University of Virginia Library

14. CHAPTER XIV.

June and July passed, and the lonely two lived a quiet
life in the brown house. Everything was so still and fair
— no sound but the coming and going tide, and the swaying
wind among the pine-trees, and the tick of the clock,
and the whirr of the little wheel as Mrs. Pennel sat spinning
in her door in the mild weather.

Mara read the Roman history through again, and began it
a third time, and read over and over again the stories and
prophecies that pleased her in the Bible, and pondered the
wood-cuts and texts in a very old edition of Æsop's Fables,
and as she wandered in the woods, picking fragrant bayberries
and gathering hemlock, checkerberry, and sassafras
to put in the beer which her grandmother brewed, she
mused on the things that she read till her little mind became
a tabernacle of solemn, quaint, dreamy forms — where
old Judean kings and prophets, and Roman senators and
warriors, marched in and out in shadowy rounds. She invented
long dramas and conversations in which they performed
imaginary parts, and it would not have appeared to
the child in the least degree surprising either to have met
an angel in the woods, or to have formed an intimacy with
some talking wolf or bear, such as she read of in Æsop's
Fables.

One day, as she was exploring the garret, she found in an
old barrel of cast-off rubbish a bit of reading which she
begged of her grandmother for her own.

It was the play of the “Tempest,” torn from an old edition
of Shakespeare, and was in that delightfully fragmentary
condition which most particularly pleases children, because
they conceive a mutilated treasure thus found to be more
especially their own property — something like a rare wild-flower
or sea-shell. The pleasure which thoughtful and imaginative
children sometimes take in reading that which
they do not and cannot fully comprehend, is one of the
most common and curious phenomena of childhood.

And so little Mara would lie for hours stretched out on
the pebbly beach, with the broad open ocean before her and
the whispering pines and hemlocks behind her, and pore
over this poem, from which she collected dim, delightful
images of a lonely island, an old enchanter, a beautiful girl,
and a spirit not quite like those in the Bible, but a very
probable one to her mode of thinking.

As for old Caliban, she fancied him with a face much like
that of a huge skate-fish she had once seen drawn ashore in
one of her grandfather's nets, — and then there was the beautiful
young Prince Ferdinand, much like what Moses would
be when he was grown up — and how glad she would be to
pile up his wood for him, if any old enchanter should set
him to work!

One attribute of the child was a peculiar shamefacedness
and shyness about her inner thoughts, and therefore the
wonder that this new treasure excited, the host of surmises
and dreams to which it gave rise, were never mentioned
to anybody. That it was all of it as much authentic
fact as the Roman history, she did not doubt, but whether it
had happened on Orr's Island or some of the neighboring
ones, she had not exactly made up her mind.

She resolved at her earliest leisure to consult Captain

Kittridge on the subject, wisely considering that it much
resembled some of his fishy and aquatic experiences.

Some of the little songs fixed themselves in her memory,
and she would hum them as she wandered up and down the
beach.

And another which pleased her still more: —

These words she pondered very long, gravely revolving
in her little head whether they described the usual course of
things in the mysterious under-world that lay beneath that
blue spangled floor of the sea — whether everybody's eyes
changed to pearl, and their bones to coral, if they sunk down
there — and whether the sea-nymphs spoken of were the
same as the mermaids that Captain Kittridge had told of.
Had he not said that the bell rung for church of a Sunday
morning down under the waters?

Mara vividly remembered the scene on the sea-beach, the
finding of little Moses and his mother, the dream of the pale
lady that seemed to bring him to her; and not one of the
conversations that had transpired before her among different
gossips had been lost on her quiet, listening little ears.

These pale, still children that play without making any
noise, are deep wells into which drop many things which lie
long and quietly on the bottom, and come up in after years
whole and new, when everybody else has forgotten them.

So she had heard surmises as to the remaining crew of
that unfortunate ship — where, perhaps, Moses had a father.
And sometimes she wondered if he were lying fathoms deep
with sea-nymphs ringing his knell, and whether Moses ever
thought about him; and yet she could no more have asked
him a question about it than if she had been born dumb.
She decided that she should never show him this poetry —
it might make him feel unhappy.

