Part 4 (1/2)
”You can; there is no one else that I can count upon. The older men among us are dying, leaving the affairs of the colony to be carried on by the young ones. In like manner I must call upon so young a girl as you to be my a.s.sistant. The older women are doing, and must do, still more important work in preparing the nourishment on which these lives depend and which the young ones are not proficient to prepare.”
Doctor Fuller looked smilingly toward Dame Eliza as he said this, as if he feared her taking offence at Constance's promotion, and sought to placate her.
Mistress Hopkins gave no sign of knowing that he had turned to her, but she said to Damaris, as if by chance: ”This broth may do more than herb brews toward curing, though your mother is not a physician's aid,” and Doctor Fuller knew that he had been right.
A week later, though Humility Cooper was recovering, many more had fallen ill, and several had died.
It was late in January; the winter was set in full of wrath against those who had dared array themselves to defy its power in the wilderness, but the sun shone brightly, though without warmth-giving mercy, upon Plymouth.
There was an armed truce between Giles and his father. The boy would not beg his father's pardon for having defied him. His love for his father had been of the nature of hero-wors.h.i.+p, and now, turned to bitterness, it increased the strength of his pride, smarting under false accusation, to resist his father.
On the other hand Stephen Hopkins, high-tempered, strong of will, was angry and hurt that his son refused to justify himself, or to plead with him. So the elder and the younger, as Constance had said, too much alike, were at a deadlock of suffering and anger toward each other.
Stephen Hopkins was beginning his house on what he had named Leyden Street, in memory of the pilgrims' refuge in Holland, though only by the eyes of faith could a street be discerned to bear the name. Like all else in Plymouth colony, Leyden Street was rather a matter of prophecy than actuality.
Giles was helping to build the house. All day he worked in silence, bearing the cold without complaint, but in no wise evincing the slightest interest in what he did. At night, in spite of the stringent laws of the Puritan colony, Giles contrived often to slip away with John Billington into the woods. John Billington's father, who was as unruly as his boys, connived at these escapades. He was perpetually quarrelling with Myles Standish, whose duty it was to enforce the law, and who did that duty without relenting, although by all the colonists, except the Billingtons, he was loved as well as respected.
Early one morning Constance hurried out of the community house, tears running down her cheeks, to meet Captain Myles coming toward it.
”Why, pretty Constance, don't grieve, child!” said the Plymouth captain, heartily.
”Giles hath come to no harm, I warrant you, though he has spent the night again with that harum-scarum Jack Billington, and this time Francis Billington, too.”
”Oh, Captain Standish, it is not Giles! I forgot Giles,” gasped Constance.
”Rose?” exclaimed the captain, sharply.
Constance bent her head. ”She is pa.s.sing. I came to seek you,” she said, and together she and the captain went to Rose's side.
They found Doctor Fuller there holding Rose's hand as she lay with closed eyes, breathing lightly. In his other hand he held his watch measuring the brief moments left, in which Rose Standish should be a part of time. Mary Brewster, the elder's wife, held up a warning finger not to disturb Rose, but Doctor Fuller looked quietly toward Captain Standish.
”It matters not now, Myles,” he said. ”You cannot harm her. There are but few moments left.”
Myles Standish sprang forward, fell upon his knees, and raised Rose in his arms.
”Rose of the world, my English blossom, what have I done to bring thee here?” he sobbed, with a strong man's utter abandonment of grief, and with none of the Puritan habit of self-restraint.
”Wherever thou hadst gone, I would have chosen, my husband! I loved thee, Myles, I loved thee Myles!” she said, so clearly that everyone heard her sweet voice echo to the farthest corner of the room, and for the last time.
For with that supreme effort to comfort her husband, disarming his regret, Rose Standish died.
They bore Rose's body, so light that it was scarce a burden to the two men who carried it as in a litter, forth to the spot upon the hillside whither they had already made so many similar processions, which was fast becoming as thickly populated as was that portion of the colony occupied by the living.
But as the sun mounted higher, although the March winds cut on some days, then as now they do in March, yet, then as now, there were soft and dreamy days under the ascending sun's rays, made more effective by the moderating sea and flat sands.
The devastating diseases of winter began to abate; the pale, weak remnants of the Mayflower's pa.s.sengers crept out to walk with a sort of wonder upon the earth which was new to them, and which they had so nearly quitted that nothing, even of those aspects of things that most recalled the home land, seemed to them familiar.
The men began to break the soil for farming, and to bring forth and discuss the grain which they had found hidden by the savages--most fortunately, for without it there would have been starvation to look forward to after all that they had endured, since no supplies from England had yet come after them.
There was talk of the Mayflower's return; she had lain all winter in Plymouth harbour because the Pilgrims had required her shelter and a.s.sistance. Soon she was to depart, a severance those ash.o.r.e dreaded, albeit there was well-grounded lack of confidence in the honesty of her captain, Jones, whom the more outspoken among the colonists denounced openly as a rascal.
Little Damaris was fretful, as she so often was, one afternoon early in March; the child was not strong and consequently was peevish. Constance was trying to amuse her, sitting with the child, warmly wrapped from the keen wind, in the warmth of the suns.h.i.+ne behind the southern wall of the community house.
