University of Virginia Library

15. CHAPTER XV.

Mrs. Pennel, too, had seen the white, dove-like cloud
on the horizon, and had hurried to make biscuits, and conduct
other culinary preparations which should welcome the
wanderers home.

The sun was just dipping into the great blue sea — a
round ball of fire — and sending long, slanting tracks of
light across the top of each wave, when a boat was moored
at the beach, and the minister sprang out, — not in his suit
of ceremony, but attired in fisherman's garb.

“Good-afternoon, Mrs. Pennel,” he said. “I was out
fishing, and I thought I saw your husband's schooner in the
distance. I thought I 'd come and tell you.”

“Thank you, Mr. Sewell. I thought I saw it, but I was
not certain. Do come in; the Captain would be delighted
to see you here.”

“We miss your husband in our meetings,” said Mr. Sewell;
“it will be good news for us all when he comes home;
he is one of those I depend on to help me preach.”

“I 'm sure you don't preach to anybody who enjoys it
more,” said Mrs. Pennel. “He often tells me that the
greatest trouble about his voyages to the Banks is that he
loses so many sanctuary privileges; though he always keeps
Sunday on his ship, and reads and sings his psalms; but, he
says, after all, there 's nothing like going to Mount Zion.”

“And little Moses has gone on his first voyage?” said
the minister.

“Yes, indeed; the child has been teasing to go for more
than a year. Finally the Cap'n told him if he 'd be faithful
in the ploughing and planting he should go. You see, he 's
rather unsteady, and apt to be off after other things, — very
different from Mara. Whatever you give her to do she
always keeps at it till it 's done.”

“And pray, where is the little lady?” said the minister;
“is she gone?”

“Well, Cap'n Kittridge came in this afternoon to take her
down to see Sally. The Cap'n 's always so fond of Mara,
and she has always taken to him ever since she was a baby.”

“The Captain is a curious creature,” said the minister,
smiling.

Mrs. Pennel smiled also; and it is to be remarked that
nobody ever mentioned the poor Captain's name without the
same curious smile.

“The Cap'n is a good-hearted, obliging creature,” said
Mrs. Pennel, “and a master-hand for telling stories to the
children.”

“Yes, a perfect `Arabian Nights' Entertainment,'” said
Mr. Sewell.

“Well, I really believe the Cap'n believes his own
stories,” said Mrs. Pennel; “he always seems to, and certainly
a more obliging man and a kinder neighbor could n't
be. He has been in and out almost every day since I 've
been alone, to see if I wanted anything. He would insist
on chopping wood and splitting kindlings for me, though I
told him the Cap'n and Moses had left a plenty to last till
they came home.”

At this moment the subject of their conversation appeared
striding along the beach, with a large, red lobster in one
hand, while with the other he held little Mara upon his

shoulder, she the while clapping her hands and singing merrily,
as she saw the Brilliant out on the open blue sea, its
white sails looking of a rosy purple in the evening light,
careering gayly homeward.

“There is Captain Kittridge this very minute,” said Mrs.
Pennel, setting down a teacup she had been wiping, and
going to the door.

“Good-evening, Mis' Pennel,” said the Captain. “I
s'pose you see your folks are comin'. I brought down one
of these 'ere ready b'iled, 'cause I thought it might make
out your supper.”

“Thank you, Captain; you must stay and take some with
us.”

“Wal', me and the children have pooty much done our
supper,” said the Captain. “We made a real fust-rate
chowder down there to the cove; but I 'll jist stay and see
what the Cap'n's luck is. Massy!” he added, as he looked
in at the door, “if you ha'n't got the minister there! Wal',
now, I come jist as I be,” he added, with a glance down at
his clothes.

“Never mind, Captain,” said Mr. Sewell; “I 'm in my
fishing-clothes, so we 're even.”

As to little Mara, she had run down to the beach, and
stood so near the sea, that every dash of the tide-wave forced
her little feet to tread an inch backward, stretching out her
hands eagerly toward the schooner, which was standing
straight toward the small wharf, not far from their door.
Already she could see on deck figures moving about, and
her sharp little eyes made out a small personage in a red
shirt that was among the most active. Soon all the figures
grew distinct, and she could see her grandfather's gray head,
and alert, active form, and could see, by the signs he made,

that he had perceived the little blowy figure that stood, with
hair streaming in the wind, like some flower bent seaward.

