University of Virginia Library

10. CHAPTER X.

Mrs. Kittridge's advantages and immunities resulting
from the shipwreck were not yet at an end. Not only had
one of the most “solemn providences” known within the
memory of the neighborhood fallen out at her door, — not
only had the most interesting funeral that had occurred for
three or four years taken place in her parlor, but she was
still further to be distinguished in having the minister to tea
after the performances were all over. To this end she had
risen early, and taken down her best china tea-cups, which
had been marked with her and her husband's joint initials
in Canton, and which only came forth on high and solemn
occasions. In view of this probable distinction, on Saturday,
immediately after the discovery of the calamity, Mrs.
Kittridge had found time to rush to her kitchen, and make
up a loaf of pound-cake and some doughnuts, that the great
occasion which she foresaw might not find her below her
reputation as a forehanded housewife.

It was a fine golden hour when the minister and funeral
train turned away from the grave. Unlike other funerals,
there was no draught on the sympathies in favor of mourners
— no wife, or husband, or parent, left a heart in that grave;
and so when the rites were all over, they turned with the
more cheerfulness back into life, from the contrast of its
freshness with those shadows into which, for the hour, they
had been gazing.

The Rev. Theophilus Sewell was one of the few ministers
who preserved the costume of a former generation, with
something of that imposing dignity with which, in earlier
times, the habits of the clergy were invested.

He was tall and majestic in stature, and carried to advantage
the powdered wig and three-cornered hat, the broad-skirted
coat, knee-breeches, high shoes, and plated buckles
of the ancient costume. There was just a sufficient degree
of the formality of olden times to give a certain quaintness
to all he said and did. He was a man of a considerable degree
of talent, force, and originality, and in fact had been
held in his day to be one of the most promising graduates
of Harvard University.

But, being a good man, he had proposed to himself no
higher ambition than to succeed to the pulpit of his father
in Harpswell.

His parish included not only a somewhat scattered sea-faring
population on the main-land, but also the care of
several islands. Like many other of the New England
clergy of those times, he united in himself numerous different
offices for the benefit of the people whom he served.

As there was neither lawyer nor physician in the town,
he had acquired by his reading, and still more by his experience,
enough knowledge in both these departments to
enable him to administer to the ordinary wants of a very
healthy and peaceable people.

It was said that most of the deeds and legal conveyances
in his parish were in his handwriting, and in the medical
line his authority was only rivalled by that of Miss Roxy,
who claimed a very obvious advantage over him in a certain
class of cases, from the fact of her being a woman, which
was still further increased by the circumstance that the good

man had retained steadfastly his bachelor estate; “so, of
course,” Miss Roxy used to say, “poor man! what could he
know about a woman, you know?”

This state of bachelorhood gave occasion to much surmising;
but when spoken to about it, he was accustomed to
remark with gallantry, that he should have too much regard
for any lady whom he could think of as a wife, to ask her to
share his straitened circumstances.

His income, indeed, consisted of only about two hundred
dollars a year; but upon this he and a very brisk, cheerful
maiden sister contrived to keep up a thrifty and comfortable
establishment, in which everything appeared to be pervaded
by a spirit of quaint cheerfulness.

In fact, the man might be seen to be an original in his
way, and all the springs of his life were kept oiled by a
quiet humor, which sometimes broke out in playful sparkles,
despite the gravity of the pulpit and the awfulness of the
cocked hat.

He had a placid way of amusing himself with the quaint
and picturesque side of life, as it appeared in all his visitings
among a very primitive, yet very shrewd-minded people.

There are those people who possess a peculiar faculty of
mingling in the affairs of this life as spectators as well as
actors. It does not, of course, suppose any coldness of
nature or want of human interest or sympathy — nay, it
often exists most completely with people of the tenderest
human feeling.

It rather seems to be a kind of distinct faculty working
harmoniously with all the others; but he who possesses it
needs never to be at a loss for interest or amusement; he is
always a spectator at a tragedy or comedy, and sees in real

life a humor and a pathos beyond anything he can find
shadowed in books.

Mr. Sewell sometimes, in his pastoral visitations, took a
quiet pleasure in playing upon these simple minds, and
amusing himself with the odd harmonies and singular resolutions
of chords which started out under his fingers. Surely
he had a right to something in addition to his limited salary,
and this innocent, unsuspected entertainment helped to
make up the balance for his many labors.

