Part 25 (2/2)
She informed me, while the singers were gathered, as usual, at the Ark, that Luther had gone to make farewell visits to his friends. He had three married sisters living in different parts of the State. They had children. The children were very fond of him, and he was going on such a long voyage. Mrs. Cradlebow was looking beyond the singers, her eyes s.h.i.+ning clear and sad above the pathetic smile on her lips--
”And he says he shan't come back again until he comes to give me such pleasure as I never dreamed of.”
Those words come to me now, either as part of the endless mockery of life, or as strains of hidden music, deep and true, running ever beneath the world's dull misinterpretation.
Afterwards, the choir of voices in the room formed an effectual s.h.i.+eld for confidential conversation.
”You don't know what a good boy he's always been to me, teacher,” Mrs.
Cradlebow continued, with a manner unusual to her, I thought, as of one seeking for sympathy; ”so that I've learned to depend so much on him, more, I think, than on anybody else. Some boys when they're growing up so, they feel independent and they answer you back short, but the older he grew, the gentler he was to me, always, and if he had any trouble, it never made him cross to me; and I think it's harder to see anybody so than if they was cross, for he's quick in ways, I know, but when things go real hard against him, he's patient.”
”He ought not to know much about trouble yet,” I answered hopefully, with the consciousness of one who has fathomed all the mysteries of grief and can yet speak gayly of the forlorn background.
”He doesn't know enough about the world, I'm afraid,” said Mrs.
Cradlebow, and her eyes, fixed on my face, seemed to me to be looking gently into my inmost heart. ”He expects so much, and he never looks out for himself. I wish he'd be content to go fis.h.i.+ng with the other boys--they always come back in the autumn--and not want to sail so far.”
I was almost angry because of the embarra.s.sment I felt under that clear glance.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE MEETING IN THE SCHOOL-HOUSE.
Scene from the Play.]
”Don't you think, Mrs. Cradlebow,” I said nervously; ”that young people are never content until they find out the world for themselves?” It was an interrogation, but it was sagely uttered.
”I know, I know,” she said. ”Perhaps it's best he should go.” She spoke very quietly and with uncommon composure of demeanor. She withdrew her eyes from my face, but the smile trembled on her lips, and I knew that her heart was breaking over the words, for Luther was her darling.
I wished, almost impatiently, for my own part, that it might all have happened differently; that I might leave everything in Wallencamp just as I had found it, so delightfully happy and peaceful it had seemed to me.
I could not bear, in looking back, to think of one face as wearing upon it any unaccustomed grief. At all events, I felt that my thoughts had been helplessly turned from their prescribed channel, and the fisherman's letter remained from day to day still unanswered.
Meanwhile, winter was vanis.h.i.+ng at the Cape. As salient points in its quaint and cherished memory, I recall the frequent clamming excursions, when we rattled own to the beach, at low-tide, in a cart whose groaning members lacked every element of elasticity. Often there were as many as sixteen persons in one cart, and the same number of hoes and baskets--the baskets being filled with small children as a means of keeping both them and the children stationary.
Grandma was always present on these occasions, and the hilarity of the Wallencampers, as they were jounced and joggled over the stones, in a manner which to some might have been productive of great bodily agony, concealed, with them, no undercurrent of nervous dread or pain. They were kind enough to regard the presence of the ”teacher” as indispensable to their complete enjoyment, while I was ready to congratulate myself that my society alone was the object desired, for though I brought my near-sighted vision to bear faithfully upon the sands, I never succeeded in capturing a clam.
I heard that Bachelor Lot had confided aside to Captain Sartell that ”Teacher'd ought to bring a hook and line. The clams 'ud go for it in a minute if she'd only bring a hook and line;” and, stung by the unsheathed sarcasm of this remark, I was accustomed afterwards to wander off towards ”Steeple Rock.” The rock was accessible at low-tide, and from thence I could watch the ocean on one side, and the clam-diggers on the other; could see Grandma on her hands and knees, a dot of broad good nature in the distance, always remaining apparently in the one place, and always, somehow, getting her basket full of clams as she gradually sank deeper and deeper into the briny soil; but no true Wallencamper ever caught cold by soaking in the brine.
I could distinguish Madeline wandering lightly about among the rocks, sc.r.a.ping off mussels with her hoe; and the Modoc, the champion clam-digger of all, spreading her tentacles here and there, and never failing to come up with a bivalve. It was a picturesque scene, viewed from the great rock; and when the tide began to sweep in again, George Olver sent a piercing whistle along sh.o.r.e, to call the stragglers together; clams, children, and all were loaded into the cart, and jostled gayly homeward erased by the fresh sea breezes.
For the chowder, which in due course of events arose to take its place among the viands on the Ark board, I would leave it to that sacred and tenfold mystery with which, to my mind, it was ever enshrouded.
I recall the exhibitions held at the school-house, confined exclusively to the native talent of Wallencamp, at which the old and young were a.s.sembled to speak pieces.
It was then that Aunt Rhoda and Aunt Cinthia, matrons of portly frame and perilous foothold, engaged in a metrical dialogue concerning the robbing of a bird's nest, in which lively diversion they a.s.sumed to have partic.i.p.ated. And Bachelor Lot rendered ”My beautiful Annabel Lee” with unique effect; and Grandma Keeler spoke mysteriously though hopefully of--
”Hope and Harnah Double-decked schooner Cap'n John Homer Marster and owner Bound for Bermudy.”
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