Chapter 5

"And what if that should not be your fate indeed, Vesta Kirtland: not bearing, and toil, and pain, and all the heart-breaking vicissitudes of woman's life, but some peculiar station?

"So tall and gracious, to go robed costly, to ride splendidly accoutred and attended, to condescend almost to _all_, to give gracious _downward_ smiles.

"What if they knew the power of wealth and alien rank, for that matter, I held in that miserable, lean, little paw of mine! You should outshine Grace Langham as the sun, Vesty. Some time, if she were wronged and sorrowful, could I point her, delicately, with all forbearance and worship of my own, that way?"

"Be you rebellious?" Unsuccessful in her cheerful attempts with Vesty, Jane Pray had turned to me.

But Vesty resented her companion's question, almost involuntarily turning to me with a quick and awful pity.

(No; I had been lost, dreaming: not that way, surely; not though her heart were moved with the purest pity angels could bestow; not thou, Vesty, above all, sweet one, beautiful one! to a union so unfit and repelling.)

But I had to bring my thoughts back from a long way to answer Miss Fray's question.

"No," I said. "I settled that with God long ago. It is all right between us."

Miss Pray, confused by Vesty's look, blushed painfully.

"Thank you for asking me about it," I said gently.

At that Miss Pray rose. "Come; le's play words," she said.

So the girl and the woman folded their sewing, and Miss Pray brought from some hitherto unknown recreative source a little box of cardboard letters, and we sat at the table together.

Miss Pray and Vesty thoughtfully selected some letters and shook them together and handed them each to me to make into words. I gave them each a word.

The letters I gave Miss Pray composed a simple and striking feature of the Basin vocabulary, "w-h-a-l-e."

Those I gave Vesty I studied to make a little more difficult, "c-o-n-t-i-n-u-e."

Miss Pray gave me three letters. It happened as I dropped them on the table that they fell of themselves into complete literary sequence, "c-o-w." But Vesty handed me eleven shuffled letters, a ladylike aspiration, and looked at me with a little appealing blush--the Basin school is so brief, so limited in its curriculum.

Miss Pray put on her glasses and studied wearily and long on her letters, placing them every way. I saw that she had them now at last, "w-h-a-l-e," but was regarding them as blankly as ever.

"Pray do not move them again," I cried hopefully, finding the game more exciting than I had anticipated. "You have it, 'w-h-a-l-e,' whale--see?"

Miss Pray looked shocked and dubious. I saw at once that she was suffering under the sorrowful mental conviction that I had spelled the word wrongly: but that she was resolved not again to wound my feelings. She turned to assist Vesty.

"That," she said at length, struck by some suggestive combination, "might be 'continnu,' Vesty, ef it had more 'n's and no 'e'."

"Oh," said Vesty, pleased and enlightened. "But major knows," she added promptly, "about the spelling."

"I have your word, you see, Vesty," I said. "'S-e-p-p-e-r-a-t-i-o-n.'"

I had it spread out proudly on the table. She looked at me and blushed again. I smiled, only as I would at a priceless child.

"You _are_ cute at _guessin'_, major," said Miss Pray admiringly; but I saw that she held me deficient in the classical prearrangement of words, and that the game had lost interest to her on that account. So we laid it by.

When Vesty rose to go home, "I will go with you," I said, wrapping my sad little presence in an overcoat.

Miss Pray looked as she had when she asked me if I was rebellious.

But Vesty said quickly: "I wish you would. I am so afraid in the dark!"

Afraid in the dark! Not she; but this was some ointment for that unconscious thrust Miss Pray had given.

I walked home with her. Coming back, there was ever a slight crackling in the bushes and stealthy breathing behind me. It was the lad, Jimmy Kirtland, sent by Vesty surreptitiously to see that I arrived safely at Miss Pray's.

I regarded sacredly this innocent device, but, arrived in the house, I heard Jimmy outside pleading cautiously to Miss Pray through the window that he was afraid to go back alone.

Miss Pray tried to arouse one of her two orphans--her help: for answer they screamed aloud, sinking back into a sleep deep with snores of utter repose.

"Sh! sh!" she said. "I'll go home with you, Jimmy."

I had not taken off my great-coat. I went out of my room and followed them, unseen. In sight of the Kirtland home-light Jimmy ran in, glad. Miss Pray turned to face the darkness alone; she went a few paces, stopped, hesitated, and began to weep softly.

"I am here to walk home with you, Miss Pray," I said. "Come; I can see very well in the dark."

