“Yesm, old friends is always best, less you can catch a new one thats fit to make an old one out of.”
Mother made my new skirt
long because I was growing, and I poked about the deck after that, real
discouraged, feeling the hem at my heels every minute, and as if youth
was past and gone. I liked the trousers best; I used to climb the
riggin' with 'em and frighten mother till she said an' vowed she'd never
take me to sea again."
I thought by the polite absent-minded smile on Mrs. Todd's face this was
no new story.
"Little Louisa was a beautiful child; yes, I always thought Louisa was
very pretty," Mrs. Todd said. "She was a dear little girl in those
days. She favored your mother; the rest of you took after your father's
folks."
"We did certain," agreed Mrs. Fosdick, rocking steadily. "There, it does
seem so pleasant to talk with an old acquaintance that knows what you
know. I see so many of these new folks nowadays, that seem to have
neither past nor future. Conversation's got to have some root in the
past, or else you've got to explain every remark you make, an' it wears
a person out."
Mrs. Todd gave a funny little laugh. "Yes'm, old friends is always best,
'less you can catch a new one that's fit to make an old one out of,"
she said, and we gave an affectionate glance at each other which Mrs.
Fosdick could not have understood, being the latest comer to the house.
XIII. Poor Joanna
ONE EVENING my ears caught a mysterious allusion which Mrs. Todd made to
Shell-heap Island. It was a chilly night of cold northeasterly rain, and
I made a fire for the first time in the Franklin stove in my room, and
begged my two housemates to come in and keep me company. The weather had
convinced Mrs. Todd that it was time to make a supply of cough-drops,
and she had been bringing forth herbs from dark and dry hiding-places,
until now the pungent dust and odor of them had resolved themselves into
one mighty flavor of spearmint that came from a simmering caldron
of syrup in the kitchen. She called it done, and well done, and had
ostentatiously left it to cool, and taken her knitting-work because
Mrs. Fosdick was busy with hers. They sat in the two rocking-chairs, the
small woman and the large one, but now and then I could see that Mrs.
“Tact is, after all, a kind of mind reading.”
Todd were
lenient, and we all took our places after William had paused to wash his
hands, like a pious Brahmin, at the well, and put on a neat blue coat
which he took from a peg behind the kitchen door. Then he resolutely
asked a blessing in words that I could not hear, and we ate the chowder
and were thankful. The kitten went round and round the table, quite
erect, and, holding on by her fierce young claws, she stopped to mew
with pathos at each elbow, or darted off to the open door when a song
sparrow forgot himself and lit in the grass too near. William did not
talk much, but his sister Todd occupied the time and told all the news
there was to tell of Dunnet Landing and its coasts, while the old mother
listened with delight. Her hospitality was something exquisite; she had
the gift which so many women lack, of being able to make themselves
and their houses belong entirely to a guest's pleasure,--that charming
surrender for the moment of themselves and whatever belongs to them,
so that they make a part of one's own life that can never be forgotten.
Tact is after all a kind of mindreading, and my hostess held the golden
gift. Sympathy is of the mind as well as the heart, and Mrs. Blackett's
world and mine were one from the moment we met. Besides, she had that
final, that highest gift of heaven, a perfect self-forgetfulness.
Sometimes, as I watched her eager, sweet old face, I wondered why she
had been set to shine on this lonely island of the northern coast.
It must have been to keep the balance true, and make up to all her
scattered and depending neighbors for other things which they may have
lacked.
When we had finished clearing away the old blue plates, and the kitten
had taken care of her share of the fresh haddock, just as we were
putting back the kitchen chairs in their places, Mrs. Todd said briskly
that she must go up into the pasture now to gather the desired herbs.
"You can stop here an' rest, or you can accompany me," she announced.
"Mother ought to have her nap, and when we come back she an' William'll
sing for you. She admires music," said Mrs.
“It is the people who can do nothing who find nothing to do, and the secret to happiness in this world is not only to be useful, but to be forever elevating ones uses.”
He
felt a strange pleasure in the sight of a small, round head at the
front study window between the glass and the curtain, and Nan came to
open the door for him, while Marilla, whose unwonted Sunday afternoon
leisure seemed to have been devoted to fragrant experiments in
cookery, called in pleased tones from the dining-room that she had
begun to be afraid he was going to stay out to supper. It was somehow
much more homelike than it used to be, the doctor told himself, as he
pushed his feet into the slippers which had been waiting before the
fire until they were in danger of being scorched. And before Marilla
had announced with considerable ceremony that tea was upon the table,
he had assured himself that it had been a very pleasant hour or two at
Mrs. Graham's, and it was the best thing in the world for both of them
to see something of each other. For the little girl's sake he must try
to keep out of ruts, and must get hold of somebody outside his own
little world.
