of tears, choking, she entreated me not.

But, "It is well, I believe," I said to her; "there is life enough! Be sure he does not lack for life. What! do you think we have found the best of it, and all of it, here? I imagine God has enough! It is not because His bread fails Him that any go hungry, or because He lacks for gold that any are poor, but only for His purpose--we must guess--and when the poor, shattered school-house grows dark the light breaks elsewhere."

Vesty had not slept for two nights; the sweet face was haggard.

Again passing among crowds of restless, hurrying life, faces cold and strange, or often staring curiously, the haunted look of one lost came again into her eyes.

"I must go and take care of Gurd," she said, "as well as I can, while I live. O God! I hope he never may get lost, out in the world."

"No; how could he, in God's world?"

"When we get back to the Basin then you will be tired of staying there in the bleak and cold. You will never wait for me to pay you; you will laugh at me, and you will go back to the world."

"Vesty!"

Wearily she turned her heavy eyes on me--a ghost; there was the forced, unconscious cry in them of the child, or even of the woman.

Sacredly I shielded their glance, and ghostly; it was as though I had not seen.

"You mistake my courage. There is no winter," I said, smiling, "strong enough to drive me from the Basin."

XXII

"NEIGHBORIN'"

Vesty never said "Stay!" but that unconscious look in her eyes made a sort of forlorn fireplace of hope to me, desolate, open to all the winds. As God wills. I wait.

I went often to Captain Leezur; the nervine lozenges were potent.

"We all'as dew neighbor a great deal in winter," said he approvingly, stretching those dear felts before the blaze.

"Is that a piece of the log we used to sit on?" I inquired mournfully.

"Wal, neow! I r'a'ly believe ye feel a kind o' heart-leanin' to'ds her, don't ye?"

"How can I help it?"

"Sartin! sartin!" said he, delighted; "we're jest like twin-brothers. But neow don't you werry one mite. She 's done a good werk an' she 's returnin' to Natur's God. I've got another one 't I'm goin' to roll deown, first hint o' spring. I don't calk'late ever to be feound, like them wise an' foolish virgins, without no log to set on."

"Thar 's somethin' abeout a log," continued Captain Leezur; "when ye go inter the heouse in warm weather, an' sets deown in a cheer, the women kind o' looks at ye as though you was sick or dreffle lazy; but when ye're eout settin' on a log ye feels as though God was on yewr side, an' man nor woman wa'n't able to afflict ye. They 's a depth an' a ca'm to the feelin' of it, 't them 't sets on fringe an' damarsk sofys don't know nothin' abeout."

"You must have required a great deal of oil in sawing up the old log, captain," I said.

The captain gave the restful sigh of battles overpast.

"Mebbe you think 't the drippin's o' one skunk did it," said he; "but they didn't. Did ye ever think," he resumed, "o' what a wonderful thing ile is, an' what 'd we dew without 'er?--heow the wringin' machine 'ud seound when ye was turnin' on 'er for yer wife, Monday mornin's?"

"No," said I sadly.

"Then ag'in, it 's ile in yer natur' keeps ye ca'm an' c'llected, an' it's ile in yer dispersition l'arns ye t' say, 'Moderation 's the rewl, even in passnips.'"

Lubricated with a sense of peace and blessing, I arose.

"Ye're jest like me," gurgled Captain Leezur; "ye don't feel easy in a cheer! Ye wanter be eout on the old log, don't ye?"

"Yes," said I. "This isn't quite like."

"We're nateral twin-brothers!" he exclaimed, following me to the door. There he looked cautiously backward.

"Dew you remember what I said to ye once," said he, "on the subject o' kile?"

"Ahem!--female affection?" I inquired gently. "Yes."

"Some calls it that," said my twin-brother, beaming on me, "and some calls it kile. Wal, neow, ef a sartin person shows a dispersition to kile, let 'em! Let 'em," said Captain Leezur, irradiating my thin being with the glory of his countenance; "let em."

"Ah," said I, and shook my head again sadly, "I think more and more we will have to go our pilgrimage without that, my friend."

"Neow you look a' here," said Captain Leezur. "I ain't a-sayin' nothin', that they will or that they won't, but if they dew, let 'em. Did ye ever think o' what a heap o' wisdom there is in a poor old bean-pole?

