University of Virginia Library

4. CHAPTER IV.

The sea lay like an unbroken mirror all around the pine-girt,
lonely shores of Orr's Island. Tall, kingly spruces
wore their regal crowns of cones high in air, sparkling
with diamonds of clear exuded gum; vast old hemlocks of
primeval growth stood darkling in their forest shadows,
their branches hung with long hoary moss; while feathery
larches, turned to brilliant gold by autumn frosts, lighted up
the darker shadows of the evergreens. It was one of those
hazy, calm, dissolving days of Indian summer, when everything
is so quiet that the faintest kiss of the wave on the
beach can be heard, and white clouds seem to faint into the
blue of the sky, and soft swathing bands of violet vapor
make all earth look dreamy, and give to the sharp, clearcut
outlines of the northern landscape all those mysteries
of light and shade which impart such tenderness to Italian
scenery.

The funeral was over, — the tread of many feet, bearing
the heavy burden of two broken lives, had been to the lonely
graveyard, and had come back again, — each footstep lighter
and more unconstrained as each one went his way from the
great old tragedy of Death to the common cheerful walks of
Life.

The solemn black clock stood swaying with its eternal
“tick-tock, tick-tock,” in the kitchen of the brown house on
Orr's Island. There was there that sense of a stillness that

can be felt, — such as settles down on a dwelling when any
of its inmates have passed through its doors for the last
time, to go whence they shall not return. The best room
was shut up and darkened, with only so much light as could
fall through a little heart-shaped hole in the window-shutter,
— for except on solemn visits, or prayer-meetings, or weddings,
or funerals, that room formed no part of the daily
family scenery.

The kitchen was clean and ample, with a great open fireplace
and wide stone hearth, and oven on one side, and rows
of old-fashioned splint-bottomed chairs against the wall. A
table scoured to snowy whiteness, and a little work-stand
whereon lay the Bible, the Missionary Herald, and the
Weekly Christian Mirror, before named, formed the principal
furniture. One feature, however, must not be forgotten,
— a great sea-chest, which had been the companion
of Zephaniah through all the countries of the earth. Old,
and battered, and unsightly it looked, yet report said that
there was good store within of that which men for the most
part respect more than anything else; and, indeed, it proved
often when a deed of grace was to be done, — when a woman
was suddenly made a widow in a coast gale, or a fishing-smack
was run down in the fogs off the banks, leaving in
some neighboring cottage a family of orphans, — in all such
cases, the opening of this sea-chest was an event of good
omen to the bereaved; for Zephaniah had a large heart and
a large hand, and was apt to take it out full of silver dollars
when once it went in. So the ark of the covenant could not
have been looked on with more reverence than the neighbors
usually showed to Captain Pennel's sea-chest.

The afternoon sun is shining in a square of light through
the open kitchen-door, whence one dreamily disposed might

look far out to sea, and behold ships coming and going in
every variety of shape and size.

But Aunt Roxy and Aunt Ruey, who for the present
were sole occupants of the premises, were not people of the
dreamy kind, and consequently were not gazing off to sea,
but attending to very terrestrial matters that in all cases
somebody must attend to. The afternoon was warm and
balmy, but a few smouldering sticks were kept in the great
chimney, and thrust deep into the embers was a mongrel
species of snub-nosed tea-pot, which fumed strongly of catnip-tea,
a little of which gracious beverage Miss Roxy
was preparing in an old-fashioned cracked India china
tea-cup, tasting it as she did so with the air of a connoisseur.

Apparently this was for the benefit of a small something
in long white clothes, that lay face downward under a little
blanket of very blue new flannel, and which something Aunt
Roxy, when not otherwise engaged, constantly patted with a
gentle tattoo, in tune to the steady trot of her knee.

All babies knew Miss Roxy's tattoo on their backs, and
never thought of taking it in ill part. On the contrary, it
had a vital and mesmeric effect of sovereign force against
colic, and all other disturbers of the nursery; and never
was infant known so pressed with those internal troubles
which infants cry about, as not speedily to give over and
sink to slumber at this soothing appliance.