But while he called himself an old fogy and other impolite names he
was conscious of a grave and sweet desire to make the child's life a
successful one,--to bring out what was in her own mind and capacity,
and so to wisely educate her, to give her a place to work in, and
wisdom to work with, so far as he could; for he knew better than most
men that it is the people who can do nothing who find nothing to do,
and the secret of happiness in this world is not only to be useful,
but to be forever elevating one's uses. Some one must be intelligent
for a child until it is ready to be intelligent for itself, and he
told himself with new decision that he must be wise in his laws for
Nan and make her keep them, else she never would be under the grace of
any of her own.
XI
NEW OUTLOOKS
Dr. Leslie held too securely the affection of his townspeople to be
in danger of losing their regard or respect, yet he would have been
half pained and half amused if he had known how foolishly his plans,
which came in time to be his ward's also, were smiled and frowned upon
in the Oldfields houses. Conformity is the inspiration of much
second-rate virtue. If we keep near a certain humble level of morality
and achievement, our neighbors are willing to let us slip through life
unchallenged. Those who anticipate the opinions and decisions of
society must expect to be found guilty of many sins.
There was not one of the young village people so well known as the
doctor's little girl, who drove with him day by day, and with whom he
kept such delightful and trustful companionship.
“In the life of each of us, I said to myself, There is a place remote and islanded, and given to endless regret or secret happiness.”
This plain anchorite had
been one of those whom sorrow made too lonely to brave the sight of men,
too timid to front the simple world she knew, yet valiant enough to live
alone with her poor insistent human nature and the calms and passions of
the sea and sky.
The birds were flying all about the field; they fluttered up out of the
grass at my feet as I walked along, so tame that I liked to think they
kept some happy tradition from summer to summer of the safety of nests
and good fellowship of mankind. Poor Joanna's house was gone except
the stones of its foundations, and there was little trace of her flower
garden except a single faded sprig of much-enduring French pinks, which
a great bee and a yellow butterfly were befriending together. I drank at
the spring, and thought that now and then some one would follow me from
the busy, hard-worked, and simple-thoughted countryside of the mainland,
which lay dim and dreamlike in the August haze, as Joanna must have
watched it many a day. There was the world, and here was she with
eternity well begun. In the life of each of us, I said to myself, there
is a place remote and islanded, and given to endless regret or secret
happiness; we are each the uncompanioned hermit and recluse of an hour
or a day; we understand our fellows of the cell to whatever age of
history they may belong.
But as I stood alone on the island, in the sea-breeze, suddenly
there came a sound of distant voices; gay voices and laughter from a
pleasure-boat that was going seaward full of boys and girls. I knew, as
if she had told me, that poor Joanna must have heard the like on many
and many a summer afternoon, and must have welcomed the good cheer
in spite of hopelessness and winter weather, and all the sorrow and
disappointment in the world.
XVI. The Great Expedition
MRS. TODD never by any chance gave warning over night of her great
projects and adventures by sea and land. She first came to an
understanding with the primal forces of nature, and never trusted to any
preliminary promise of good weather, but examined the day for herself in
its infancy. Then, if the stars were propitious, and the wind blew
from a quarter of good inheritance whence no surprises of sea-turns or
southwest sultriness might be feared, long before I was fairly awake I
used to hear a rustle and knocking like a great mouse in the walls, and
an impatient tread on the steep garret stairs that led to Mrs.
“It does seem so pleasant to talk with an old acquaintance who knows what you know. I see so many new folks nowadays who seem to have neither past nor future. Conversation has got to have some root in the past, or else you have got to explain every remark you make, and it wears a person out.”
She didn't have nothing aboard, of
her own, that she wanted to cut up for me, so when my dress wore out she
just put me into a spare suit o' John's, jacket and trousers. I wasn't
but eight years old an' he was most seven and large of his age. Quick
as we made a port she went right ashore an' fitted me out pretty, but
we was bound for the East Indies and didn't put in anywhere for a good
while. So I had quite a spell o' freedom. Mother made my new skirt
long because I was growing, and I poked about the deck after that, real
discouraged, feeling the hem at my heels every minute, and as if youth
was past and gone. I liked the trousers best; I used to climb the
riggin' with 'em and frighten mother till she said an' vowed she'd never
take me to sea again."