"Mornin' glory comes up an' looks at it. Bean-pole stands up stiff, without no feelin's: don't look at 'er, nor bend over an' kiss 'er, nor nothin'. Mornin' glory don't git skeered, an' she peouts out a lot o' leaves an' tenderls an' begins to kile. Bean-pole takes a chaw o' terbakker an' looks off t'other eend o' the field t' see what the pertater crop 's goin' to be. Mornin' glory peouts out more leaves an' blossoms, an' keeps a-kilin'. By 'n' by thar ain't no poor old God-forsaken bean-pole standin' there--it 's all one mess o' kile an mornin' glory!

"I tell ye, major, we need once in a while for t' l'arn a lesson from natur'. I ain't a-goin' to press ye to stay longer, for I know ye wanter go neighborin'!"

Dazzled, I turned away from the refulgent keenness of his wink.

But I did not take the direction that wink had indicated. I had an invitation, not from Vesty, but from the two most ancient of the Basins to tea, and I stopped in, a solitary and thoughtful bean-pole, at Captain Pharo's on the way.

The music-box was playing. I was glad to hear that; a tune in undertone, like waves slowly, softly breaking.

"She used ter play fifteen different tunes when we first had her," said Captain Pharo pensively; "but she got to squeakin', an' so we had Leezur up to ile 'er, an' ever sence she 's played one tune fifteen times! Poo! poo! hohum! Wal, wal--

Shouldn't care so much, though, ef 'twas only 'The Wracker's Darter.'

"I've threatened a good many times to overhaul her myself, but I ain't no knowledge o' instermental music, and I s'pose I might spend a week on 'er, and not combine 'er insides up to playin' no 'Wracker's Darter,' arter all. Hohum!

At each successive pause the organs of the music-box wheezed, struggled, almost faintly let go of life, then began again the undertone, of waves softly breaking.

"I like it," I said. "I like it wonderfully."

Captain Pharo gave me a keen look and went to the door and winked. I was no longer supine under such invitations. I rose and followed him. "Look a' here, major," said he, when we were alone, coughed. "My foot 's 'most well."

"I am glad of it, captain."

"Look a' here, major," said he, desperately, "what makes you so took up with that 'ere monotonous tune in thar? I'm afeered I may 'a' misled ye, times past, with regards to female grass." He coughed again and lit his pipe. I waited.

"'Specially," he groaned, "some things I may h've said with regards to red and white clover."

Still I waited.

"Look a' here, major, when anybody sets down 'n' admires to sech a monotonous tune as that in thar, thar's somethin' the matter with 'em."

Still I would not speak. Tears almost were in his eyes.

"Now I may h've said some things on partickaler pesterin' 'casions in times past, but in general my verdick--hohum!--is fav'rable to female grass; 'specially--hohum! hohum!--wal, wal, ye knows my meanin', major--'specially with regards to red and white clover: hohum! how 's Vesty?"

The captain gave a sigh that would have exculpated him from the gravest of crimes, and looked steadfastly toward the west.

"I haven't seen her to-day."

"Ye'll think it over, won't ye, major?" said he, still with that far withdrawn vision.

"Well, yes; I'll think it over."

I had proceeded but a little way when he called me back.

"I had it on my mind to tell ye," said he, "when I heered 't ye'd been 'nvited down t' Aunt Gozeman's and Aunt Electry's t' tea; ef they give ye some o' their green melon an' ginger persarves, do ye manage to bestow 'em somewhar's without eatin' of 'em, somehow. They're amazin' proud an' ch'ice of 'em, an' ye don't want to hurt their feelin's, but ye'd better shove 'em right outer the sasser inter yer britches pocket 'n eat 'em--leastways that 's the way they 'fected me."

Visions of a past mortal suffering flitted across Captain Pharo's face.

"I'll try," I said.

"Ef thar 's melon an' ginger persarves settin' by yer plate, d'ye ask them two old women, in some kind of genteel s'ciety ructions sort o' a way, ter go outer the room an' git ye somethin', an' soon 's they've gone d'ye jump up an' thring a shawl over that darn' parrot o' theirn 't stands there noticin' 'an' swearin', an' chuck 'em in over behind the wood-box or somewhar's, but don't eat 'em."

"All right," I said, as he shook my hand with suggestive earnestness once more in parting.