At a little distance sat Aunt Ruey, with a quantity of
black crape strewed on two chairs about her, very busily
employed in getting up a mourning-bonnet, at which she
snipped, and clipped, aud worked, zealously singing, in a
high cracked voice, from time to time, certain verses of a
funeral psalm.

Miss Roxy and Miss Ruey Toothacre were two brisk old
bodies of the feminine gender and singular number, well
known in all the region of Harpswell Neck and Middle
Bay, and such was their fame that it had even reached the
town of Brunswick, eighteen miles away.

They were of that class of females who might be denominated,
in the Old Testament language, “cunning women,” —
that is, gifted with an infinite diversity of practical “faculty,”
which made them an essential requisite in every family for
miles and miles around.

It was impossible to say what they could not do: they
could make dresses, and make shirts and vests and pantaloons,
and cut out boys' jackets, and braid straw, and bleach
and trim bonnets, and cook and wash, and iron and mend,
could upholster and quilt, could nurse all kinds of sicknesses,
and in default of a doctor, who was often miles away,
were supposed to be infallible medical oracles.

Many a human being had been ushered into life under
their auspices, — trotted, chirruped in babyhood on their
knees, clothed by their handiwork in garments gradually
enlarging from year to year, watched by them in the last
sickness, and finally arrayed for the long repose by their
hands.

These universally useful persons receive among us the
title of “aunt” by a sort of general consent, showing the
strong ties of relationship which bind them to the whole
human family. They are nobody's aunts in particular, but
aunts to human nature generally. The idea of restricting
their usefulness to any one family, would strike dismay
through a whole community.

Nobody would be so unprincipled as to think of such a
thing as having their services more than a week or two at

most. Your country factotum knows better than anybody
else how absurd it would be

Nobody knew very well the ages of these useful sisters.
In that cold, clear, severe climate of the North the roots of
human existence are hard to strike; but, if once people do
take to living, they come in time to a place where they seem
never to grow any older, but can always be found, like last
year's mullein stalks, upright, dry, and seedy, warranted to
last for any length of time.

Miss Roxy Toothacre, who sits trotting the baby, is a tall,
thin, angular woman, with sharp black eyes, and hair once
black, but now well streaked with gray. These ravages of
time, however, were concealed by an ample mohair frisette
of glossy blackness woven on each side into a heap of stiff
little curls, which pushed up her cap border in rather a
bristling and decisive way.

In all her movements and personal habits, even to her
tone of voice and manner of speaking, Miss Roxy was vigorous,
spicy, and decided. Her mind on all subjects was
made up, and she spoke generally as one having authority;
and who should, if she should not? Was she not a sort of
priestess and sibyl in all the most awful straits and mysteries
of life? How many births, and weddings, and deaths had
come and gone under her jurisdiction? And amid weeping
or rejoicing, was not Miss Roxy still the master-spirit, —
consulted, referred to by all? — was not her word law and
precedent? Her younger sister, Miss Ruey, a pliant, cosey,
easy-to-be-entreated personage, plump and cushiony, revolved
around her as a humble satellite. Miss Roxy looked on
Miss Ruey as quite a frisky young thing, though under her

ample frisette of carroty hair her head might be seen white
with the same snow that had powdered that of her sister.
Aunt Ruey had a face much resembling the kind of one you
may see, reader, by looking at yourself in the convex side of
a silver milk-pitcher. If you try the experiment, this description
will need no further amplification.

The two almost always went together, for the variety of
talent comprised in their stock could always find employment
in the varying wants of a family. While one nursed
the sick, the other made clothes for the well; and thus they
were always chippering and chatting to each other, like a
pair of antiquated house-sparrows, retailing over harmless
gossips, and moralizing in that gentle jog-trot which befits
serious old women. In fact, they had talked over everything
in Nature, and said everything they could think of to
each other so often, that the opinions of one were as like
those of the other as two sides of a pea-pod. But as often
happens in cases of the sort, this was not because the two
were in all respects exactly alike, but because the stronger
one had mesmerized the weaker into consent.