”Tell me a story, Constance,” begged Damaris, though it was not ”a story,” but several that Constance had already told her. ”Make a fairy story. I won't tell Mother you did. Fairy stories are not lies, no matter what they say, are they, Connie? I know they are not true and you tell me they are not true, so why are they lies? Why does Mother say they are lies? Are they bad, are they, Connie? Tell me one, anyway; I won't tell her.”
”Ah, little Sister, I would rather not do things that we cannot tell your mother about,” said Constance. ”I do not think a fairy story is wrong, because we both know it is make-believe, that there are no fairies, but your mother thinks them wrong, and I do not want you to do what you will not tell her you do. Suppose you tell me a story, instead? That would be fairer; only think how many, many stories I have told you, and how long it is since you have told me the least little word of one!”
”Well,” agreed Damaris, but without enthusiasm. ”What shall I tell you about? Not a Bible one.”
”No, perhaps not,” Constance answered, looking lazily off to sea. Then, because she was looking seaward, she added: ”Shall it be one about a sailor? That ought to be an interesting story.”
”A true sailor, or a made-up one?” asked Damaris, getting aroused to her task.
”Do you know one about a real sailor?” Constance somewhat sleepily inquired.
”Here is a true one,” announced Damaris.
”Once upon a time there was a sailor, and he sailed on a s.h.i.+p named the Mayflower. And he came in. And he said: How are you, little girl? And I said: I am pretty well, but my name is Damaris Hopkins. And he said: What a nice name. And I said: Yes, it is. And he said: Where is your folks? and I said: I don't know where my mother went out of the cabin just this minute. But my sister was around, and my brother Giles was here, fixing my hammock, 'cause it hung funny and let me roll over on myself and folded me hurt. And my other brother couldn't go nowheres 'tall, because he was born when we was sailing here, and he can't walk. And the sailor man said: Yes, there were two babies on the s.h.i.+p when we came that we didn't have when we started, and show me your hammock. And I did, and he said it was a nice ham----Constance, what's the matter? I felt you jump, and you look scared. Is it Indians? Connie, Connie, don't let 'em get me!”
”No, no, child, there aren't any Indians about,” Constance tried to laugh. ”Did I jump? Sometimes people do jump when they almost fall asleep, and I was just as sleepy as a fireside cat when you began to tell me the story. Now I am not one bit sleepy! That is the most interesting story I have heard almost--yes, I think quite--in all my life! And it is a true one?”
”Yes, every bit true,” said Damaris, proudly.
”And the sailor went into the cabin, and saw your hammock, and said it was a nice one, did he? Well, so it is a nice one! Did your mother see the man?” asked Constance, trying to hide her impatience.
”No,” Damaris shook her head, decidedly. ”Mother was coming, but the man just put his hand in and set my hammock swinging. Then he went out, and Mother was stopping and she didn't see him. And neither did I, not any more, ever again.”
”Did you tell your mother about this sailor?” Constance inquired.
”Oh, no,” sighed Damaris. ”I didn't tell her. She doesn't like stories so much as we do. I tell you all my stories, and you tell me all yours, don't we, Constance? I didn't tell Mother. She says: 'That's Hopkins to like stories, and music, and art.' What's art, Connie? And she says: 'You don't get those idle ways from my side, so don't let me hear any foolish talk, for you will be punished for idle talk.' What's that, Connie?”
”Oh, idle talk is--idle talk is hard to explain to you, little Damaris! It is talk that has nothing to it, unless it may have something harmful to it. You'll understand when you are old enough to make what you do really matter. But this has not been idle talk to-day! Far, far from idle talk was that fine story you told me! Suppose we keep that story all to ourselves, not tell it to anyone at all, will you please, my darling little sister? Then, perhaps, some day, I will ask you to tell it to Father! Would not that be a great day for Damaris? But only if you don't tell it to any one till then, not to your mother, not to any one!” Constance insisted, hoping to impress the child to the point of secrecy, yet not to let her feel how much Constance herself set upon this request.
”I won't! I won't tell it to any one; not to Mother, not to any one,” Damaris repeated the form of her vow. Then she looked up into Constance's face with a puzzled frown.
”But you wouldn't tell a fairy story, because you said you didn't want things I couldn't tell mother! And now you say I mustn't tell her about my story!” she said.
Constance burst out laughing, and hugged Damaris to her, hiding in the child's hood a merrier face than she had worn for many, many a day.
”You have caught me, little Damaris!” she cried. ”Caught me fairly! But that was a fairy story, don't you see? This isn't, this is true. So this is not to be told, not now, do you see?”
Damaris said ”yes,” slowly, with the frown in her smooth little brow deepening. It was puzzling; she did not really see, but since Constance expected her to see she said ”yes,” and felt curiously bewildered. However, what Constance said was to her small half-sister not merely law, but gospel. Constance was always right, always the most lovable, the most delightful person whom Damaris knew.
”All right, Connie. I won't tell anyone my sailor-man story,” she said at last, clearing up.
”Just now,” Constance supplemented her. ”Some day you shall tell it, Damaris! Some day I shall want you to tell it! And now, little Sister, will you go into the house and tell Ocea.n.u.s to hurry up and grow big enough to run about, because the world, our new world, is getting to be a lovely place in the spring suns.h.i.+ne, and he must grow big enough to enjoy it as fast as he can? I must find Giles; I have something beautiful, beautiful to tell him!”