The sisters, by mutual adoption, not by birth, lived together in the "Laury Gleeson;" the sign of a wrecked schooner nailed up over their shanty door.

"And why not? We be all a-sailin', been't we?" said Aunt Electry, who was ninety years old, lighting her pipe; "only I wish 't some 't 's sailin' solitary had mates 't 's fit for 'em--how is Vesty?"

"I don't know," I began, afflicted with a sort of lightness of head. I wanted to take out Uncle Benny's pocket-mirror that I carried with me now. Was I beautiful, and tall, and fair? What had happened me!

"Lectry 's a great girl for straight-for'ard langwidge," said Miss Gozeman kindly, pitying my confusion; she was only eighty and did not smoke.

They led me out more nimbly, almost, than I could follow, to show me the "stock"--some forlorn, fantastic stumps of trees, long dead, all whitewashed with tender art! the pet coon, the tame crow, the wicked goat.

There was another treasure; who, as we came in and sat down to tea, eyed me from his cage with grudging and disfavor: it was the parrot; and I presume injunctions were upon him to keep still, but I did not know.

"Does he talk?" I Inquired kindly.

He snapped viciously at the cage.

"A friend 't had him on shipboard gave him to us long ago," explained Miss Gozeman, with gentle evasion; "we ain't ever been able to break him of it." What the habit was of which they had not been able to break him I sadly inferred.

There was a munificent dish of the green melon and ginger preserves by my plate. I was chatting with my friends, and at the same time meditating what to do, when the tame crow, who had slyly entered the house behind us and stolen Miss Gozeman's spectacles, was now discovered through the window hastening to hide them in the chip-pile.

My entertainers trotted nimbly out after him. I rose, and, lifting the cover of the stove, dashed in the contents of my saucer--when I was startled by a shrill voice and a mocking laugh.

"Oh, I see ye! I'll tell!"

I had forgotten to cover the parrot.

"You are no gentleman if you do!" I retorted, forgetting with whom or what I was talking.

"Shut up!" said the parrot, and laughed. "I see ye, d--n ye! I'll tell!"

At all events I turned, with the intention of going out to assist the ladies in their search for the spectacles, when the scene through the window held me for a moment spellbound.

The crow, having accomplished his mischievous device, was perched near by, gravely regarding the search of the two estimable and time-honored women, who were peering with their faces near the earth, and their backs turned unconsciously; when the cherished goat, creeping maliciously up, made a rush at them from the rear, and pitched them both into the chip heap.

This unspeakably base proceeding had the result, however, of discovering to them the glasses, with which they soon after entered, smiling.

"Bill often hides our glasses," said Aunt Electry.

"Does the goat often bunt you over?" I inquired, with dismay.

"Shut up!" said the parrot, at the sound of my voice. "Oh, I see ye! I'll tell!"

My kind friends gave him a sharp glance, but considerately did not look at me. They saw my emptied preserve plate, however, and concluding that I had taken advantage of their absence the more greedily to gorge myself on its contents, they generously piled it full again of what they imagined to be the same coveted substance.

Seeing this, the parrot shrieked with fiendish joy.

"Indeed it is excellent----" I began.

"Oh, stow your gab!" sneered the parrot, in a suddenly gruff bass voice.

Aunt Electry rose and stamped her foot at him.

"He only knows what he 's been taught long ago--by a friend," said Aunt Gozeman reassuringly; "he can't--tell anything new, right out!"

All the crime they imputed to me then was gluttony in the matter of preserves! Very well; I preferred that.

"They were really so delightful," I began, with the natural reaction from my qualms.

"Oh, wur-r-r!" interrupted that horrible grating voice, and then laughed high and loud.

The sisters in affliction rose and bore the cage out into the shed But I heard oaths and cackles of malicious intention fired at me through the door.

"Sing 'We be a-sailin',' sister," said Aunt Electry, when we had retired again to the fireside.

Miss Gozeman obediently began, in a soft, timid tremulo.

"We are _eout_ on the ocean _sail_ing," came in mocking, strident accents from the wood-shed; "Oh, h--ll! give us a rest!" But dear Aunt Gozeman sang right on, smiling pitifully:

"'To our home beyond the tide.'"