Miss Roxy was the master-spirit of the two, and, like the
great coining machine of a mint, came down with her own
sharp, heavy stamp on every opinion her sister put out.
She was matter-of-fact, positive, and declarative to the highest
degree, while her sister was naturally inclined to the
elegiac and the pathetic, indulging herself in sentimental
poetry, and keeping a store thereof in her thread-case,
which she had cut from the Christian Mirror. Miss Roxy
sometimes, in her brusque way, popped out observations on
life and things, with a droll, hard quaintness that took one's
breath a little, yet never failed to have a sharp crystallization
of truth, — frosty though it were. She was one of those

sensible, practical creatures who tear every veil, and lay
their fingers on every spot in pure business-like good-will;
and if we shiver at them at times, as at the first plunge of
a cold bath, we confess to an invigorating power in them
after all.

“Well, now,” said Miss Roxy, giving a decisive push to
the tea-pot, which buried it yet deeper in the embers, “a'n't
it all a strange kind o' providence that this 'ere little thing
is left behind so; and then their callin' on her by such a
strange, mournful kind of name, — Mara. I thought sure
as could be 't was Mary, till the minister read the passage
from Scriptur'. Seems to me it 's kind o' odd. I 'd call it
Maria, or I 'd put an Ann on to it. Mara-ann, now, would n't
sound so strange.”

“It 's a Scriptur' name, sister,” said Aunt Ruey, “and that
ought to be enough for us.”

“Well, I don't know,” said Aunt Roxy. “Now there
was Miss Jones down on Mure P'int called her twins
Tiglath-Pileser and Shalmaneser, — Scriptur' names both,
but I never liked 'em. The boys used to call 'em Tiggy
and Shally, so no mortal could guess they was Scriptur'.”

“Well,” said Aunt Ruey, drawing a sigh which caused
her plump proportions to be agitated in gentle waves,
“'t a'n't much matter, after all, what they call the little
thing, for 't a'n't 't all likely it 's goin' to live, — cried and
worried all night, and kep' a-suckin' my cheek and my
night-gown, poor little thing! This 'ere 's a baby that won't
get along without its mother. What Mis' Pennel 's a-goin'
to do with it when we is gone, I 'm sure I don't know. It
comes kind o' hard on old people to be broke o' their rest.
If it 's goin' to be called home, it 's a pity, as I said, it did n't
go with its mother” —

“And save the expense of another funeral,” said Aunt
Roxy. “Now when Mis' Pennel's sister asked her what
she was going to do with Naomi's clothes, I could n't help
wonderin' when she said she should keep 'em for the
child.”

“She had a sight of things, Naomi did,” said Aunt Ruey.
“Nothin' was never too much for her. I don't believe that
Cap'n Pennel ever went to Bath or Portland without havin'
it in his mind to bring Naomi somethin'.”

“Yes, and she had a faculty of puttin' of 'em on,” said
Miss Roxy, with a decisive shake of the head. “Naomi
was a still girl, but her faculty was uncommon; and I tell
you, Ruey, 't a'n't everybody hes faculty as hes things.”

“The poor Cap'n,” said Miss Ruey, “he seemed greatly
supported at the funeral, but he 's dreadful broke down since.
I went into Naomi's room this morning, and there the old
man was a-sittin' by her bed, and he had a pair of her shoes
in his hand, — you know what a leetle bit of a foot she had.
I never saw nothin' look so kind o' solitary as that poor old
man did!”

“Well,” said Miss Roxy, “she was a master-hand for
keepin' things, Naomi was; her drawers is just a sight;
she 's got all the little presents and things they ever give
her since she was a baby, in one drawer. There 's a little
pair of red shoes there that she had when she wa' n't more 'n
five year old. You 'member, Ruey, the Cap'n brought 'm
over from Portland when we was to the house a-makin' Mis'
Pennel's figured black silk that he brought from Calcutty.
You 'member they cost just five and sixpence; but, law! the
Cap'n he never grudged the money when 't was for Naomi.
And so she 's got all her husband's keepsakes and things,
just as nice as when he giv' 'em to her.”

