University of Virginia Library

17. CHAPTER XVII.

Moses felt elevated some inches in the world by the gift
of a new Latin grammar, which had been bought for him
in Brunswick. It was a step upward in life; no graduate
from a college ever felt more ennobled.

“Wal', now, I tell ye, Moses Pennel,” said Miss Roxy,
who, with her press-board and big flat-iron, was making her
autumn sojourn in the brown house, “I tell ye Latin a'n't
just what you think 't is, steppin' round so crank; you must
remember what the king of Israel said to Benhadad, king
of Syria.”

“I don't remember; what did he say?”

“I remember,” said the soft voice of Mara; “he said,
`Let not him that putteth on the harness boast as him that
putteth it off.'”

“Good for you, Mara,” said Miss Roxy; “if some other
folks read their Bibles as much as you do, they 'd know
more.”

Between Moses and Miss Roxy there had always been a
state of sub-acute warfare since the days of his first arrival,
she regarding him as an unhopeful interloper, and he
regarding her as a grim-visaged, interfering gnome, whom
he disliked with all the intense, unreasoning antipathy of
childhood.

“I hate that old woman,” he said to Mara, as he flung
out of the door.

“Why, Moses, what for?” said Mara, who never could
comprehend hating anybody.

“I do hate her, and Aunt Ruey, too. They are two old
scratching cats; they hate me, and I hate them; they 're
always trying to bring me down, and I won't be brought
down.”

Mara had sufficient instinctive insight into the feminine
rôle in the domestic concert not to adventure a direct argument
just now in favor of her friends, and therefore she
proposed that they should sit down together under a cedar
hard by, and look over the first lesson.

“Miss Emily invited me to go over with you,” she said,
“and I should like so much to hear you recite.”

Moses thought this very proper, as would any other male
person, young or old, who has been habitually admired by
any other female one.

He did not doubt that, as in fishing and rowing, and all
other things he had undertaken as yet, he should win himself
distinguished honors.

“See here,” he said; “Mr. Sewell told me I might go
as far as I liked, and I mean to take all the declensions to
begin with, — there 's five of 'em, and I shall learn them
for the first lesson, and then I shall take the adjectives
next, and next the verbs, and so in a fortnight get into
reading.”

Mara heaved a sort of sigh. She wished she had been
invited to share this glorious race; but she looked on admiring
when Moses read, in a loud voice, “Penna, pennæ,
pennæ, pennam,” &c.

“There now, I believe I 've got it,” he said, handing
Mara the book; and he was perfectly astonished to find
that, with the book withdrawn, he boggled, and blundered,

and stumbled ingloriously. In vain Mara softly prompted,
and looked at him with pitiful eyes as he grew red in the
face with his efforts to remember.

“Confound it all!” he said, with an angry flush, snatching
back the book; “it 's more trouble than it 's worth.”

Again he began the repetition, saying it very loud and
plain; he said it over and over till his mind wandered far
out to sea, and while his tongue repeated “penna, pennæ,”
he was counting the white sails of the fishing-smacks, and
thinking of pulling up codfish at the Banks.

“There now, Mara, try me,” he said, and handed her the
book again; “I 'm sure I must know it now.”

But, alas! with the book the sounds glided away; and
“penna” and “pennam” and “pennis” and “pennæ” were
confusedly and indiscriminately mingled.

He thought it must be Mara's fault; she did n't read
right, or she told him just as he was going to say it, or she
did n't tell him right; or was he a fool? or had he lost his
senses?

That first declension has been a valley of humiliation to
many a sturdy boy — to many a bright one, too; and often
it is, that the more full of thought and vigor the mind is, the
more difficult is it to narrow it down to the single dry issue
of learning those sounds.

Heinrich Heine said the Romans would never have found
time to conquer the world, if they had had to learn their own
language; but that, luckily for them, they were born into
the knowledge of what nouns form their accusatives in “um.”

Long before Moses had learned the first declension, Mara
knew it by heart; for her intense anxiety for him, and the
eagerness and zeal with which she listened for each termination,
fixed them in her mind. Besides, she was naturally

of a more quiet and scholar-like turn than he, — more intellectually
developed.

Moses began to think, before that memorable day was
through, that there was some sense in Aunt Roxy's quotation
of the saying of the King of Israel, and materially to
retrench his expectations as to the time it might take to
master the grammar; but still, his pride and will were both
committed, and he worked away in this new sort of labor
with energy.

It was a fine frosty, November morning, when he rowed
Mara across the bay in a little boat to recite his first lesson
to Mr. Sewell.