His sister was one of the best-hearted and most unsuspicious
of the class of female idolaters, and worshipped her
brother with the most undoubting faith and devotion —
wholly ignorant of the constant amusement she gave him
by a thousand little feminine peculiarities, which struck him
with a continual sense of oddity. It was infinitely diverting
to him to see the solemnity of her interest in his shirts and
stockings, and Sunday clothes, and to listen to the subtile
distinctions which she would draw between best and second-best,
and every day; to receive her somewhat prolix admonition
how he was to demean himself in respect of the wearing
of each one; for Miss Emily Sewell was a gentlewoman,
and held rigidly to various traditions of gentility which had
been handed down in the Sewell family, and which afforded
her brother too much quiet amusement to be disturbed. He
would not have overthrown one of her quiddities for the
world; it would be taking away a part of his capital in
existence.

Miss Emily was a trim, genteel little person, with dancing
black eyes, and cheeks which had the roses of youth well
dried into them. It was easy to see that she had been quite
pretty in her days; and her neat figure, her brisk little
vivacious ways, her unceasing good-nature and kindness of

heart, still made her an object both of admiration and interest
in the parish.

She was great in drying herbs and preparing recipes; in
knitting and sewing, and cutting and contriving; in saving
every possible snip and chip either of food or clothing; and
no less liberal was she in bestowing advice and aid in the
parish, where she moved about with all the sense of consequence
which her brother's position warranted.

The fact of his bachelorhood caused his relations to the
female part of his flock to be even more shrouded in sacredness
and mystery than is commonly the case with the great
man of the parish; but Miss Emily delighted to act as interpreter.
She was charmed to serve out to the willing ears
of his parish from time to time such scraps of information
as regarded his life, habits, and opinions as might gratify
their ever new curiosity.

Instructed by her, all the good wives knew the difference
between his very best long silk stockings and his second
best, and how carefully the first had to be kept under lock
and key, where he could not get at them; for he was understood,
good as he was, to have concealed in him all the
thriftless and pernicious inconsiderateness of the male
nature, ready at any moment to break out into unheard-of
improprieties. But the good man submitted himself to Miss
Emily's rule, and suffered himself to be led about by her
with an air of half whimsical consciousness.

Mrs. Kittridge that day had felt the full delicacy of the
compliment when she ascertained by a hasty glance, before
the first prayer, that the good man had been brought out to
her funeral in all his very best things, not excepting the
long silk stockings, for she knew the second-best pair by
means of a certain skilful darn which Miss Emily had once

shown her, which commemorated the spot where a hole had
been. The absence of this darn struck to Mrs. Kittridge's
heart at once as a delicate attention.

“Mis' Simpkins,” said Mrs. Kittridge to her pastor, as
they were seated at the tea-table, “told me that she wished
when you were going home that you would call in to see
Mary Jane — she could n't come out to the funeral on account
of a dreffle sore throat. I was tellin' on her to gargle
it with blackberry-root tea — don't you think that is a good
gargle, Mr. Sewell?”

“Yes, I think it a very good gargle,” replied the minister,
gravely.

“Ma'sh rosemary is the gargle that I always use,” said
Miss Roxy; “it cleans out your throat so.”

“Marsh rosemary is a very excellent gargle,” said Mr.
Sewell.

“Why, brother, don't you think that rose leaves and vitriol
is a good gargle?” said little Miss Emily; “I always
thought that you liked rose leaves and vitriol for a gargle.”

“So I do,” said the imperturbable Mr. Sewell, drinking
his tea with the air of a sphinx.

“Well, now, you 'll have to tell which on 'em will be most
likely to cure Mary Jane,” said Captain Kittridge, “or
there 'll be a pullin' of caps, I 'm thinkin'; or else the poor
girl will have to drink them all, which is generally the
way.”

“There won't any of them cure Mary Jane's throat,”
said the minister, quietly.

“Why, brother!” “Why, Mr. Sewell!” “Why, you
don't!” burst in different tones from each of the women.

“I thought you said that blackberry-root tea was good,”
said Mrs. Kittridge.

“I understood that you 'proved of ma'sh rosemary,” said
Miss Roxy, touched in her professional pride.

“And I am sure, brother, that I have heard you say,
often and often, that there was n't a better gargle than
rose leaves and vitriol,” said Miss Emily.