"Thank God!" said she, and came toward me with a little bound; for it seemed that it did not make any difference to her in this emergency that I did not know how to spell.

VII

"SETTIN' ON THE FENCE"--THE SHIFTY SPECTRE

"Admiral 's I sum-sit-up," collector of road-taxes, a title cheerfully accorded him through the genial courtesy of the Basin, came down from the Point.

In the distance we could hear him approaching as usual, the passionless monotone of his voice growing ever nearer and more distinct, as he flapped methodically first one rein, then the other, over the unhurried action of his horse, sagely admonishing him to "G'long! ye old fool! Git up! ye old skate!"

His mortal conversation, too, though cutting and profound, was, in the deepest sense, without rancor or emotion.

"'S I sums it up," said he, "yer road down through the woods 's gittin' more ridick'lous 'n ever."

"Poo! poo! Wouldn't be afraid to bet ye she ain't," said Captain Pharo Kobbe, with glowing pipe.

"Ye seem to boast yerselves 't ye don't belong to nothin' down here," continued the admiral; "but ye does. Ye belongs to a shyer town. Ye orter have some pride. 'S I sums it up, be you goin' to pay yer rates, or work 'em out mendin' yer roads?"

"I've noticed pretty darned well 't I don't belong to no town, only when it comes to votin' some on ye into offis' up there and payin' taxes," said one of the Basin group--Captain Dan Kirtland, Vesty's father. "I ain't a-goin' to pay no rates, nor work 'em out on no roads neither. When I goes I goes by boat, 'n' I didn't see, when I was out pollockin' this mornin', but what the water 's jest as smooth as she ever was!"

A low murmur of sympathetic laughter ran through the group.

"I goes by boat--when I goes," said Captain Leezur benignantly. "She _is_ smoother, sartin she is. But some, ye know, 's never sartisfied. Some neow 's all'as shiftin' a chaw o' tobackker----"

"Comparin' of the road with the water," said Captain Rafe, father of Fluke and Gurdon, "I permits it to ye all that thar' ain't that steadiness about the land that thar' is about the water. Thar 's a kind o' a weaviness and onsartainty about the land."

"'S I sums it up," said the imperturbable collector, grave pipe of expired ashes in mouth, "thar 's some bottom to the water, but it 's purty nigh fell out o' yer roads down here. Ye're a disgrace to a shyer town."

Loud and unoffended laughter from the group.

"I permits 't thar 's some advantages about the land," continued Captain Rafe. "I wants ter go out and shute me a mess o' coots once in a while, and ketch me a mess o' brook-trout, but as for tinkerin' over the roads--why, that artis' that was down here three months las' summer, paintin' a couple o' Leezur's sheep eatin' rock-weed off'n a nubble, said 't our roads was picturusque. You don't suppose I'm goin' around a-shorin' up and sp'ilin' the picturusque, do ye?"

Inextinguishable laughter from the group. At this juncture Captain Shamgar came up with his cows.

"Ain't ye drivin' yer cows home ruther early, Shamgar? Sun 's a-p'intin' 'bout tew in the arternoon."

"Wal, yes, but I got through cuttin' weir-stays, and thought 's the cows was over there, I'd take 'em along home with me. Save goin' back arter 'em by 'n' by, ye know."

Captain Shamgar disposed himself on the fence, and the cows fell to browsing in the lane.

"Got your road-tax ready for the adm'r'l, Shamgar?"

"Sartin, sartin," said that individual, firmly and permanently buttressing his cowhide boots between the rails; "charge 'er to the town pump, and take 'er out o' the handle!"

Uproarious laughter.

"You'd orter see the roads in Californy," said a dark spectre with shifty eyes on the outskirts of the group.

"Gold, ain't they, Pershal?"

"No, no," said the spectre modestly; "jest common silver-leavin's. Arfter they've made silver dollars they scrape up all the cornder pieces and leavin's, and heave 'em out into the road. They wears down smooth in a little while--and shine? Wal----"

"Speakin' o' coots," firmly interposed Captain Dan Kirtland, "onct when I was cruisin' to Boston, I seen a lot o' coots hangin' up thar' in the market 't looked as though they'd been hangin' thar' ever senct before Adam cut his eye-teeth. 'How long be you goin' to keep them coots?' says I. 'Coots!' says he; 'them's converse-back ducks.' 'Converse-back ducks!' says I; 'them 's coots,' says I, 'and they're gittin' to be _old_ coots too,' says I. 'You come from Maine, I guess, don't ye?' says he. 'Never mind whether I come from Maine or whether I come from Jaffy,' says I, 'I come from sech a quarter of this 'arth as whar' coots is jest _coots_,' says I."