Ah, what tides! what tides had been in these two lives! And stranded here for a little, how they cherished with a great heart of compassion the dead trees that bore them no fruit, loving and pitying the wicked parrot that mocked at them, the crow that stole from them, the goat that upset them.

My own notions of charity seemed so little and mean in comparison.

"Ask me again," I pleaded; "I have been so seldom invited to tea. I have enjoyed it."

Even the fate of the green melon and ginger preserves lay hard on my awakened conscience. But I made up for that. Not for this winter nor any winter, so long as they live, should Aunt Electry or Aunt Gozeman want either for preserves or less brilliant condiments.

Indeed, I play at making home and occupation, and they of the Basin are to me as my sheep through this wild, strange winter; and I as their sly shepherd--sly, like Captain Leezur.

All except Vesty. To her child I can make gifts, unknown, through my stanch friend, Lunette, even of food and clothing, but not to her. The old frayed shawl is grander than any ermine, and the goddess' chest is erect and broad; the winter will not kill her--but I have gazed sadly in the mirror, and I go often to Captain Leezur.

XXIII

THE "FLAG-RAISIN'," OR "THE OCCASION"

"If there 's any fun going on," frankly admits Mrs. Kobbe, "you'll all'as find me up an' dressed!" Perhaps I sympathize more truly with her kind-hearted spouse, who says with a deep sigh: "We mustn't be tackiturn jest because the wind's off the snow-banks."

So I go to the flag-raising.

"The Crooked Rivers and Capers have had their flag up these three weeks," said Lunette; "and I heard how the Artichokes had h'isted theirn yesterday. When the Artichokes have got their flag up, seems as though the Basins had better be thinkin' o' what time it is in the mornin'!"

"What is the flag to be raised for?" I inquired, with unsuspecting innocence.

There was an afflicted silence; still they loved me. Lunette alone answered at last, turning to Tyson, not to me.

"I should think it 's enough to have a flag-raisin' without a-askin' what it is for!" said she. "What does trees grow for? What does anything in natur' act the way it does for?"

I, ever safe anchored behind Lunette's championship, looked out securely at the derelict Tyson, to see if he could answer. He could not, but was abashed. Still I so far appropriated the hint, wisely and delicately delivered, that I made no further inquiries, only giving myself unhesitatingly to the joy of preparation.

The flag was to be raised over the school-house, and instead of wending our way dissonantly thither, as was our habit in attending the meetings, we were to go in procession!

A curious awe attached to this idea, in which I fully shared, as, being formed in line, I tried to limp martially behind the valiant Lunette.

"Halt, by clam!" said our general.

"What is it?" came in whispers along the line.

"Jakie Teel" (one of the sculpins) "'s got his trousers on hind side afore!"

"Flory dressed him by candlelight this mornin', so 't she could get time to make three loaves o' angel-cake for the flag-raisin'."

The victim of this mysterious adventure was led away by his mother for reaccoutrement, while we as a regiment waited patiently for his return to warlike rank and file.

"If these condummit ructions are over," said our general--for the wind was blowing cold--"forwards ag'in, by clam!" and we marched upon the schoolhouse; but we encountered so many difficulties, of wayward ropes, in hoisting our ensign, that Captain Pharo declared, rubbing his chilled hands:

"'T we'd omit the usual cheerin' 'tell we'd been in and thawed out--ef they was any thaw to us--leastways baited."

Vesty was there with the rest, munching a slice of angel-cake--fit food for her! I smiled kindly upon her, but did not forget that I was an indifferent bean-pole.

"Major!" cried the Basin, toward the close of the repast, with its mouth sweet and full--"Major, a speech! a speech!"

Now I had a heart given to the Basin, with a simple thought or two, and I requisitioned the best of my forces for the "Occasion," conscious of my morning glory there--oh, she of the skies! munching angel's food.

Whatever I had said or done, moreover, the Basin would have applauded; yet such cheers as I heard now left no doubt upon my too-willing and plastic sense of a phenomenal and hitherto unsuspected ability.

"Vesty," said Elder Skates, starting to his feet, "will you start--start--start--anything?"

"We always _do_ sing

"'In the prison cells I set, Thinking, mother dear, of you,'

to flag-raisin'," said the ever well-informed and officious Lunette.