I thought by the polite absent-minded smile on Mrs. Todd's face this was
no new story.
"Little Louisa was a beautiful child; yes, I always thought Louisa was
very pretty," Mrs. Todd said. "She was a dear little girl in those
days. She favored your mother; the rest of you took after your father's
folks."
"We did certain," agreed Mrs. Fosdick, rocking steadily. "There, it does
seem so pleasant to talk with an old acquaintance that knows what you
know. I see so many of these new folks nowadays, that seem to have
neither past nor future. Conversation's got to have some root in the
past, or else you've got to explain every remark you make, an' it wears
a person out."
Mrs. Todd gave a funny little laugh. "Yes'm, old friends is always best,
'less you can catch a new one that's fit to make an old one out of,"
she said, and we gave an affectionate glance at each other which Mrs.
Fosdick could not have understood, being the latest comer to the house.
XIII. Poor Joanna
ONE EVENING my ears caught a mysterious allusion which Mrs. Todd made to
Shell-heap Island. It was a chilly night of cold northeasterly rain, and
I made a fire for the first time in the Franklin stove in my room, and
begged my two housemates to come in and keep me company. The weather had
convinced Mrs. Todd that it was time to make a supply of cough-drops,
and she had been bringing forth herbs from dark and dry hiding-places,
until now the pungent dust and odor of them had resolved themselves into
one mighty flavor of spearmint that came from a simmering caldron
of syrup in the kitchen. She called it done, and well done, and had
ostentatiously left it to cool, and taken her knitting-work because
Mrs.
“God would not give us the same talent if what were right for men were wrong for women.”
"This is why I made up my mind to be a physician," said the culprit;
and though she had been looking down and growing more uncomfortable
every moment, she suddenly gave her head a quick upward movement and
looked at Mrs. Fraley frankly, with a beautiful light in her clear
eyes. "I believe that God has given me a fitness for it, and that I
never could do anything else half so well. Nobody persuaded me into
following such a plan; I simply grew toward it. And I have everything
to learn, and a great many faults to overcome, but I am trying to get
on as fast as may be. I can't be too glad that I have spent my
childhood in a way that has helped me to use my gift instead of
hindering it. But everything helps a young man to follow his bent; he
has an honored place in society, and just because he is a student of
one of the learned professions, he ranks above the men who follow
other pursuits. I don't see why it should be a shame and dishonor to a
girl who is trying to do the same thing and to be of equal use in the
world. God would not give us the same talents if what were right for
men were wrong for women."
"My dear, it is quite unnatural you see," said the antagonist,
impatiently. "Here you are less than twenty-five years old, and I
shall hear of your being married next thing,--at least I hope I
shall,--and you will laugh at all this nonsense. A woman's place is at
home. Of course I know that there have been some women physicians who
have attained eminence, and some artists, and all that. But I would
rather see a daughter of mine take a more retired place. The best
service to the public can be done by keeping one's own house in order
and one's husband comfortable, and by attending to those social
responsibilities which come in our way. The mothers of the nation have
rights enough and duties enough already, and need not look farther
than their own firesides, or wish for the plaudits of an ignorant
public."
"But if I do not wish to be married, and do not think it right that I
should be," said poor Nan at last. "If I have good reasons against all
that, would you have me bury the talent God has given me, and choke
down the wish that makes itself a prayer every morning that I may do
this work lovingly and well?
“The road was new to me, as roads always are, going back.”
Perhaps it is the great national
anniversaries which our country has lately kept, and the soldiers'
meetings that take place everywhere, which have made reunions of every
sort the fashion. This one, at least, had been very interesting. I
fancied that old feuds had been overlooked, and the old saying that
blood is thicker than water had again proved itself true, though from
the variety of names one argued a certain adulteration of the Bowden
traits and belongings. Clannishness is an instinct of the heart,--it is
more than a birthright, or a custom; and lesser rights were forgotten in
the claim to a common inheritance.
We were among the very last to return to our proper lives and lodgings.
I came near to feeling like a true Bowden, and parted from certain new
friends as if they were old friends; we were rich with the treasure of a
new remembrance.
