"Do tell now," said Mrs. Kittridge.
"Well, you see," said Miss Roxy, "he"d been low and poorly all day, kind o" tossin" and restless, and a little light-headed, and the Doctor said he thought he wouldn"t last till morning, and so Ruey and I we set up with him, and between twelve and one Ruey said she thought she"d jist lop down a few minutes on the old sofa at the foot of the bed, and I made me a cup of tea like as I"m a-doin" now, and set with my back to him."
"Well?" said Mrs. Kittridge, eagerly.
"Well, you see he kept a-tossin" and throwin" off the clothes, and I kept a-gettin" up to straighten "em; and once he threw out his arms, and something bright fell out on to the pillow, and I went and looked, and it was a likeness that he wore by a ribbon round his neck. It was a woman--a real handsome one--and she had on a low-necked black dress, of the cut they used to call Marie Louise, and she had a string of pearls round her neck, and her hair curled with pearls in it, and very wide blue eyes. Well, you see, I didn"t look but a minute before he seemed to wake up, and he caught at it and hid it in his clothes. Well, I went and sat down, and I grew kind o" sleepy over the fire; but pretty soon I heard him speak out very clear, and kind o" surprised, in a tongue I didn"t understand, and I looked round."
Miss Roxy here made a pause, and put another lump of sugar into her tea.
"Well?" said Mrs. Kittridge, ready to burst with curiosity.
"Well, now, I don"t like to tell about these "ere things, and you mustn"t never speak about it; but as sure as you live, Polly Kittridge, I see that ar very woman standin" at the back of the bed, right in the partin" of the curtains, jist as she looked in the pictur"--blue eyes and curly hair and pearls on her neck, and black dress."
"What did you do?" said Mrs. Kittridge.
"Do? Why, I jist held my breath and looked, and in a minute it kind o"
faded away, and I got up and went to the bed, but the man was gone. He lay there with the pleasantest smile on his face that ever you see; and I woke up Ruey, and told her about it."
Mrs. Kittridge drew a long breath. "What do you think it was?"
"Well," said Miss Roxy, "I know what I think, but I don"t think best to tell. I told Doctor Meritts, and he said there were more things in heaven and earth than folks knew about--and so I think."
Meanwhile, on this same evening, the little Mara frisked like a household fairy round the hearth of Zephaniah Pennel.
The boy was a strong-limbed, merry-hearted little urchin, and did full justice to the abundant hospitalities of Mrs. Pennel"s tea-table; and after supper little Mara employed herself in bringing ap.r.o.nful after ap.r.o.nful of her choicest treasures, and laying them down at his feet.
His great black eyes flashed with pleasure, and he gamboled about the hearth with his new playmate in perfect forgetfulness, apparently, of all the past night of fear and anguish.
When the great family Bible was brought out for prayers, and little Mara composed herself on a low stool by her grandmother"s side, he, however, did not conduct himself as a babe of grace. He resisted all Miss Ruey"s efforts to make him sit down beside her, and stood staring with his great, black, irreverent eyes during the Bible-reading, and laughed out in the most inappropriate manner when the psalm-singing began, and seemed disposed to mingle incoherent remarks of his own even in the prayers.
"This is a pretty self-willed youngster," said Miss Ruey, as they rose from the exercises, "and I shouldn"t think he"d been used to religious privileges."
"Perhaps not," said Zephaniah Pennel; "but who can say but what this providence is a message of the Lord to us--such as Pharaoh"s daughter sent about Moses, "Take this child, and bring him up for me"?"
"I"d like to take him, if I thought I was capable," said Mrs. Pennel, timidly. "It seems a real providence to give Mara some company; the poor child pines so for want of it."
"Well, then, Mary, if you say so, we will bring him up with our little Mara," said Zephaniah, drawing the child toward him. "May the Lord bless him!" he added, laying his great brown hands on the shining black curls of the child.
CHAPTER IX
MOSES
Sunday morning rose clear and bright on Harpswell Bay. The whole sea was a waveless, blue looking-gla.s.s, streaked with bands of white, and flecked with sailing cloud-shadows from the skies above. Orr"s Island, with its blue-black spruces, its silver firs, its golden larches, its scarlet sumachs, lay on the bosom of the deep like a great many-colored gem on an enchanted mirror. A vague, dreamlike sense of rest and Sabbath stillness seemed to brood in the air. The very spruce-trees seemed to know that it was Sunday, and to point solemnly upward with their dusky fingers; and the small tide-waves that chased each other up on the sh.e.l.ly beach, or broke against projecting rocks, seemed to do it with a chastened decorum, as if each blue-haired wave whispered to his brother, "Be still--be still."
Yes, Sunday it was along all the beautiful sh.o.r.es of Maine--netted in green and azure by its thousand islands, all glorious with their majestic pines, all musical and silvery with the caresses of the sea-waves, that loved to wander and lose themselves in their numberless sh.e.l.ly coves and tiny beaches among their cedar shadows.
Not merely as a burdensome restraint, or a weary endurance, came the shadow of that Puritan Sabbath. It brought with it all the sweetness that belongs to rest, all the sacredness that hallows home, all the memories of patient thrift, of sober order, of chastened yet intense family feeling, of calmness, purity, and self-respecting dignity which distinguish the Puritan household. It seemed a solemn pause in all the sights and sounds of earth. And he whose moral nature was not yet enough developed to fill the blank with visions of heaven was yet wholesomely instructed by his weariness into the secret of his own spiritual poverty.