And now they are come nearer, and Moses shouts and
dances on the deck, and the Captain and Mrs. Pennel come
running from the house down to the shore, and a few minutes
more, and all are landed safe and sound, and little Mara
is carried up to the house in her grandfather's arms, while
Captain Kittridge stops to have a few moments' gossip with
Ben Halliday and Tom Scranton before they go to their own
resting-places.

Meanwhile Moses loses not a moment in boasting of his
heroic exploits to Mara.

“Oh, Mara! you 've no idea what times we 've had! I
can fish equal to any of 'em, and I can take in sail and tend
the helm like anything, and I know all the names of everything;
and you ought to have seen us catch fish! Why,
they bit just as fast as we could throw; and it was just
throw and bite, — throw and bite, — throw and bite; and
my hands got blistered pulling in, but I did n't mind it, — I
was determined no one should beat me.”

“Oh! did you blister your hands?” said Mara, pitifully.

“Oh, to be sure! Now, you girls think that 's a dreadful
thing, but we men don't mind it. My hands are getting so
hard, you 've no idea. And, Mara, we caught a great
shark.”

“A shark! — oh, how dreadful! Is n't he dangerous?”

“Dangerous! I guess not. We served him out, I tell
you. He 'll never eat any more people, I tell you, the old
wretch!”

“But, poor shark, it is n't his fault that he eats people.
He was made so,” said Mara, unconsciously touching a deep
theological mystery.

“Well, I don't know but he was,” said Moses; “but
sharks that we catch never eat any more, I 'll bet you.”

“Oh, Moses, did you see any icebergs?”

“Icebergs! yes; we passed right by one, — a real grand
one.”

“Were there any bears on it?”

“Bears! No; we did n't see any.”

“Captain Kittridge says there are white bears live on
'em.”

“Oh, Captain Kittridge,” said Moses, with a toss of superb
contempt; “if you 're going to believe all he says,
you 've got your hands full.”

“Why, Moses, you don't think he tells lies?” said Mara,
the tears actually starting in her eyes. “I think he is real
good, and tells nothing but the truth.”

“Well, well, you are young yet,” said Moses, turning
away with an air of easy grandeur, “and only a girl besides,”
he added.

Mara was nettled at this speech. First, it pained her to
have her child's faith shaken in anything, and particularly in
her good old friend, the Captain; and next, she felt, with
more force than ever she did before, the continual disparaging
tone in which Moses spoke of her girlhood.

“I 'm sure,” she said to herself, “he ought n't to feel so
about girls and women. There was Deborah was a prophetess,
and judged Israel; and there was Egeria, — she taught
Numa Pompilius all his wisdom.”

But it was not the little maiden's way to speak when anything
thwarted or hurt her, but rather to fold all her feelings
and thoughts inward, as some insects, with fine gauzy wings,
draw them under a coat of horny concealment.

Somehow, there was a shivering sense of disappointment

in all this meeting with Moses. She had dwelt upon it, and
fancied so much, and had so many things to say to him; and
he had come home so self-absorbed and glorious, and seemed
to have had so little need of or thought for her, that she felt
a cold, sad sinking at her heart; and walking away very
still and white, sat down demurely by her grandfather's knee.

“Well, so my little girl is glad grandfather 's come,” he
said, lifting her fondly in his arms, and putting her golden
head under his coat, as he had been wont to do from infancy;
“grandpa thought a great deal about his little Mara.”

The small heart swelled against his. Kind, faithful old
grandpa! how much more he thought about her than Moses;
and yet she had thought so much of Moses.

And there he sat, this same ungrateful Moses, bright-eyed
and rosy-cheeked, full of talk and gayety, full of energy and
vigor, as ignorant as possible of the wound he had given to
the little loving heart that was silently brooding under her
grandfather's butternut-colored sea-coat. Not only was he
ignorant, but he had not even those conditions within himself
which made knowledge possible.