"Ye'd orter see the coots in Californy," wailed the voice of the shifty spectre on the outskirts.

"Kind o' resemblin' cows in size, ain't they, Pershal?"

"No, no; the biggest I ever seen was the size o' Shamgar's tom-turkey; but plenty? Wal----"

"Speakin' o' Jaffy," said Captain Leezur; "somebody was tellin' me 't they'd heered how 't Lot's wife--she that was turned into a pillar o' salt, ye know----"

"Ye'd orter see the hunks o' salt in Californy!" moaned triumphantly the spectre.

"Had got up and went!" joyfully concluded Captain Leezur.

"Wal, now, speakin' o' trout (I permits that they have termenjus trout in Californy," wisely subjoined Captain Rafe), "larst Sunday I was startin' for Shadder Brook with my pole and line, and I met this noospaper man's wife, 't's boardin' up to Lunette's. She was chopped down so small tow'ds the waist line, looked as ef, ef she sh'd happen to get ketched in a nor'wester, she'd go clean in tew. Didn't bear no more resemblance to your Vesty, Dan, than a hourglass on the shelf does to the nateral strompin' figger o' womankind (I permits the women has splendid figgers in Californy).

"'Wal,' says she to me, and sighs. 'I wish 't there was a chapel to this place,' says she. 'I know,' says I; 'I've all'as said, ef they'd start 'er up I'd contribbit to 'er--'s fur as my purse 'u'd allow.'"

Exhaustive laughter for some cause from the group.

"'Do you think it's right to go a-fishin' Sunday?' says she. 'No, marm,' says I, 'not big fish, but little treouts?' says I; 'won't you jest think it over, marm?' says I. And while she was thinkin' I kind o' shied and sidled off, an' got away outer the ship's channel."

"Wal, thar' neow," said Captain Leezur, beaming with fond sympathy at the heavens, "sech folks dew help to parss away the time, amazin'."

"'S I sums it up," said the impassively listening collector, "ef ye don't pass away some o' yer time on yer roads down here, ye'll break some o' yer d--d necks."

Renewed unresentful laughter from the group.

"Grarsshoppers, neow," said Captain Leezur, seriously and reflectively, "makes better treoutin' bait 'n angle-worms (I know 't we don't have no sech grarsshoppers nor angle-worms neither as they dew in Californy).

"Nason was over t'other day, helpin' me shingle my barn. 'Twas a dreadful warm day, and we was takin' our noonin' arfter dinner, settin' thar' on the log, 'nd there was a lot o' these 'ere little green grarsshoppers hoppin' areound in the grarss: so arfter a spall, we speared up some on 'em and----"

"'S I sums it up, ef ye want to stay here and ketch the last fish 't God ever made, 'ste'd o' bracin' up and mendin' yer roads and takin' yer part in a shyer town, ye must do so."

"Sho!" said Captain Leezur, regarding him with wistful compassion; "I hain't seen as fish was gittin' skeerce."

By winks and insinuations of niggardliness, through Captain Rafe, father of Fluke, he was moved to take a nervine lozenge out of his pocket and display it temptingly before the sapient, immovable countenance of the collector. The latter, cold pipe in mouth, solemnly shook his head.

"They _dew_ come kind o' high, I know," said Captain Leezur, "but I'm all'as willin' to sheer 'em with a friend. I ain't one o' that kind that's all'as peerin' anxiously into the futur'."

"The furderest time 't I ever looked into the futur'," said Captain Dan Kirtland, "was once when I was a boy 'bout nineteen, and my father told me not to take the colt out. He was a stallion colt (I know 't we don't have no sech colts here as they do in Californy), jest three years and two months old, and sperrited--oh, no; I guess he wa'n't sperrited none! Wal, my father was gone one day, and I tackled him up and off I went. Might 'a' fetched up all right, but 't happened jest as I was passin' by them smoke-houses to Herrinport, some boys 't was playin' with a beef's blawder had hove her up onto the roof, and she bounded down right atween that stallion's ears and eyes. In jest about one second I looked so far into the futur' that I run my nose two inches into the 'arth, and she 's been broke ever since."

"Never mind, Kirtland, she 's all thar'. The furderest time 't I ever looked ahead," said the voice of Shamgar, "was once in war time. Flour fifteen dollars a barrel, seven girls and five boys (I know 't we don't raise no sech families here as they do in Californy), everything high. All to once the thought come to me, 'Mebbe herrin'll be high tew.' And sure enough herrin' was high!"