At last we were in the high wagon again; the old white horse had been
well fed in the Bowden barn, and we drove away and soon began to climb
the long hill toward the wooded ridge. The road was new to me, as roads
always are, going back. Most of our companions had been full of anxious
thoughts of home,--of the cows, or of young children likely to fall
into disaster,--but we had no reasons for haste, and drove slowly along,
talking and resting by the way. Mrs. Todd said once that she really
hoped her front door had been shut on account of the dust blowing in,
but added that nothing made any weight on her mind except not to forget
to turn a few late mullein leaves that were drying on a newspaper in the
little loft. Mrs. Blackett and I gave our word of honor that we would
remind her of this heavy responsibility. The way seemed short, we had
so much to talk about. We climbed hills where we could see the great
bay and the islands, and then went down into shady valleys where the air
began to feel like evening, cool and camp with a fragrance of wet ferns.
Mrs. Todd alighted once or twice, refusing all assistance in securing
some boughs of a rare shrub which she valued for its bark, though she
proved incommunicative as to her reasons.
The process of falling in love at first sight is as final as it is swift in such a case, but the growth of true friendship may be a lifelong affair.
Todd
III The Schoolhouse
IV At the Schoolhouse Window
V Captain Littlepage
VI The Waiting Place
VII The Outer Island
VIII Green Island
IX William
X Where Pennyroyal Grew
XI The Old Singers
XII A Strange Sail
XIII Poor Joanna
XIV The Hermitage
XV On Shell-heap Island
XVI The Great Expedition
XVII A Country Road
XVIII The Bowden Reunion
XIX The Feast's End
XX Along Shore
XXI The Backward View
I. The Return
THERE WAS SOMETHING about the coast town of Dunnet which made it seem
more attractive than other maritime villages of eastern Maine. Perhaps
it was the simple fact of acquaintance with that neighborhood which
made it so attaching, and gave such interest to the rocky shore and
dark woods, and the few houses which seemed to be securely wedged and
tree-nailed in among the ledges by the Landing. These houses made
the most of their seaward view, and there was a gayety and determined
floweriness in their bits of garden ground; the small-paned high windows
in the peaks of their steep gables were like knowing eyes that watched
the harbor and the far sea-line beyond, or looked northward all along
the shore and its background of spruces and balsam firs. When one really
knows a village like this and its surroundings, it is like becoming
acquainted with a single person. The process of falling in love at first
sight is as final as it is swift in such a case, but the growth of true
friendship may be a lifelong affair.
After a first brief visit made two or three summers before in the course
of a yachting cruise, a lover of Dunnet Landing returned to find the
unchanged shores of the pointed firs, the same quaintness of the village
with its elaborate conventionalities; all that mixture of remoteness,
and childish certainty of being the centre of civilization of which her
affectionate dreams had told. One evening in June, a single passenger
landed upon the steamboat wharf. The tide was high, there was a fine
crowd of spectators, and the younger portion of the company followed
her with subdued excitement up the narrow street of the salt-aired,
white-clapboarded little town.
II. Mrs. Todd
LATER, THERE WAS only one fault to find with this choice of a summer
lodging-place, and that was its complete lack of seclusion. At first the
tiny house of Mrs. Almira Todd, which stood with its end to the street,
appeared to be retired and sheltered enough from the busy world, behind
its bushy bit of a green garden, in which all the blooming things, two
or three gay hollyhocks and some London-pride, were pushed back against
the gray-shingled wall.
“Some set more by such things as come from a distance, but I reclect mother always used to maintain that folks was meant to be doctored with the stuff that grew right about em”
“What has made this nation great? Not its heroes but its households.”
“The thing that teases the mind over and over for years, and at last gets itself put down rightly on paper - whether little or great, it belongs to Literature.”
“When I was as you are now, towering in the confidence of twenty-one, little did I suspect that I should be at forty-nine, what I now am.”
Theres more women likes to be loved than there is of those that loves.
The bright flower was like a face. Somehow, the beauty and life of it were surprising in the plain room, like a gay little child who might suddenly appear in a doorway.
I now remembered that Mrs. Todd had told me one day that Captain Littlepage had overset his mind with too much reading.
There are plenty of people dragging themselves miserably through the world, because they are clogged and fettered with work for which they have no fitness... I cant help believing that nothing is better than to find ones work early and hold fast to it, and put all ones heart into it.
A community narrows down and grows dreadful ignorant when it is shut up to its own affairs, and gets no knowledge of the outside world except from a cheap, unprincipled paper.
It was mortifying to find how strong the habit of idle speech may become in one’s self. One need not always be saying something in this noisy world.
In the life of each of us, I said to myself, there is a place remote and islanded, and given to endless regret or secret happiness; we are each the uncompanioned hermit and recluse of an hour or a day; we understand our fellows of the cell to whatever age of history they may belong.
I couldnt help thinkin if she was as far out o town as she was out o tune, she wouldnt get back in a day.