All that there was developed of him, at present, was a
fund of energy, self-esteem, hope, courage, and daring, the
love of action, life, and adventure; his life was in the outward
and present, not in the inward and reflective; he was
a true ten-year old boy, in its healthiest and most animal
perfection. What she was, the small pearl with the golden
hair, with her frail and high-strung organization, her sensitive
nerves, her half-spiritual fibres, her ponderings, and
marvels, and dreams, her power of love, and yearning for
self-devotion, our readers may, perhaps, have seen. But if
ever two children, or two grown people, thus organized, are
thrown into intimate relations, it follows, from the very laws

of their being, that one must hurt the other, simply by being
itself; one must always hunger for what the other has not
to give.

It was a merry meal, however, when they all sat down to
the tea-table once more, and Mara by her grandfather's side,
who often stopped what he was saying to stroke her head
fondly. Moses bore a more prominent part in the conversation
than he had been wont to do before this voyage, and all
seemed to listen to him with a kind of indulgence elders
often accord to a handsome, manly boy, in the first flush of
some successful enterprise.

That ignorant confidence in one's self and one's future,
which comes in life's first dawn, has a sort of mournful
charm in experienced eyes, who know how much it all
amounts to.

Gradually, little Mara quieted herself with listening to
and admiring him.

It is not comfortable to have any heart-quarrel with one's
cherished idol, and everything of the feminine nature, therefore,
can speedily find fifty good reasons for seeing one's self
in the wrong and one's graven image in the right; and little
Mara soon had said to herself, without words, that, of course,
Moses could n't be expected to think as much of her as she
of him. He was handsomer, cleverer, and had a thousand
other things to do and to think of — he was a boy, in short,
and going to be a glorious man and sail all over the world,
while she could only hem handkerchiefs and knit stockings,
and sit at home and wait for him to come back. This was
about the resumé of life as it appeared to the little one, who
went on from the moment worshipping her image with more
undivided idolatry than ever, hoping that by and by he
would think more of her.

Mr. Sewell appeared to study Moses carefully and thoughtfully,
and encouraged the wild, gleeful frankness which he
had brought home from his first voyage, as a knowing jockey
tries the paces of a high-mettled colt.

“Did you get any time to read?” he interposed once,
when the boy stopped in his account of their adventures.

“No, sir,” said Moses; “at least,” he added, blushing
very deeply, “I did n't feel like reading. I had so much to
do, and there was so much to see.”

“It 's all new to him now,” said Captain Pennel; “but
when he comes to being, as I 've been, day after day, with
nothing but sea and sky, he 'll be glad of a book, just to
break the sameness.”

“Laws, yes,” said Captain Kittridge; “sailor's life a'n't
all apple-pie, as it seems when a boy first goes on a summer
trip with his daddy — not by no manner o' means.”

“But,” said Mara, blushing and looking very eagerly at
Mr. Sewell, “Moses has read a great deal. He read the
Roman and the Grecian history through before he went
away, and knows all about them.”

“Indeed!” said Mr. Sewell, turning with an amused look
towards the tiny little champion; “do you read them, too,
my little maid?”

“Yes, indeed,” said Mara, her eyes kindling; “I have
read them a great deal since Moses went away — them
and the Bible.”

Mara did not dare to name her new-found treasure —
there was something so mysterious about that, that she could
not venture to produce it, except on the score of extreme
intimacy.

“Come, sit by me, little Mara,” said the minister, putting
out his hand; “you and I must be friends, I see.”

Mr. Sewell had a certain something of mesmeric power
in his eyes which children seldom resisted; and with a
shrinking movement, as if both attracted and repelled, the
little girl got upon his knee.

“So you like the Bible and Roman history?” he said to
her, making a little aside for her, while a brisk conversation
was going on between Captain Kittridge and Captain Pennel
on the fishing bounty for the year.

“Yes, sir,” said Mara, blushing in a very guilty way.

“And which do you like the best?”

“I don't know, sir; I sometimes think it is the one, and
sometimes the other.”

“Well, what pleases you in the Roman history?”

“Oh, I like that about Quintus Curtius.”

“Quintus Curtius?” said Mr. Sewell, pretending not to
remember.