One bright afternoon, when the sea lay all dead asleep, and
the long, steady respiration of its tides scarcely disturbed
the glassy tranquillity of its bosom, Mrs. Pennel sat at her
kitchen-door spinning, when Captain Kittridge appeared.

“Good-afternoon, Mis' Pennel; how ye gettin' along?”

“Oh, pretty well, Captain; won't you walk in and have
a glass of beer?”

“Well, thank you,” said the Captain, raising his hat and
wiping his forehead, “I be pretty dry, it 's a fact.”

Mrs. Pennel hastened to a cask which was kept standing
in a corner of the kitchen, and drew from thence a mug of
her own home-brewed, fragrant with the smell of juniper,
hemlock, and wintergreen, which she presented to the Captain,
who sat down in the door-way and discussed it in leisurely
sips.

“Wal', s'pose it 's most time to be lookin' for 'em home,
a'n't it?” he said.

“I am lookin' every day,” said Mrs. Pennel, involuntarily
glancing upward at the sea.

At the word appeared the vision of little Mara, who rose

up like a spirit from a dusky corner, where she had been
stooping over her reading.

“Why, little Mara,” said the Captain, “you ris up like a
ghost all of a sudden. I thought you 's out to play. I come
down a-purpose arter you. Mis' Kittridge has gone shoppin'
up to Brunswick, and left Sally a `stent' to do; and I promised
her if she 'd clap to and do it quick, I 'd go up and fetch
you down, and we 'd have a play in the cove.”

Mara's eyes brightened, as they always did at this prospect,
and Mrs. Pennel said, “Well, I 'm glad to have the
child go; she seems so kind o' still and lonesome since
Moses went away; really one feels as if that boy took all
the noise there was with him. I get tired myself sometimes
hearing the clock tick. Mara, when she 's alone, takes to
her book more than 's good for a child.”

“She does, does she? Well, we 'll see about that. Come,
little Mara, get on your sun-bonnet. Sally 's sewin' fast as
ever she can, and we 'r' goin' to dig some clams, and make a
fire, and have a chowder; that 'll be nice, won't it? Don't
you want to come, too, Mis' Pennel?”

“Oh, thank you, Captain, but I 've got so many things on
hand to do afore they come home, I don't really think I can.
I 'll trust Mara to you any day.”

Mara had run into her own little room and secured her
precious fragment of treasure, which she wrapped up carefully
in her handkerchief, resolving to enlighten Sally with
the story, and to consult the Captain on any nice points of
criticism. Arrived at the cove, they found Sally already
there in advance of them, clapping her hands and dancing in
a manner which made her black elf-locks fly like those of a
distracted creature.

“Now, Sally,” said the Captain, imitating, in a humble

way, his wife 's manner, “are you sure you 've finished your
work well?”

“Yes, father, every stitch on 't.”

“And stuck in your needle, and folded it up, and put it in
the drawer, and put away your thimble, and shet the drawer,
and all the rest on 't?” said the Captain.

“Yes, father,” said Sally, gleefully, “I 've done everything
I could think of.”

“'Cause you know your ma 'll be arter ye, if you don't
leave everything straight.”

“Oh, never you fear, father, I 've done it all half an hour
ago, and I 've found the most capital bed of clams just round
the point here; and you take care of Mara there, and make
up a fire while I dig 'em. If she comes, she 'll be sure to
wet her shoes, or spoil her frock, or something.”

“Wal', she likes no better fun now,” said the Captain,
watching Sally, as she disappeared round the rock with a
bright tin pan.

He then proceeded to construct an extemporary fireplace
of loose stones, and to put together chips and shavings for
the fire, — in which work little Mara eagerly assisted; but
the fire was crackling and burning cheerily long before Sally
appeared with her clams, and so the Captain, with a pile of
hemlock boughs by his side, sat on a stone feeding the fire
leisurely from time to time with crackling boughs. Now
was the time for Mara to make her inquiries; her heart
beat, she knew not why, for she was full of those little timidities
and shames that so often embarrass children in their
attempts to get at the meanings of things in this great world,
where they are such ignorant spectators.

“Captain Kittridge,” she said at last, “do the mermaids
toll any bells for people when they are drowned?”

