There lay, bedded in sand and seaweed, a woman with a little boy clasped in her arms! Both had been carefully lashed to a spar, but the child was held to the bosom of the woman, with a pressure closer than any knot that mortal hands could tie. Both were deep sunk in the sand, into which had streamed the woman"s long, dark hair, which sparkled with glittering morsels of sand and pebbles, and with those tiny, brilliant, yellow sh.e.l.ls which are so numerous on that sh.o.r.e.
The woman was both young and beautiful. The forehead, damp with ocean-spray, was like sculptured marble,--the eyebrows dark and decided in their outline; but the long, heavy, black fringes had shut down, as a solemn curtain, over all the history of mortal joy or sorrow that those eyes had looked upon. A wedding-ring gleamed on the marble hand; but the sea had divorced all human ties, and taken her as a bride to itself.
And, in truth, it seemed to have made to her a worthy bed, for she was all folded and inwreathed in sand and sh.e.l.ls and seaweeds, and a great, weird-looking leaf of kelp, some yards in length, lay twined around her like a shroud. The child that lay in her bosom had hair, and face, and eyelashes like her own, and his little hands were holding tightly a portion of the black dress which she wore.
"Cold,--cold,--stone dead!" was the muttered exclamation of the old seaman, as he bent over the woman.
"She must have struck her head there," he mused, as he laid his finger on a dark, bruised spot on her temple. He laid his hand on the child"s heart, and put one finger under the arm to see if there was any lingering vital heat, and then hastily cut the lashings that bound the pair to the spar, and with difficulty disengaged the child from the cold clasp in which dying love had bound him to a heart which should beat no more with mortal joy or sorrow.
Sally, after the first moment, had run screaming toward the house, with all a child"s forward eagerness, to be the bearer of news; but the little Mara stood, looking anxiously, with a wishful earnestness of face.
"Pitty boy,--pitty boy,--come!" she said often; but the old man was so busy, he scarcely regarded her.
"Now, Cap"n Kittridge, do tell!" said Miss Roxy, meeting him in all haste, with a cap-border stiff in air, while Dame Kittridge exclaimed,--
"Now, you don"t! Well, well! didn"t I say that was a ship last night?
And what a solemnizing thought it was that souls might be goin" into eternity!"
"We must have blankets and hot bottles, right away," said Miss Roxy, who always took the earthly view of matters, and who was, in her own person, a personified humane society. "Miss Kittridge, you jist dip out your dishwater into the smallest tub, and we"ll put him in. Stand away, Mara!
Sally, you take her out of the way! We"ll fetch this child to, perhaps.
I"ve fetched "em to, when they"s seemed to be dead as door-nails!"
"Cap"n Kittridge, you"re sure the woman"s dead?"
"Laws, yes; she had a blow right on her temple here. There"s no bringing her to till the resurrection."
"Well, then, you jist go and get Cap"n Pennel to come down and help you, and get the body into the house, and we"ll attend to layin" it out by and by. Tell Ruey to come down."
Aunt Roxy issued her orders with all the military vigor and precision of a general in case of a sudden attack. It was her habit. Sickness and death were her opportunities; where they were, she felt herself at home, and she addressed herself to the task before her with undoubting faith.
Before many hours a pair of large, dark eyes slowly emerged from under the black-fringed lids of the little drowned boy,--they rolled dreamily round for a moment, and dropped again in heavy languor.
The little Mara had, with the quiet persistence which formed a trait in her baby character, dragged stools and chairs to the back of the bed, which she at last succeeded in scaling, and sat opposite to where the child lay, grave and still, watching with intense earnestness the process that was going on. At the moment when the eyes had opened, she stretched forth her little arms, and said, eagerly, "Pitty boy, come,"--and then, as they closed again, she dropped her hands with a sigh of disappointment. Yet, before night, the little stranger sat up in bed, and laughed with pleasure at the treasures of sh.e.l.ls and pebbles which the children spread out on the bed before him.