Miss Emily had provided a plate of seed-cake, otherwise
called cookies, for the children, as was a kindly custom of
old times, when the little people were expected.

Miss Emily had a dim idea that she was to do something
for Mara in her own department, while Moses was reciting
his lesson; and therefore producing a large sampler, displaying
every form and variety of marking-stitch, she began
questioning the little girl, in a low tone, as to her proficiency
in that useful accomplishment.

Presently, however, she discovered that the child was
restless and uneasy, and that she answered without knowing
what she was saying. The fact was that she was listening,
with her whole soul in her eyes, and feeling through all her
nerves, every word Moses was saying. She knew all the
critical places, where he was likely to go wrong; and when
at last, in one place, he gave the wrong termination, she involuntarily
called out the right one, starting up and turning
towards them. In a moment she blushed deeply, seeing
Mr. Sewell and Miss Emily both looking at her with surprise.

“Come here, pussy,” said Mr. Sewell, stretching out his
hand to her. “Can you say this?”

“I believe I could, sir.”

“Well, try it.”

She went through without missing a word. Mr. Sewell
then, for curiosity, heard her repeat all the other forms of
the lesson. She had them perfectly.

“Very well, my little girl,” he said, “have you been
studying, too?”

“I heard Moses say them so often,” said Mara, in an
apologetic manner, “I could n't help learning them.”

“Would you like to recite with Moses every day?”

“Oh, yes, sir, so much.”

“Well, you shall. It is better for him to have company.”

Mara's face brightened, and Miss Emily looked with a
puzzled air at her brother.

“So,” she said, when the children had gone home, “I
thought you wanted me to take Mara under my care. I
was going to begin and teach her some marking stitches,
and you put her up to studying Latin. I don't understand
you.”

“Well, Emily, the fact is, the child has a natural turn for
study, that no child of her age ought to have; and I have
done just as people always will with such children; there 's
no sense in it, but I wanted to do it. You can teach her
marking and embroidery all the same; it would break her
little heart, now, if I were to turn her back.”

“I do not see of what use Latin can be to a woman.”

“Of what use is embroidery?”

“Why, that is an accomplishment.”

“Ah, indeed!” said Mr. Sewell, contemplating the weeping
willow and tombstone trophy with a singular expression,

which it was lucky for Miss Emily's peace she did not
understand. The fact was, that Mr. Sewell had, at one
period of his life, had an opportunity of studying and observing
minutely some really fine works of art, and the
remembrance of them sometimes rose up to his mind, in the
presence of the chefs-d'œuvre on which his sister rested with
so much complacency. It was a part of his quiet interior
store of amusement to look at these bits of Byzantine embroidery
round the room, which affected him always with a
subtle sense of drollery.

“You see, brother,” said Miss Emily, “it is far better
for women to be accomplished than learned.”

“You are quite right in the main,” said Mr. Sewell,
“only you must let me have my own way just for once.
One can't be consistent always.”

So another Latin grammar was brought, and Moses began
to feel a secret respect for his little companion, that he had
never done before, when he saw how easily she walked
through the labyrinths which at first so confused him.

Before this, the comparison had been wholly in points
where superiority arose from physical daring and vigor;
now he became aware of the existence of another kind of
strength with which he had not measured himself. Mara's
opinion in their mutual studies began to assume a value in
his eyes that her opinions on other subjects had never done,
and she saw and felt, with a secret gratification, that she was
becoming more to him through their mutual pursuit. To
say the truth, it required this fellowship to inspire Moses
with the patience and perseverance necessary for this species
of acquisition. His active, daring temperament little inclined
him to patient, quiet study. For anything that could be
done by two hands, he was always ready; but to hold hands

still and work silently in the inner forces, was to him a
species of undertaking that seemed against his very nature;
but then he would do it — he would not disgrace himself
before Mr. Sewell, and let a girl younger than himself
outdo him.

But the thing, after all, that absorbed more of Moses'
thoughts than all his lessons was the building and rigging of
a small schooner, at which he worked assiduously in all his
leisure moments. He had dozens of blocks of wood, into
which he had cut anchor moulds; and the melting of lead,
the running and shaping of anchors, the whittling of masts
and spars took up many an hour. Mara entered into all
these things readily, and was too happy to make herself
useful in hemming the sails.

When the schooner was finished, they built some ways
down by the sea, and invited Sally Kittridge over to see
it launched.

“There!” he said, when the little thing skimmed down
prosperously into the sea and floated gayly on the waters —
“when I 'm a man, I 'll have a big ship; I 'll build her, and
launch her, and command her, all myself; and I 'll give you
and Sally both a passage in it, and we 'll go off to the East
Indies — we 'll sail round the world!”