Now the Captain had never been known to indicate the
least ignorance on any subject in heaven or earth, which
any one wished his opinion on; he therefore leisurely poked
another great crackling bough of green hemlock into the
fire, and, Yankee-like, answered one question by asking
another, — “What put that into your curly pate?” he said.

“A book I 've been reading says they do, — that is sea-nymphs
do. A'n't sea-nymphs and mermaids the same
thing?”

“Wal', I guess they be, pretty much,” said the Captain,
rubbing down his pantaloons; “yes, they be,” he added, after
reflection.

“And when people are drowned, how long does it take
for their bones to turn into coral, and their eyes into pearl?”
said little Mara.

“Well, that depends upon circumstances,” said the Captain,
who was n't going to be posed; “but let me jist see
your book you 've been reading these things out of.”

“I found it in a barrel up garret, and grandma gave it to
me,” said Mara, unrolling her handkerchief; “it 's a beautiful
book, — it tells about an island, and there was an old enchanter
lived on it, and he had one daughter, and there was
a spirit they called Ariel, whom a wicked old witch fastened
in a split of a pine-tree, till the enchanter got him out. He
was a beautiful spirit, and rode in the curled clouds and hung
in flowers, — because he could make himself big or little,
you see.”

“Ah, yes, I see, to be sure,” said the Captain, nodding his
head.

“Well, that about sea-nymphs ringing his knell is here,”
Mara added, beginning to read the passage with wide, dilated
eyes and great emphasis. “You see,” she went on,

speaking very fast, “this enchanter had been a prince, and
a wicked brother had contrived to send him to sea with his
poor little daughter, in a ship so leaky that the very rats had
left it.”

“Bad business that!” said the Captain, attentively.

“Well,” said Mara, “they got cast ashore on this desolate
island, where they lived together. But once, when a ship
was going by on the sea that had his wicked brother and his
son — a real good, handsome young prince — in it, why then
he made a storm by magic arts.”

“Jist so,” said the Captain; “that 's been often done, to
my sartin knowledge.”

“And he made the ship be wrecked and all the people
thrown ashore, but there was n't any of 'em drowned, and this
handsome prince heard Ariel singing this song about his
father, and it made him think he was dead.”

“Well, what became of 'em?” interposed Sally, who had
come up with her pan of clams in time to hear this story, to
which she had listened with breathless interest.

“Oh, the beautiful young prince married the beautiful
young lady,” said Mara.

“Wal',” said the Captain, who by this time had found his
soundings; “that you 've been a-tellin' is what they call a
play, and I 've seen 'em act it at a theatre, when I was to
Liverpool once. I know all about it. Shakespeare wrote
it, and he 's a great English poet.”

“But did it ever happen?” said Mara, trembling between
hope and fear. “Is it like the Bible and Roman history?”

“Why, no,” said Captain Kittridge, “not exactly; but
things jist like it, you know. Mermaids and sich is common
in foreign parts, and they has funerals for drowned
sailors. 'Member once when we was sailing near the Bermudas

by a reef where the Lively Fanny went down, and I
heard a kind o' ding-dongin', — and the waters there is clear
as the sky, — and I looked down and see the coral all a-growin',
and the sea-plants a-wavin' as handsome as a pictur',
and the mermaids they was a-singin'. It was beautiful;
they sung kind o' mournful; and Jack Hubbard, he would
have it they was a-singin' for the poor fellows that was
a-lyin' there round under the sea-weed.”

“But,” said Mara, “did you ever see an enchanter that
could make storms?”

“Wal', there be witches and conjurers that make storms.
'Member once when we was crossin' the line, about twelve
o'clock at night, there was an old man with a long white
beard that shone like silver, came and stood at the mast-head,
and he had a pitchfork in one hand, and a lantern in the
other, and there was great balls of fire as big as my fist
came out all round in the rigging. And I 'll tell you if we
did n't get a blow that ar night! I thought to my soul we
should all go to the bottom.”

“Why,” said Mara, her eyes staring with excitement,
“that was just like this shipwreck; and 't was Ariel made
those balls of fire; he says so; he said he `flamed amazement'
all over the ship.”

“I 've heard Miss Roxy tell about witches that made
storms,” said Sally.