He was a vigorous, well-made, handsome child, with brilliant eyes and teeth, but the few words that he spoke were in a language unknown to most present. Captain Kittridge declared it to be Spanish, and that a call which he most pa.s.sionately and often repeated was for his mother.
But he was of that happy age when sorrow can be easily effaced, and the efforts of the children called forth joyous smiles. When his playthings did not go to his liking, he showed sparkles of a fiery, irascible spirit.
The little Mara seemed to appropriate him in feminine fashion, as a chosen idol and graven image. She gave him at once all her slender stock of infantine treasures, and seemed to watch with an ecstatic devotion his every movement,--often repeating, as she looked delightedly around, "Pitty boy, come."
She had no words to explain the strange dream of the morning; it lay in her, struggling for expression, and giving her an interest in the new-comer as in something belonging to herself. Whence it came,--whence come mult.i.tudes like it, which spring up as strange, enchanted flowers, every now and then in the dull, material pathway of life,--who knows? It may be that our present faculties have among them a rudimentary one, like the germs of wings in the chrysalis, by which the spiritual world becomes sometimes an object of perception; there may be natures in which the walls of the material are so fine and translucent that the spiritual is seen through them as through a gla.s.s darkly. It may be, too, that the love which is stronger than death has a power sometimes to make itself heard and felt through the walls of our mortality, when it would plead for the defenseless ones it has left behind. All these things _may_ be,--who knows?
"There," said Miss Roxy, coming out of the keeping-room at sunset; "I wouldn"t ask to see a better-lookin" corpse. That ar woman was a sight to behold this morning. I guess I shook a double handful of stones and them little sh.e.l.ls out of her hair,--now she reely looks beautiful.
Captain Kittridge has made a coffin out o" some cedar-boards he happened to have, and I lined it with bleached cotton, and stuffed the pillow nice and full, and when we come to get her in, she reely will look lovely."
"I s"pose, Mis" Kittridge, you"ll have the funeral to-morrow,--it"s Sunday."
"Why, yes, Aunt Roxy,--I think everybody must want to improve such a dispensation. Have you took little Mara in to look at the corpse?"
"Well, no," said Miss Roxy; "Mis" Pennel"s gettin" ready to take her home."
"I think it"s an opportunity we ought to improve," said Mrs. Kittridge, "to learn children what death is. I think we can"t begin to solemnize their minds too young."
At this moment Sally and the little Mara entered the room.
"Come here, children," said Mrs. Kittridge, taking a hand of either one, and leading them to the closed door of the keeping-room; "I"ve got somethin" to show you."
The room looked ghostly and dim,--the rays of light fell through the closed shutter on an object mysteriously m.u.f.fled in a white sheet.
Sally"s bright face expressed only the vague curiosity of a child to see something new; but the little Mara resisted and hung back with all her force, so that Mrs. Kittridge was obliged to take her up and hold her.
She folded back the sheet from the chill and wintry form which lay so icily, lonely, and cold. Sally walked around it, and gratified her curiosity by seeing it from every point of view, and laying her warm, busy hand on the lifeless and cold one; but Mara clung to Mrs.
Kittridge, with eyes that expressed a distressed astonishment. The good woman stooped over and placed the child"s little hand for a moment on the icy forehead. The little one gave a piercing scream, and struggled to get away; and as soon as she was put down, she ran and hid her face in Aunt Roxy"s dress, sobbing bitterly.
"That child"ll grow up to follow vanity," said Mrs. Kittridge; "her little head is full of dress now, and she hates anything serious,--it"s easy to see that."
The little Mara had no words to tell what a strange, distressful chill had pa.s.sed up her arm and through her brain, as she felt that icy cold of death,--that cold so different from all others. It was an impression of fear and pain that lasted weeks and months, so that she would start out of sleep and cry with a terror which she had not yet a sufficiency of language to describe.