"The furderest time 't I ever looked ahead----" deliciously began Captain Leezur.

"G'long! ye old fool! Git up! ye old skate!"

Admiral 'S I Sums-it-up was turning his horse about.

"I believe you and me 's got a bet on, ain't we, adm'r'l?" said Captain Pharo.

"I told 'em 'twas wastin' waggin ile to come down here to c'lect. G'long! ye old fool! Git up! ye old skate! 'S I sums it up, bet ye, goin' 'tween here and the Point I could scrape twenty-five pound o' mud off 'n yer kerridge time ye gits thar', Kobbe. G'long! ye old fool! Git up! ye old skate!"

His unbaffled monotone grew gradually faint in the distance.

"Roads _be_ all porridge up there a piece, I reckon," chuckled Captain Pharo; "but as long as Crooked River runs, I don't calk'late to lose no bet. Poo! poo!"

"Jest give me time," beamed Captain Leezur, sounding mellifluously, "'n' I can row any Pointer ashore in an argyment 't ever was born yit. I takes a moderate little spall to dew it in. Forced-to-go----"

"Ye be a lazy, yarn-reelin' set, all on ye," said Captain Rafe, grinning with affection and delight on the group. "I'm going to have ye all posted and put on the teown!"

Murmurs of rich and deep laughter.

A tall, dark form, shifty-eyed, had been insensibly moving and disintegrating me from the group. I found myself drifting strangely ever farther and farther away. I was sitting beside him on a rock in the covert of the woods, the sun setting over the bay, and all was still save his voice.

"I went to Californy minding" (mining), said he. "She ain't nothin' so wonderful of a State as you might think: she ain't no bigger 'n Maine 'n' New York and Alabamy, 'n' Afriky 'n' Bar Harbor all put into one!"

"Great heavens!" said I, scratching my feeble little cane into the earth, "is she that?"

Of all that had been denied him in the recent general conversation, of colossal hunks of salt, of grasshoppers "no larger than Dorking hens," of fishes, women, horses fabulous, I listened, rapt with wonder and admiration.

The sun went down, the moon arose, and still I listened. I was not weary, I was not hungry; I was absorbed in sincere and awful attention. But the world is callous and cold, and I shall not repeat those tales.

The world is callous and cold; but, as the shifty spectre at last pointed me, unwilling, homeward, he murmured, with tears in his eyes: "I never found sech an intellergent listener as you be--not in the whole length and breadth of Californy."

VIII

"VESTY 'S MARRIED"

"Vesty 's married Gurd! Vesty 's gone and got married to Gurd!" said the children, big and joyful with news, on their way to school.

Yes, that was what she had done! I leaned heavily for a moment where I stood. That was Vesty!

Oh, child-madness! Sweet, lost child! Oh, pity of the world! and I crawling on with such a hurt; I did not think that should have wrung me so.

I was getting near her door; not anywhere else could I have gone. She would be at the Rafes' cottage now--so easily do the Basin brides move, without wedding journey or trousseau.

The wash-tubs and cooking-stove stood at one end of the long, low-raftered room, the cabinet organ and violins at the other. Captain Rafe and the boys were out, hauling their sea-traps, and Vesty had been doing the washing that they were wont to do for themselves; the mother, like her own, being dead.

The room was nice as I had never seen it before, and Vesty was putting some pitiful little ornaments to rights at the cabinet-organ end.

She turned to me with so strange and febrile a look, yet with so wild and startled a welcome in her eyes.

"Hush!" I said. "You wanted me, child; I am here."

I saw that she had turned to lean against the organ, and that she was shaken with sobs.

"What have you done, Vesty? Wicked and false beyond any woman I know--_you_!"

"Have you seen him?" she sobbed.

"No, I have not seen Notely. You were married only last night."

"I wrote to him. There was only one way to save Notely from marrying me--only one way."

"You might have waited."

"Notely would never have waited. Notely meant to marry me."

"You should have married him, and not been false."

"I would rather be false than ruin Notely."

"You thought that it would ruin him? You had some assistance in that belief; his lady mother came to see you; the property is hers. If he transgresses, no property, no wealthy Grace Langham, no easy glory at the bar or in the state. What were those to your love, Vesty?"

She looked up, dim, and shook her head. "You have done a wilful, blind, impetuous thing. You were piqued, proud, angry, and so you gave yourself, body and soul, to this mad leap."