“You are quite right, ladies, all of you. I think these
are all good gargles — excellent ones.”

“But I thought you said that they did n't do any good?”
said all the ladies in a breath.

“No, they don't — not the least in the world,” said Mr.
Sewell; “but they are all excellent gargles, and as long as
people must have gargles, I think one is about as good as
another.”

“Now you have got it,” said Captain Kittridge.

“Brother, you do say the strangest things,” said Miss
Emily.

“Well, I must say,” said Miss Roxy, “it is a new idea
to me, long as I 've been nussin', and I nussed through one
season of scarlet fever when sometimes there was five died
in one house; and if ma'sh rosemary did n't do good then,
I should like to know what did.”

“So would a good many others,” said the minister.

“Law, now, Miss Roxy, you mus' n't mind him. Do you
know that I believe he says these sort of things just to hear
us talk? Of course he would n't think of puttin' his experience
against yours.”

“But, Mis' Kittridge,” said Miss Emily, with a view of
summoning a less controverted subject, “what a beautiful
little boy that was, and what a striking providence that
brought him into such a good family!”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Kittridge; “but I 'm sure I don't see
what Mary Pennel is goin' to do with that boy, for she a'n't
got no more government than a twisted tow-string.”

“Oh, the Cap'n, he 'll lend a hand,” said Miss Roxy;
“it won't be easy gettin' roun' him; Cap'n bears a pretty
steady hand when he sets out to drive.”

“Well,” said Miss Emily, “I do think that bringin' up
children is the most awful responsibility, and I always wonder
when I hear that any one dares to undertake it.”

“It requires a great deal of resolution, certainly,” said
Mrs. Kittridge; “I 'm sure I used to get a'most discouraged
when my boys was young: they was a reg'lar set of wild
ass's colts,” she added, not perceiving the reflection on their
paternity.

But the countenance of Mr. Sewell was all aglow with
merriment, which did not break into a smile.

“Wal', Mis' Kittridge,” said the Captain, “strikes me
that you 're gettin' pussonal.”

“No, I a'n't neither,” said the literal Mrs. Kittridge,
ignorant of the cause of the amusement which she saw
around her; “but you wa' n't no help to me, you know;
you was always off to sea, and the whole wear and tear
on 't came on me.”

“Well, well, Polly, all 's well that ends well; don't you
think so, Mr. Sewell?”

“I have n't much experience in these matters,” said Mr.
Sewell, politely.

“No, indeed, that 's what he has n't, for he never will
have a child round the house that he don't turn everything
topsy-turvy for them,” said Miss Emily.

“But I was going to remark,” said Mr. Sewell, “that a
friend of mine said once, that the woman that had brought
up six boys deserved a seat among the martyrs — and that
is rather my opinion.”

“Wal', Polly, if you git up there, I hope you 'll keep a
seat for me.”

“Cap'n Kittridge, what levity!” said his wife.

“I did n't begin it, anyhow,” said the Captain.

Miss Emily interposed, and led the conversation back to
the subject.

“What a pity it is,” she said, “that this poor child's
family can never know anything about him. There may
be those who would give all the world to know what has
become of him; and when he comes to grow up, how sad
he will feel to have no father and mother!”

“Sister,” said Mr. Sewell, “you cannot think that a child
brought up by Captain Pennel and his wife would ever feel
as without father and mother.”

“Why, no, brother, to be sure not. There 's no doubt he
will have everything done for him that a child could. But
then it 's a loss to lose one's real home.”

“It may be a gracious deliverance,” said Mr. Sewell —
“who knows? We may as well take a cheerful view, and
think that some kind wave has drifted the child away from
an unfortunate destiny to a family where we are quite sure
he will be brought up industriously and soberly, and in the
fear of God.”

“Well, I never thought of that,” said Miss Roxy.

Miss Emily, looking at her brother, saw that he was
speaking with a suppressed vehemence, as if some inner
fountain of recollection at the moment were disturbed. But
Miss Emily knew no more of the deeper parts of her
brother's nature than a little bird that dips its beak into the
sunny waters of some spring knows of its depths of coldness
and shadow.