“Oh, don't you remember him? why, there was a great
gulf opened in the Forum, and the Augurs said that the
country would not be saved unless some one would offer
himself up for it, and so he jumped right in, all on horseback.
I think that was grand. I should like to have done
that,” said little Mara, her eyes blazing out with a kind of
starry light which they had when she was excited.

“And how would you have liked it, if you had been a
Roman girl, and Moses were Quintus Curtius? would you
like to have him give himself up for the good of the
country?”

“Oh, no, no!” said Mara, instinctively shuddering.

“Don't you think it would be very grand of him?”

“Oh, yes, sir.”

“And should n't we wish our friends to do what is brave
and grand?”

“Yes, sir; but then,” she added, “it would be so dreadful
never to see him any more,” and a large tear rolled from
the great soft eyes and fell on the minister's hand.

“Come, come,” thought Mr. Sewell, “this sort of experimenting
is too bad — too much nerve here, too much solitude,
too much pine-whispering and sea-dashing are going to
the making up of this little piece of workmanship.”

“Tell me,” he said, motioning Moses to sit by him, “how
you like the Roman history.”

“I like it first-rate,” said Moses. “The Romans were
such smashers, and beat everybody — nobody could stand
against them; and I like Alexander, too — I think he was
splendid.”

“True boy,” said Mr. Sewell to himself, “unreflecting
brother of the wind and the sea, and all that is vigorous and
active — no precocious development of the moral here.”

“Now you have come,” said Mr. Sewell, “I will lend
you another book.”

“Thank you, sir; I love to read them when I 'm at home
— it 's so still here. I should be dull if I did n't.”

Mara's eyes looked eagerly attentive. Mr. Sewell noticed
their hungry look when a book was spoken of.

“And you must read it, too, my little girl,” he said.

“Thank you, sir,” said Mara; “I always want to read
everything Moses does.”

“What book is it?” said Moses.

“It is called Plutarch's `Lives,'” said the minister; “it
has more particular accounts of the men you read about in
history.”

“Are there any lives of women?” said Mara.

“No, my dear,” said Mr. Sewell; “in the old times,
women did not get their lives written, though I don't doubt

many of them were much better worth writing than the
men's.”

“I should like to be a great general,” said Moses, with a
toss of his head.

“The way to be great lies through books, now, and not
through battles,” said the minister; “there is more done
with pens than swords; so, if you want to do anything, you
must read and study.”

“Do you think of giving this boy a liberal education?”
said Mr. Sewell some time later in the evening, after Moses
and Mara were gone to bed.

“Depends on the boy,” said Zephaniah. “I 've been up
to Brunswick, and seen the fellows there in the college.
With a good many of 'em, going to college seems to be just
nothing but a sort of ceremony; they go because they 're
sent, and don't learn anything more 'n they can help. That 's
what I call waste of time and money.”

“But don't you think Moses shows some taste for reading
and study?”

“Pretty well, pretty well!” said Zephaniah; “jist keep
him a little hungry; not let him get all he wants, you see,
and he 'll bite the sharper. If I want to catch cod I don't
begin with flingin' over a barrel o' bait. So with the boys,
jist bait 'em with a book here and a book there, and kind o'
let 'em feel their own way, and then, if nothin' will do but
a fellow must go to college, give in to him — that 'd be my
way.”

“And a very good one, too!” said Mr. Sewell. “I 'll see
if I can't bait my hook, so as to make Moses take after Latin
this winter. I shall have plenty of time to teach him.”

“Now, there 's Mara!” said the Captain, his face becoming
phosphorescent with a sort of mild radiance of pleasure,

as it usually was when he spoke of her; “she 's real sharp
set after books; she 's ready to fly out of her little skin at
the sight of one.”

“That child thinks too much, and feels too much, and
knows too much for her years!” said Mr. Sewell. “If she
were a boy, and you would take her away cod-fishing, as
you have Moses, the sea-winds would blow away some of
the thinking, and her little body would grow stout, and her
mind less delicate and sensitive. But she 's a woman,” he
said, with a sigh, “and they are all alike. We can't do
much for them, but let them come up as they will and make
the best of it.”