"I don't care for my body (sob) or soul (sob) if Notely isn't sick."

"There is One who is above Notely, to punish as well as to pity, Vesty."

"God"--very softly--"oh, yes!" The bewildered, grief-tormented eyes looked faith into mine. "I didn't mean that. I asked Him. I could only find one way. He won't let Notely come to harm, but help him to make the best of himself."

"Your lover is a brave man. He would not have been selfish toward you as this great hulk, Gurdon. He knew you intelligently. He would have lifted, considered, cared for you."

Vesty held herself aloft, pale. "Gurdon is good. If any one ever asked Gurd for anything he always gave it to them."

I leaned my head on my hand, my heart leaping. Vesty came near me. "Tell me that you do not think it is a great mistake--such a great--a lost--mistake; for Notely's sake, tell me! I looked so for you to come. I wanted you."

To have touched one thread of her dark hair, bowed there before me! I did not touch her.

"Ah, the mistake!" I said; "ah, the pity of it! You do not tell me how _you_ have suffered, Vesty; how your own heart has been torn."

She took my hand, and, turning her head, pushed it gently away from her, as some blind instrument of torture.

"The last time I heard you sing, Vesty, you put your hands on Uncle Benny's poor, confused head and soothed and guided him. Who was there to help or guide you, motherless child, confused and lost?"

"Could you have seen the way?" How she entreated me!

"No one sees the way. But a broken heart and a life--misguided and lost though it be--_given_."

She looked up, dim, again.

"You will make them happy here," I added. Ah, that she understood! She looked about the room with a sad, brave pride, and rose and stood again, a striking picture there.

"They did need _me_," she said; "_he_ needed me more than Notely. And I shall get time, besides, to go over to father's and help with the children."

I nodded. "Oh, it is bravely done," I said. "We shall get on." For she was worn from her long mental struggle, and nearly wild in those dark-circled eyes. "There will be no more feathers in Captain Rafe's cake. Did I tell you? He and the boys invited me here to tea. They had been dressing birds and baking in the same morning. The plum cake was full of feathers, Vesty."

She laughed, and looked at me with shocked gratitude because I had made her laugh.

"Not chopped or sugared feathers, Vesty, but whole winged feathers of the natural flavor."

"Oh!" she said, "shouldn't you think they needed me?"

"Infinitely."

"Wait. Won't you come--come and see me often? Come evenings and hear the boys play--they _can_ play!--and tell me"--her hands trembled--"tell me about Notely!" Her soul bare in her uplifted eyes. Only to one as a wraith, a shadow, out of the ordinary pale of humanity, could she have looked like that!

"Always, whatever I hear or know," I answered her. "Gurdon will not be jealous of me." I smiled at her.

She smiled back in her dim way. "Jealous?" she said. "What! after we are married?"

"Ay, surely! The Basins are true to each other then always."

"That is the way," she said.

"That is the way," I said, and left her.

When Notely Garrison received the letter that Vesty had written him he read at the end: "When you get this I shall be married;" and the "for love of you, Notely, God knows that! You must make the most of all He gives you." Notely seemed to see her eyes.

Then he lost them and went down into a mental gulf. He locked himself in his room, to be ever alone; thoughts came to him that he could not bear: he rose and filled a glass twice with brandy and drained it. He ran his hand through the tumbled light hair that Vesty had so loved, and reeled out of the room with a laugh on his lips and a flush on his face.

"Mother, I have lost my girl!"

"O Notely! however mistaken I have been, what have I loved, whom have I loved in all this world but you, my child? Do not break my heart!"

"No, no, mother!" said Notely, going and standing beside her; "I am your natural--natural--protector."

As he stood thus, looking out with his drunken yet bright and tender eyes, the child of her breast whom she had robbed, she laid her head on his shoulder and began to cry. "Why, mother!" he said, almost sobered for the instant. Never had this son seen this mother weep. He led her to a lounge.

"I think," he said, struggling for thought very seriously; he racked his stormy, fuddled brain for what would most please her. "Now, when shall we have a wedding, mother? Grace--Grace Langham."

"O Notely!" She tried to detain him with her hand.

"I'll go--go ask her," he said. He passed out with an easy exaggeration of his usual lordly air, debonair and high, and at the same time genial.

Grace was alone in the arbor, in her favorite hammock, with a book, when Notely came up.

The look she gave him was full of amusement and anger and disgust.

These qualities somehow attracted him now. He was a gentleman; he tried to hold himself very erect against the trellis, and put the question delicately.

"Light--light--light of my soul!" he said.