“Mis' Pennel was a-sayin' to me,” said Mrs. Kittridge,
“that I should ask you what was to be done about the
bracelet they found. We don't know whether 't is real gold

and precious stones, or only glass and pinchbeck. Cap'n
Kittridge he thinks it 's real; and if 't is, why then the question
is, whether or no to try to sell it, or to keep it for the
boy agin he grows up. It may help find out who and what
he is.”

“And why should he want to find out?” said Mr. Sewell.
“Why should he not grow up and think himself the son of
Captain and Mrs. Pennel? What better lot could a boy be
born to?”

“That may be, brother, but it can't be kept from him.
Everybody knows how he was found, and you may be sure
every bird of the air will tell him, and he 'll grow up restless
and wanting to know. Mis' Kittridge, have you got the
bracelet handy?”

The fact was, little Miss Emily was just dying with curiosity
to set her dancing black eyes upon it.

“Here it is,” said Mrs. Kittridge, taking it from a
drawer.

It was a bracelet of hair, of some curious foreign workmanship.
A green enamelled serpent, studded thickly with
emeralds and with eyes of ruby, was curled around the
clasp. A crystal plate covered a wide flat braid of hair, on
which the letters “D. M.” were curiously embroidered in a
cipher of seed pearls. The whole was in style and workmanship
quite different from any jewelry which ordinarily
meets one's eye.

But what was remarkable was the expression in Mr.
Sewell's face when this bracelet was put into his hand.
Miss Emily had risen from table and brought it to him,
leaning over him as she did so, and he turned his head a
little to hold it in the light from the window, so that only
she remarked the sudden expression of blank surprise and

startled recognition which fell upon it. He seemed like a
man who chokes down an exclamation; and rising hastily,
he took the bracelet to the window, and standing with his
back to the company, seemed to examine it with the minutest
interest. After a few moments he turned and said, in a
very composed tone, as if the subject were of no particular
interest, —

“It is a singular article, so far as workmanship is concerned.
The value of the gems in themselves is not great
enough to make it worth while to sell it. It will be worth
more as a curiosity than anything else. It will doubtless be
an interesting relic to keep for the boy when he grows up.”

“Well, Mr. Sewell, you keep it,” said Mrs. Kittridge;
“the Pennels told me to give it into your care.”

“I shall commit it to Emily here; women have a native
sympathy with anything in the jewelry line. She 'll be
sure to lay it up so securely that she won't even know
where it is herself.”

“Brother!”

“Come, Emily,” said Mr. Sewell, “your hens will all go
to roost on the wrong perch if you are not at home to see
to them; so, if the Captain will set us across to Harpswell,
I think we may as well be going.”

“Why, what 's your hurry?” said Mrs. Kittridge.

“Well,” said Mr. Sewell, “firstly, there 's the hens; secondly,
the pigs; and lastly, the cow. Besides I should n't
wonder if some of Emily's admirers should call on her this
evening, — never any saying when Captain Broad may
come in.”

“Now, brother, you are too bad,” said Miss Emily, as she
bustled about her bonnet and shawl. “Now, that 's all made
up out of whole cloth. Captain Broad called last week

a Monday, to talk to you about the pews, and hardly spoke
a word to me. You ought n't to say such things, 'cause it
raises reports.”

“Ah, well, then, I won't again,” said her brother. “I
believe, after all, it was Captain Badger that called twice.'

“Brother!”

“And left you a basket of apples the second time.”

“Brother, you know he only called to get some of my
hoarhound for Mehitable's cough.”

“Oh, yes, I remember.”

“If you don't take care,” said Miss Emily, “I 'll tell
where you call.”

“Come, Miss Emily, you must not mind him,” said Miss
Roxy; “we all know his ways.”

And now took place the grand leave-taking, which consisted
first of the three women's standing in a knot and all
talking at once, as if their very lives depended upon saying
everything they could possibly think of before they separated,
while Mr. Sewell and Captain Kittridge stood patiently
waiting with the resigned air which the male sex commonly
assume on such occasions; and when, after two or three
“Come, Emily's,” the group broke up only to form again on
the door-step, where they were at it harder than ever, and
a third occasion of the same sort took place at the bottom
of the steps, Mr. Sewell was at last obliged by main force
to drag his sister away in the middle of a sentence.

Miss Emily watched her brother shrewdly all the way
home, but all traces of any uncommon feeling had passed
away, — and yet, with the restlessness of female curiosity,
she felt quite sure that she had laid hold of the end of
some skein of mystery, could she only find skill enough
to unwind it.

