The Country of the Pointed Firs. Sarah Orne Jewett
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an anxious expression.
“I see you sleevin’ the old gentleman down the hill,” she suggested.
“Yes. I’ve had a very interesting afternoon with him,” I answered, and her face brightened.
“Oh, then he’s all right. I was afraid ‘twas one o’ his flighty spells, an’ Mari’ Harris wouldn’t”—
“Yes,” I returned, smiling, “he has been telling me some old stories, but we talked about Mrs. Begg and the funeral beside, and Paradise Lost.”
“I expect he got tellin’ of you some o’ his great narratives,” she answered, looking at me shrewdly. “Funerals always sets him goin’. Some o’ them tales hangs together toler’ble well,” she added, with a sharper look than before. “An’ he’s been a great reader all his seafarin’ days. Some thinks he overdid, and affected his head, but for a man o’ his years he’s amazin’ now when he’s at his best. Oh, he used to be a beautiful man!”
We were standing where there was a fine view of the harbor and its long stretches of shore all covered by the great army of the pointed firs, darkly cloaked and standing as if they waited to embark. As we looked far seaward among the outer islands, the trees seemed to march seaward still, going steadily over the heights and down to the water’s edge.
It had been growing gray and cloudy, like the first evening of autumn, and a shadow had fallen on the darkening shore. Suddenly, as we looked, a gleam of golden sunshine struck the outer islands, and one of them shone out clear in the light, and revealed itself in a compelling way to our eyes. Mrs. Todd was looking off across the bay with a face full of affection and interest. The sunburst upon that outermost island made it seem like a sudden revelation of the world beyond this which some believe to be so near.
“That’s where mother lives,” said Mrs. Todd. “Can’t we see it plain? I was brought up out there on Green Island. I know every rock an’ bush on it.”
“Your mother!” I exclaimed, with great interest.
“Yes, dear, cert’in; I’ve got her yet, old’s I be. She’s one of them spry, light-footed little women; always was, an’ light-hearted, too,” answered Mrs. Todd, with satisfaction. “She’s seen all the trouble folks can see, without it’s her last sickness; an’ she’s got a word of courage for everybody. Life ain’t spoilt her a mite. She’s eighty-six an’ I’m sixty-seven, and I’ve seen the time I’ve felt a good sight the oldest. ‘Land sakes alive!’ says she, last time I was out to see her. ‘How you do lurch about steppin’ into a bo’t?’ I laughed so I liked to have gone right over into the water; an’ we pushed off, an’ left her laughin’ there on the shore.”
The light had faded as we watched. Mrs. Todd had mounted a gray rock, and stood there grand and architectural, like a caryatide. Presently she stepped down, and we continued our way homeward.
“You an’ me, we’ll take a bo’t an’ go out some day and see mother,” she promised me. “‘Twould please her very much, an’ there’s one or two sca’ce herbs grows better on the island than anywhere else. I ain’t seen their like nowheres here on the main.”
“Now I’m goin’ right down to get us each a mug o’ my beer,” she announced as we entered the house, “an’ I believe I’ll sneak in a little mite o’ camomile. Goin’ to the funeral an’ all, I feel to have had a very wearin’ afternoon.”
I heard her going down into the cool little cellar, and then there was considerable delay. When she returned, mug in hand, I noticed the taste of camomile, in spite of my protest; but its flavor was disguised by some other herb that I did not know, and she stood over me until I drank it all and said that I liked it.
“I don’t give that to everybody,” said Mrs. Todd kindly; and I felt for a moment as if it were part of a spell and incantation, and as if my enchantress would now begin to look like the cobweb shapes of the arctic town. Nothing happened but a quiet evening and some delightful plans that we made about going to Green Island, and on the morrow there was the clear sunshine and blue sky of another day.
VIII. Green Island
ONE MORNING, very early, I heard Mrs. Todd in the garden outside my window. By the unusual loudness of her remarks to a passer-by, and the notes of a familiar hymn which she sang as she worked among the herbs, and which came as if directed purposely to the sleepy ears of my consciousness, I knew that she wished I would wake up and come and speak to her.
In a few minutes she responded to a morning voice from behind the blinds. “I expect you’re goin’ up to your schoolhouse to pass all this pleasant day; yes, I expect you’re goin’ to be dreadful busy,” she said despairingly.
“Perhaps not,” said I. “Why, what’s going to be the matter with you, Mrs. Todd?” For I supposed that she was tempted by the fine weather to take one of her favorite expeditions along the shore pastures to gather herbs and simples, and would like to have me keep the house.
“No, I don’t want to go nowhere by land,” she answered gayly,—“no, not by land; but I don’t know’s we shall have a better day all the rest of the summer to go out to Green Island an’ see mother. I waked up early thinkin’ of her. The wind’s light northeast,—‘twill take us right straight out, an’ this time o’ year it’s liable to change round southwest an’ fetch us home pretty, ‘long late in the afternoon. Yes, it’s goin’ to be a good day.”
“Speak to the captain and the Bowden boy, if you see anybody going by toward the landing,” said I. “We’ll take the big boat.”
“Oh, my sakes! now you let me do things my way,” said Mrs. Todd scornfully. “No, dear, we won’t take no big bo’t. I’ll just git a handy dory, an’ Johnny Bowden an’ me, we’ll man her ourselves. I don’t want no abler bo’t than a good dory, an’ a nice light breeze ain’t goin’ to make no sea; an’ Johnny’s my cousin’s son,—mother’ll like to have him come; an’ he’ll be down to the herrin’ weirs all the time we’re there, anyway; we don’t want to carry no men folks havin’ to be considered every minute an’ takin’ up all our time. No, you let me do; we’ll just slip out an’ see mother by ourselves. I guess what breakfast you’ll want’s about ready now.”
I had become well acquainted with Mrs. Todd as landlady, herb-gatherer, and rustic philosopher; we had been discreet fellow-passengers once or twice when I had sailed up the coast to a larger town than Dunnet Landing to do some shopping; but I was yet to become acquainted with her as a mariner. An hour later we pushed off from the landing in the desired dory. The tide was just on the turn, beginning to fall, and several friends and acquaintances stood along the side of the dilapidated wharf and cheered us by their words and evident interest. Johnny Bowden and I were both rowing in haste to get out where we could catch the breeze and put up the small sail which lay clumsily furled along the gunwale. Mrs. Todd sat aft, a stern and unbending lawgiver.
“You better let her drift; we’ll get there ‘bout as quick; the tide’ll take her right out from under these old buildin’s; there’s plenty wind outside.”
“Your bo’t ain’t trimmed proper, Mis’ Todd!” exclaimed a voice from shore. “You’re lo’ded so the bo’t’ll drag; you can’t git her before the wind, ma’am. You set ‘midships, Mis’ Todd, an’ let the boy hold the sheet ‘n’ steer after he gits the sail up; you won’t never git out to Green Island that way. She’s lo’ded bad, your bo’t is,—she’s heavy behind’s she is now!”
Mrs. Todd turned with some difficulty and regarded the anxious adviser, my right oar flew out of water, and we seemed about to capsize. “That you, Asa? Good-mornin’,” she said politely. “I al’ays liked the starn seat best. When’d you git back from up country?”
This allusion to Asa’s origin was not lost upon the rest of the company. We were some little distance from shore, but we could hear a chuckle of laughter, and Asa, a person who was too ready with his criticism and advice on every possible subject, turned and walked indignantly away.
When we caught the wind