"Somehow," said Captain Pharo, shrugging his shoulders, "thar 's too much of a sea-rake blowin' acrost the back o' my neck t' sing 'Prison Cells;' 'tain't clost enough for it here. What d'ye say to 'Hold the Fort'?"

What they said was unanimous. Even Captain Leezur knew it, and the sculpins, of terrible voice. It was sung with such complete personal abandonment to strong oral gifts that, at the second verse, the remaining quota of plastering upon the school-house roof became loosened and fell with a crash upon the head of that very unfortunate sculpin who under other blighting circumstances had been forced to undergo temporary absence from our ranks in the morning.

He uttered a mature sea-oath, and was again marched violently from our presence by his mother; but I was happy to see that he returned soon afterward and renewed his portion of the song with a gusto which the added quality of defiance now rendered deafening, while through all our din sounded true the flute of Vesty's sweet voice.

"We mustn't forgit the occasion, I s'pose," said Captain Pharo, our general, at length. "Poo! poo! hohum! I s'pose it's about time we was thinkin' o' goin' out to cheer the flag. Forwards, by clam! Poo! poo! hohum! Wal, wal--

"Sh!" said Mrs. Kobbe, deftly getting audience at his ear.

"Ladies an' gentlemen an' childern," said Captain Pharo, taking his place beside the flag; "we've h'isted of 'er, an' here she blows"--he put his hand in his pocket for his pipe, and drew from his vest a match.

Mrs. Kobbe coughed loudly, and even shook her head at him: he put them back.

"We have h'isted on 'er," he continued, "an' here she blows!"

Mrs. Kobbe's cough of deeper warning and high-mounting blushes on his account nerved him.

"We've h'isted of 'er," he shouted with desperate defiance, "and thar she blows, don't she, by clam! on the full, the free, the glorious, an' the ever-lastin' h'ist!"

A sturdy round of applause was not wanting, but on this point Mrs. Kobbe was visibly sceptical: she received her lord with sniffs of disdain.

"'The full, the free, the glorious, an' the ever-lastin' h'ist'!" said she. "Where was you eddicated, Cap'n Pharo Kobbe?"

"It don't make but darn little difference whar ye've been eddicated," replied Captain Pharo, "when ye're tryin' to make a speech, an' one o' them devil-fish boys goes around behind ye an' snaps a live lobster onto the slack o' yer britches!"

Giggles from a school of sculpins safe hidden somewhere lent further aggravation to the dilemma.

"Jakie Teel an' Pharie Kobbe, Junior, 'll come to judgment," cried Mrs. Kobbe, in a loud voice, "'specially Pharie Kobbe as soon 's ever he gits home," whereat giggling from that miscreant quarter ceased, and she relieved her lord of his painful embarrassment.

But at this point a new and surprising development arose. The Basin horses attached to some wholesale herring-boxes, extemporized as sleighs, were driven to the scene. Captain Pharo, with heart-whole joy at the sight, lit his pipe and declared, with now beaming countenance:

"It has been arranged, to crown this happy 'casion, for all our unmarried Basins over sixteen year o' age, not forgettin' widders under forty, to have a sleigh ride. Elder Skates'll reel off the names, accordin' to which you can pile yerselves in accordin'ly, two 'n' two, side by side, thus 'n' so, male an' female, created He them!"

Flushed with inspiration, Captain Pharo glanced triumphantly at his wife, who, at this more than Pentateuchal illustration, refused to sneer.

So absorbed was I in watching the gleeful embarkation, and so little dreamed I of being considered in a case like this, it had not even occurred to me that I too was an unmarried Basin widely over sixteen years of age, and yet a little under forty, when--

To the choicest seat in the very largest herring-box, the back of which was stylishly bedizened by the splendors of the star bedquilt, I heard my own name called:

"Major Paul Henry and the Widder Rafe!"

Who and where was the Widow Rafe? Lo! Vesty stepped out. To be sure--the formal, the flag-raising, the "Occasion" name of Vesty!

I led her to her place, but, as for me, I sat down, lost to mortal woes, silent and dazed, among the stars.

"Didn't you want to sit with me?" said Vesty, her face rather grave.

"Oh, why do you ask that?"

"You looked, when they called our names, as though you didn't want to."

Now I tried to dwell upon the words of Captain Leezur, but, however callous I succeeded in appearing on the outside, at heart I was a happy, happy bean-pole.