“It 's real affectin',” said Miss Ruey, “I can't all the
while help a-thinkin' of the Psalm, —

“Yes,” said Miss Roxy; “and, Ruey, I was a-thinkin'
whether or no it wa' n't best to pack away them things,
'cause Naomi had n't fixed no baby drawers, and we seem
to want some.”

“I was kind o' hintin' that to Mis' Pennel this morning,”
said Ruey, “but she can't seem to want to have 'em
touched.”

“Well we may just as well come to such things first as
last,” said Aunt Roxy; “'cause if the Lord takes our
friends, he does take 'em; and we can't lose 'em and
have 'em too, and we may as well give right up at first,
and done with it, that they are gone, and we 'v' got to do
without 'em, and not to be hangin' on to keep things just
as they was.”

“So I was a-tellin' Mis' Pennel,” said Miss Ruey, “but
she 'll come to it by and by. I wish the baby might live, and
kind o' grow up into her mother's place.”

“Well,” said Miss Roxy, “I wish it might, but there 'd be
a sight o' trouble fetchin' on it up. Folks can do pretty well
with children when they 're young and spry, if they do get
'em up nights; but come to grandchildren, it 's pretty tough.”

“I 'm a-thinkin', sister,” said Miss Ruey, taking off her
spectacles and rubbing her nose thoughtfully, “whether or
no cow's milk a'n't goin' to be too hearty for it, it 's such a
pindlin' little thing. Now, Mis' Badger she brought up a
seven-months' child, and she told me she gave it nothin'

but these 'ere little seed cookies, wet in water, and it throve
nicely, — and the seed is good for wind.”

“Oh, don't tell me none of Mis' Badger's stories,” said
Miss Roxy, “I don't believe in 'em. Cows is the Lord's
ordinances for bringing up babies that 's lost their mothers;
it stands to reason they should be, — and babies that can't
eat milk, why they can't be fetched up; but babies can
eat milk, and this un will if it lives, and if it can't it won't
live.” So saying, Miss Roxy drummed away on the little
back of the party in question, authoritatively, as if to pound
in a wholesome conviction at the outset.

“I hope,” said Miss Ruey, holding up a strip of black
crape, and looking through it from end to end so as to test
its capabilities, “I hope the Cap'n and Mis' Pennel 'll get
some support at the prayer-meetin' this afternoon.”

“It 's the right place to go to,” said Miss Roxy, with
decision.

“Mis' Pennel said this mornin' that she was just beat out
tryin' to submit; and the more she said, `Thy will be done,'
the more she did n't seem to feel it.”

“Them 's common feelin's among mourners, Ruey. These
'ere forty years that I 've been round nussin', and layin'-out,
and tendin' funerals, I 've watched people's exercises. People
's sometimes supported wonderfully just at the time, and
maybe at the funeral; but the three or four weeks after, most
everybody, if they 's to say what they feel, is unreconciled.”

“The Cap'n, he don't say nothin',” said Miss Ruey.

“No, he don't, but he looks it in his eyes,” said Miss
Roxy; “he 's one of the kind o' mourners as takes it deep;
that kind don't cry; it 's a kind o' dry, deep pain; them 's
the worst to get over it, — sometimes they just says nothin',
and in about six months they send for you to nuss 'em in

consumption or somethin'. Now, Mis' Pennel, she can cry
and she can talk, — well, she 'll get over it; but he won't get
no support unless the Lord reaches right down and lifts him
up over the world. I 've seen that happen sometimes, and I
tell you, Ruey, that sort makes powerful Christians.”

At that moment the old pair entered the door.

Zephaniah Pennel came and stood quietly by the pillow
where the little form was laid, and lifted a corner of the
blanket. The tiny head was turned to one side, showing
the soft, warm cheek, and the little hand was holding tightly
a morsel of the flannel blanket. He stood swallowing hard
for a few moments. At last he said, with deep humility, to
the wise and mighty woman who held her, “I 'll tell you
what it is, Miss Roxy, I 'll give all there is in my old chest
yonder if you 'll only make her — live.”