"You seem to forget, Mis" Kittridge, that this "ere child ain"t rugged like our Sally," said Aunt Roxy, as she raised the little Mara in her arms. "She was a seven-months" baby, and hard to raise at all, and a shivery, scary little creature."
"Well, then, she ought to be hardened," said Dame Kittridge. "But Mary Pennel never had no sort of idea of bringin" up children; "twas jist so with Naomi,--the girl never had no sort o" resolution, and she just died for want o" resolution,--that"s what came of it. I tell ye, children"s got to learn to take the world as it is; and "tain"t no use bringin" on "em up too tender. Teach "em to begin as they"ve got to go out,--that"s my maxim."
"Mis" Kittridge," said Aunt Roxy, "there"s reason in all things, and there"s difference in children. "What"s one"s meat"s another"s pison."
You couldn"t fetch up Mis" Pennel"s children, and she couldn"t fetch up your"n,--so let"s say no more "bout it."
"I"m always a-tellin" my wife that ar," said Captain Kittridge; "she"s always wantin" to make everybody over after her pattern."
"Cap"n Kittridge, I don"t think _you_ need to speak," resumed his wife.
"When such a loud providence is a-knockin" at _your_ door, I think you"d better be a-searchin" your own heart,--here it is the eleventh hour, and you hain"t come into the Lord"s vineyard yet."
"Oh! come, come, Mis" Kittridge, don"t twit a feller afore folks," said the Captain. "I"m goin" over to Harpswell Neck this blessed minute after the minister to "tend the funeral,--so we"ll let _him_ preach."
CHAPTER VIII
THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN
Life on any sh.o.r.e is a dull affair,--ever degenerating into commonplace; and this may account for the eagerness with which even a great calamity is sometimes accepted in a neighborhood, as affording wherewithal to stir the deeper feelings of our nature. Thus, though Mrs. Kittridge was by no means a hard-hearted woman, and would not for the world have had a ship wrecked on her particular account, yet since a ship had been wrecked and a body floated ash.o.r.e at her very door, as it were, it afforded her no inconsiderable satisfaction to dwell on the details and to arrange for the funeral.
It was something to talk about and to think of, and likely to furnish subject-matter for talk for years to come when she should go out to tea with any of her acquaintances who lived at Middle Bay, or Maquoit, or Harpswell Neck. For although in those days,--the number of light-houses being much smaller than it is now,--it was no uncommon thing for ships to be driven on sh.o.r.e in storms, yet this incident had undeniably more that was stirring and romantic in it than any within the memory of any tea-table gossip in the vicinity. Mrs. Kittridge, therefore, looked forward to the funeral services on Sunday afternoon as to a species of solemn fete, which imparted a sort of consequence to her dwelling and herself. Notice of it was to be given out in "meeting" after service, and she might expect both keeping-room and kitchen to be full. Mrs.
Pennel had offered to do her share of Christian and neighborly kindness, in taking home to her own dwelling the little boy. In fact, it became necessary to do so in order to appease the feelings of the little Mara, who clung to the new acquisition with most devoted fondness, and wept bitterly when he was separated from her even for a few moments.
Therefore, in the afternoon of the day when the body was found, Mrs.
Pennel, who had come down to a.s.sist, went back in company with Aunt Ruey and the two children.
The September evening set in brisk and chill, and the cheerful fire that snapped and roared up the ample chimney of Captain Kittridge"s kitchen was a pleasing feature. The days of our story were before the advent of those sullen gnomes, the "air-tights," or even those more sociable and cheery domestic genii, the cooking-stoves. They were the days of the genial open kitchen-fire, with the crane, the pot-hooks, and trammels,--where hissed and boiled the social tea-kettle, where steamed the huge dinner-pot, in whose ample depths beets, carrots, potatoes, and turnips boiled in jolly sociability with the pork or corned beef which they were destined to flank at the coming meal.