She took up the bracelet, and held it in the fading evening
light, and broke into various observations with regard
to the singularity of the workmanship.

Her brother seemed entirely absorbed in talking with
Captain Kittridge about the brig Anna Maria, which was
going to be launched from Pennel's wharf next Wednesday.

But she, therefore, internally resolved to lie in wait for
the secret in that confidential hour which usually preceded
going to bed.

Therefore, as soon as she had arrived at their quiet dwelling,
she put in operation the most seducing little fire that
ever crackled and snapped in a chimney, well knowing that
nothing was more calculated to throw light into any hidden
or concealed chamber of the soul than that enlivening blaze
which danced so merrily on her well-polished andirons, and
made the old chintz sofa and the time-worn furniture so rich
in remembrances of family comfort.

She then proceeded to divest her brother of his wig and
his dress-coat, and to induct him into the flowing ease of a
study-gown, crowning his well-shaven head with a black cap,
and placing his slippers before the corner of a sofa nearest
the fire. She observed him with satisfaction sliding into his
seat, and then she trotted to a closet with a glass-door in the
corner of the room, and took down an old, quaintly-shaped
silver cup, which had been an heirloom in their family, and
was the only piece of plate which their modern domestic
establishment could boast; and with this, down cellar she
tripped, her little heels tapping lightly on each stair, and the
hum of a song coming back after her as she sought the
cider-barrel. Up again she came, and set the silver cup,
with its clear amber contents, down by the fire, and then

busied herself in making just the crispest, nicest square of
toast to be eaten with it, — for Miss Emily had conceived
the idea that some little ceremony of this sort was absolutely
necessary to do away all possible ill effects from a day's labor,
and secure an uninterrupted night's repose.

Having done all this, she took her knitting-work, and
stationed herself just opposite to her brother.

It was fortunate for Miss Emily that the era of daily
journals had not yet arisen upon the earth, because if it had,
after all her care and pains, her brother would probably
have taken up the evening paper, and holding it between
his face and her, have read an hour or so in silence; but
Mr. Sewell had not this resort. He knew perfectly well
that he had excited his sister's curiosity on a subject where
he could not gratify it, and therefore he took refuge in a
kind of mild, abstracted air of quietude which bid defiance
to all her little suggestions.

After in vain trying every indirect form, Miss Emily approached
the subject more pointedly.

“I thought that you looked very much interested in that
poor woman to-day.”

“She had an interesting face,” said her brother, dryly.

“Was it like anybody that you ever saw?” said Miss
Emily.

Her brother did not seem to hear her, but, taking the
tongs, picked up the two ends of a stick that had just fallen
apart, and arranged them so as to make a new blaze.

Miss Emily was obliged to repeat her question, whereat
he started as one awakened out of a dream, and said, —

“Why, yes, he did n't know but she did; there were a
good many women with black eyes and black hair, — Mrs.
Kittridge, for instance.”

“Why, I don't think that she looked like Mrs. Kittridge
in the least,” said Miss Emily, warmly.

“Oh, well! I did n't say she did,” said her brother, looking
drowsily at his watch; “why, Emily, it 's getting rather
late.”

“What made you look so when I showed you that bracelet?”
said Miss Emily, determined now to push the war to
the heart of the enemy's country.

“Look how?” said her brother, leisurely moistening a
bit of toast in his cider.

“Why, I never saw anybody look more wild and astonished
than you did for a minute or two.”

“I did, did I?” said her brother, in the same indifferent
tone. “My dear child, what an active imagination you
have. Did you ever look through a prism, Emily?”

“Why, no, Theophilus; what do you mean?”

“Well, if you should, you would see everybody and
everything with a nice little bordering of rainbow around
them; now the rainbow is n't on the things, but in the
prism.”

“Well, what 's that to the purpose?” said Miss Emily,
rather bewildered.

“Why, just this: you women are so nervous and excitable,
that you are very apt to see your friends and the world
in general with some coloring just as unreal. I am sorry
for you, childie, but really I can't help you to get up a romance
out of this bracelet. Well, good-night, Emily, take
good care of yourself and go to bed;” and Mr. Sewell went
to his room, leaving poor Miss Emily almost persuaded out
of the sight of her own eyes.