Zephaniah Pennel, in his best Sunday clothes, with his hard visage glowing with a sort of interior tenderness, ministered this morning at his family-altar--one of those thousand priests of G.o.d"s ordaining that tend the sacred fire in as many families of New England. He had risen with the morning star and been forth to meditate, and came in with his mind softened and glowing. The trance-like calm of earth and sea found a solemn answer with him, as he read what a poet wrote by the sea-sh.o.r.es of the Mediterranean, ages ago: "Bless the Lord, O my soul. O Lord my G.o.d, thou art very great; thou art clothed with honor and majesty. Who coverest thyself with light as with a garment: who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain: who layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters: who maketh the clouds his chariot: who walketh upon the wings of the wind. The trees of the Lord are full of sap; the cedars of Lebanon, which he hath planted; where the birds make their nests; as for the stork, the fir-trees are her house. O Lord, how manifold are thy works!
in wisdom hast thou made them all."
Ages ago the cedars that the poet saw have rotted into dust, and from their cones have risen generations of others, wide-winged and grand. But the words of that poet have been wafted like seed to our days, and sprung up in flowers of trust and faith in a thousand households.
"Well, now," said Miss Ruey, when the morning rite was over, "Mis"
Pennel, I s"pose you and the Cap"n will be wantin" to go to the meetin", so don"t you gin yourse"ves a mite of trouble about the children, for I"ll stay at home with "em. The little feller was starty and fretful in his sleep last night, and didn"t seem to be quite well."
"No wonder, poor dear," said Mrs. Pennel; "it"s a wonder children can forget as they do."
"Yes," said Miss Ruey; "you know them lines in the "English Reader,"--
"Gay hope is theirs by fancy led, Least pleasing when possessed; The tear forgot as soon as shed, The sunshine of the breast."
Them lines all"ys seemed to me affectin"."
Miss Ruey"s sentiment was here interrupted by a loud cry from the bedroom, and something between a sneeze and a howl.
"Ma.s.sy! what is that ar young un up to!" she exclaimed, rushing into the adjoining bedroom.
There stood the young Master Hopeful of our story, with streaming eyes and much-bedaubed face, having just, after much labor, succeeded in making Miss Ruey"s snuff-box fly open, which he did with such force as to send the contents in a perfect cloud into eyes, nose, and mouth. The scene of struggling and confusion that ensued cannot be described. The washings, and wipings, and sobbings, and exhortings, and the sympathetic sobs of the little Mara, formed a small tempest for the time being that was rather appalling.
"Well, this "ere"s a youngster that"s a-goin" to make work," said Miss Ruey, when all things were tolerably restored. "Seems to make himself at home first thing."
"Poor little dear," said Mrs. Pennel, in the excess of loving-kindness, "I hope he will; he"s welcome, I"m sure."
"Not to my snuff-box," said Miss Ruey, who had felt herself attacked in a very tender point.
"He"s got the notion of lookin" into things pretty early," said Captain Pennel, with an indulgent smile.
"Well, Aunt Ruey," said Mrs. Pennel, when this disturbance was somewhat abated, "I feel kind o" sorry to deprive you of your privileges to-day."
"Oh! never mind me," said Miss Ruey, briskly. "I"ve got the big Bible, and I can sing a hymn or two by myself. My voice ain"t quite what it used to be, but then I get a good deal of pleasure out of it." Aunt Ruey, it must be known, had in her youth been one of the foremost leaders in the "singers" seats," and now was in the habit of speaking of herself much as a retired _prima donna_ might, whose past successes were yet in the minds of her generation.
After giving a look out of the window, to see that the children were within sight, she opened the big Bible at the story of the ten plagues of Egypt, and adjusting her horn spectacles with a sort of sideway twist on her little pug nose, she seemed intent on her Sunday duties. A moment after she looked up and said, "I don"t know but I must send a message by you over to Mis" Deacon Badger, about a worldly matter, if "tis Sunday; but I"ve been thinkin", Mis" Pennel, that there"ll have to be clothes made up for this "ere child next week, and so perhaps Roxy and I had better stop here a day or two longer, and you tell Mis" Badger that we"ll come to her a Wednesday, and so she"ll have time to have that new press-board done,--the old one used to pester me so."
"Well, I"ll remember," said Mrs. Pennel.
"It seems a"most impossible to prevent one"s thoughts wanderin"
Sundays," said Aunt Ruey; "but I couldn"t help a-thinkin" I could get such a nice pair o" trousers out of them old Sunday ones of the Cap"n"s in the garret. I was a-lookin" at "em last Thursday, and thinkin" what a pity "twas you hadn"t n.o.body to cut down for; but this "ere young un"s going to be such a tearer, he"ll want somethin" real stout; but I"ll try and put it out of my mind till Monday. Mis" Pennel, you"ll be sure to ask Mis" t.i.tcomb how Harriet"s toothache is, and whether them drops cured her that I gin her last Sunday; and ef you"ll jist look in a minute at Major Broad"s, and tell "em to use bayberry wax for his blister, it"s so healin"; and do jist ask if Sally"s baby"s eye-tooth has come through yet."
"Well, Aunt Ruey, I"ll try to remember all," said Mrs. Pennel, as she stood at the gla.s.s in her bedroom, carefully adjusting the respectable black silk shawl over her shoulders, and tying her neat bonnet-strings.
"I s"pose," said Aunt Ruey, "that the notice of the funeral"ll be gin out after sermon."
"Yes, I think so," said Mrs. Pennel.