None of the three doubted the feasibility of this scheme;
the little vessel they had just launched seemed the visible
prophecy of such a future; and how pleasant it would be to
sail off, with the world all before them, and winds ready to
blow them to any port they might wish!

The three children arranged some bread and cheese and
doughnuts on a rock on the shore, to represent the collation
that was usually spread in those parts at a ship launch,
and felt quite like grown people — acting life beforehand

in that sort of shadowy pantomime which so delights little
people.

Happy, happy days — when ships can be made with a
jack-knife and anchors run in pine blocks, and three children
together can launch a schooner, and the voyage of the
world can all be made in one sunny Saturday afternoon!

“Mother says you are going to college,” said Sally to
Moses.

“Not I, indeed,” said Moses; “as soon as I get old
enough, I 'm going up to Umbagog among the lumberers,
and I 'm going to cut real, splendid timber for my ship, and
I 'm going to get it on the stocks, and have it built to suit
myself.”

“What will you call her?” said Sally.

“I have n't thought of that,” said Moses.

“Call her the Ariel,” said Mara.

“What! after the spirit you were telling us about?” said
Sally.

“Ariel is a pretty name,” said Moses. “But what is that
about a spirit?”

“Why,” said Sally, “Mara read us a story about a ship
that was wrecked, and a spirit called Ariel, that sang a song
about the drowned mariners.”

Mara gave a shy, apprehensive glance at Moses, to see if
this allusion called up any painful recollections.

No; instead of this, he was following the motions of his
little schooner on the waters with the briskest and most unconcerned
air in the world.

“Why did n't you ever show me that story, Mara?” said
Moses.

Mara colored and hesitated; the real reason she dared
not say.

“Why, she read it to father and me down by the cove,”
said Sally, “the afternoon that you came home from the
Banks; I remember how we saw you coming in; don't you,
Mara?”

“What have you done with it?” said Moses.

“I 've got it at home,” said Mara, in a faint voice; “I 'll
show it to you, if you want to see it; there are such beautiful
things in it.”

That evening, as Moses sat busy, making some alterations
in his darling schooner, Mara produced her treasure, and
read and explained to him the story. He listened with
interest, though without any of the extreme feeling which
Mara had thought possible, and even interrupted her once in
the middle of the celebrated —

by asking her to hold up the mast a minute, while he drove
in a peg to make it rake a little more. He was, evidently,
thinking of no drowned father, and dreaming of no possible
sea-caves, but acutely busy in fashioning a present reality;
and yet he liked to hear Mara read, and, when she had done,
told her that he thought it was a pretty, — quite a pretty
story, with such a total absence of recognition that the story
had any affinities with his own history, that Mara was quite
astonished.

She lay and thought about him hours, that night, after she
had gone to bed; and he lay and thought about a new way
of disposing a pulley for raising a sail, which he determined
to try the effect of early in the morning.

What was the absolute truth in regard to the boy? Had
he forgotten the scenes of his early life, the strange catastrophe
that cast him into his present circumstances? To
this we answer that all the efforts of Nature, during the

early years of a healthy childhood, are bent on effacing and
obliterating painful impressions, wiping out from each day
the sorrows of the last, as the daily tide effaces the furrows
on the sea-shore.

The child that broods, day after day, over some fixed idea,
is so far forth not a healthy one. It is Nature's way to
make first a healthy animal, and then develop in it gradually
higher faculties. We have seen our two children unequally
matched hitherto, because unequally developed.

There will come a time, by and by in the history of the
boy, when the haze of dreamy curiosity will steam up likewise
from his mind, and vague yearnings, and questionings,
and longings possess and trouble him, but it must be some
years hence.

Here for a season we leave both our child friends, and
when ten years have passed over their heads, — when Moses
shall be twenty, and Mara seventeen, — we will return again
to tell their story, for then there will be one to tell. Let us
suppose in the interval, how Moses and Mara read Virgil
with the minister, and how Mara works a shepherdess with
Miss Emily, which astonishes the neighborhood, — but how
by herself she learns, after divers trials, to paint partridge,
and checkerberry, and trailing arbutus, — how Moses makes
better and better ships, and Sally grows up a handsome girl,
and goes up to Brunswick to the high school, — how Captain
Kittridge tells stories, and Miss Roxy and Miss Ruey
nurse and cut and make and mend, for the still rising generation,
— how there are quiltings and tea-drinkings and
prayer-meetings and Sunday sermons, — how Zephaniah
and Mary Pennel grow old gradually and graciously, as the
sun rises and sets, and the eternal silver tide rises and falls
around our little gem, Orr's Island.