The Captain leisurely proceeded to open the clams, separating
from the shells the contents, which he threw into a
pan, meanwhile placing a black pot over the fire in which
he had previously arranged certain slices of salt pork, which
soon began frizzling in the heat.

“Now, Sally, you peel them potatoes, and mind you slice
'em thin,” he said, and Sally soon was busy with her work.

“Yes,” said the Captain, going on with his part of the
arrangement, “there was old Polly Twichell, that lived in
that ar old tumble-down house on Mure P'int; people used
to say she brewed storms, and went to sea in a sieve.”

“Went in a sieve!” said both children; “why a sieve
would n't swim!”

“No more it would n't, in any Christian way,” said the
Captain; “but that was to show what a great witch she
was.”

“But this was a good enchanter,” said Mara, “and he did
it all by a book and a rod.”

“Yes, yes,” said the Captain; “that ar 's the gen'l way
magicians do, ever since Moses' time in Egypt. 'Member
once I was to Alexandria, in Egypt, and I saw a magician
there that could jist see everything you ever did in your life
in a drop of ink that he held in his hand.”

“He could, father!”

“To be sure he could! told me all about the old folks at
home; and described our house as natural as if he 'd a-been
there. He used to carry snakes round with him, — a kind
so p'ison that it was certain death to have 'em bite you; but
he played with 'em as if they was kittens.”

“Well,” said Mara, “my enchanter was a king; and
when he got through all he wanted, and got his daughter
married to the beautiful young prince, he said he would
break his staff, and deeper than plummet sounded he would
bury his book.”

“It was pretty much the best thing he could do,” said the
Captain, “because the Bible is agin such things.”

“Is it?” said Mara; “why, he was a real good man.”

“Oh, well, you know, we all on us does what a'n't quite
right sometimes, when we gets pushed up,” said the Captain,

who now began arranging the clams and sliced potatoes in
alternate layers with sea-biscuit, strewing in salt and pepper
as he went on; and, in a few moments, a smell, fragrant to
hungry senses, began to steam upward, and Sally began
washing and preparing some mammoth clam-shells, to serve
as ladles and plates for the future chowder.

Mara, who sat with her morsel of a book in her lap,
seemed deeply pondering the past conversation. At last she
said, “What did you mean by saying you 'd seen 'em act
that at a theatre?”

“Why, they make it all seem real; and they have a shipwreck,
and you see it all jist right afore your eyes.”

“And the Enchanter, and Ariel, and Caliban, and all?”
said Mara.

“Yes, all on 't, — plain as printing.”

“Why, that is by magic, a'n't it?” said Mara.

“No; they hes ways to jist make it up; but,” — added
the Captain, “Sally, you need n't say nothin' to your ma
'bout the theatre, 'cause she would n't think I 's fit to go to
meetin' for six months arter, if she heard on 't.”

“Why, a'n't theatres good?” said Sally.

“Wal, there 's a middlin' sight o' bad things in 'em,” said
the Captain, “that I must say; but as long as folks is folks,
why, they will be folksy; — but there 's never any makin'
women folk understand about them ar things.”

“I am sorry they are bad,” said Mara; “I want to see
them.”

“Wal', wal',” said the Captain, “on the hull I 've seen
raal things a good deal more wonderful than all their shows,
and they ha'n't no make-b'lieve to 'em — but theatres is
takin' arter all. But, Sally, mind you don't say nothin' to
Mis' Kittridge.”

A few moments more and all discussion was lost in preparations
for the meal, and each one receiving a portion of
the savory stew in a large shell, made a spoon of a small
cockle, and with some slices of bread and butter, the evening
meal went off merrily. The sun was sloping toward the
ocean; the wide blue floor was bedropped here and there
with rosy shadows of sailing clouds. Suddenly the Captain
sprang up, calling out, —

“Sure as I 'm alive, there they be!”

“Who?” exclaimed the children.

“Why, Captain Pennel and Moses; don't you see?”

And, in fact, on the outer circle of the horizon came drifting
a line of small white-breasted vessels, looking like so
many doves.

“Them 's 'em,” said the Captain, while Mara danced for
joy.

“How soon will they be here?”

“Afore long,” said the Captain; “so, Mara, I guess you 'll
want to be getting hum.”