A Little Country Girl Part 4

"I am going out to do some errands," said Mrs. Gray; "will you come along, Cannie, and have a little drive?"

Mrs. Gray's errands seemed to be princ.i.p.ally on behalf of her young companion. First they stopped at Seabury's, and after Mrs. Gray had selected a pair of "Newport ties" for herself, she ordered a similar pair for Candace. Then she said that while Cannie's shoe was off she might as well try on some boots, and Cannie found herself being fitted with a slender, shapely pair of black kid, which were not only prettier but more comfortable than the country-made ones which had made her foot look so clumsy. After that they stopped at a carpet and curtain place, where Cannie was much diverted at hearing the proprietor recommend ta.s.sels instead of plated rings on certain Holland shades, for the reason that "a tossel had more poetry about it somehow." Then, after a brief pause to order strawberries and fresh lettuce, the carriage was ordered to a milliner's.

"I want to get you a little hat of some sort," said Cousin Kate. "The one you wore yesterday is rather old for a girl of your age. I will retrim it some day, and it will do for picnics and sails, but you need more hats than one in this climate, which is fatal to ribbons and feathers, and takes the stiffness out of everything."

So a big, shady hat of dark red straw, with just a scarf of the same color twisted round the crown and a knowing little wing in front, was chosen; and then Mrs. Gray spied a smaller one of fine yellowish straw with a wreath of brown-centred daisies, and having popped it on Cannie's head for one moment, liked the effect, and ordered that too. Two new hats! It seemed to Cannie's modest ideas like the wildest extravagance; and after they returned to the coupe she found courage to say,--

"Cousin Kate, please, you mustn't buy me too many things."

"No, dear, I won't. I'll be careful," replied Mrs. Gray, smiling. Then, seeing that Cannie was in earnest, she added, more seriously: "My child, I've no wish to make you fine. I don't like finery for young girls; but one needs a good many things in a place like this, and I want to have you properly dressed in a simple way. It was agreed upon between Aunt Myra and myself that I should see to your summer wardrobe after you got here, because Newport is a better shopping-place than North Tolland; and while we are about it, we may as well get pretty things as ugly ones. It doesn't cost any more and is no more trouble, and I am sure you like them better, don't you?"

"Oh, yes, indeed," replied Cannie, quite relieved by this explanation.

"I like pretty things ever so much--only--I thought--I was afraid--" She did not know how to finish her sentence.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE OLD STONE MILL.

It was a roofless circular tower, supported on round arches.--PAGE 73.]

"You were afraid I was ruining myself," asked her cousin, looking amused. "No, Cannie, I won't do that, I promise you; and in return, you will please let me just settle about a few little necessary things for you, just as I should for Georgie and Gertrude, and say no more about it. Ah! there is the old Mill; you will like to see that. Stop a moment, John."

The coupe stopped accordingly by a small open square, planted with gra.s.s and a few trees, and intersected with paths. There was a music-stand in the centre, a statue on a pedestal; and close by them, rising from the greensward, appeared a small, curious structure of stone. It was a roofless circular tower, supported on round arches, which made a series of openings about its base. Cannie had never heard of the Stone Mill before, and she listened eagerly while Mrs. Gray explained that it had stood there since the earliest days of the Colony; that no one knew exactly how old it was, who built it, or for what purpose it was built; and that antiquarians were at variance upon these points, and had made all sorts of guesses about its origin. Some insisted that it was erected by the Nors.e.m.e.n, who were the first to discover the New England sh.o.r.es, long before the days of Columbus; others supposed it to be a fragment of an ancient church. Others again--and Mrs. Gray supposed that these last were probably nearest the truth--insisted that it was just what it seemed to be, a mill for grinding corn; and pointed out the fact that mills of very much the same shape still exist in old country neighborhoods in England. She also told Cannie that the mill used to be thickly overhung with ivies and Virginia creepers, and that it had never been so pretty and picturesque since the town authorities, under a mistaken apprehension that the roots of the vines were injuring the masonry, had torn them all away and left the ruin bare and unornamented, as she now saw it.

"Did you never read Longfellow's 'Skeleton in Armor'?" she asked; and when Cannie said no, she repeated part of the poem, and promised to find the rest for Cannie to read when they got home. Then they drove on; and Cannie's head was so full of "Lief the son of Arnulf," the "fearful guest," and the maiden whose heart under her loosened vest fluttered like doves "in their nest frighted," that she could hardly bring herself back to real life, even when Cousin Kate stopped at a famous dress-furnisher's in the Casino Block, and caused her to be measured for two dresses. One was of white woollen stuff, like those which Georgie and Gertrude had worn the night before; the other, a darker one, of cream-and-brown foulard, which Mrs. Gray explained would be nice for church and for driving and for cool days, of which there were always plenty in the Newport summer. She also bought a little brown parasol for Cannie, and a tightly fitting brown jacket to match the foulard; and altogether it was a most exciting and adventurous morning. Cannie, as she took off her hat at home and fluffed the newly constructed "bang"

into shape with gentle finger-touches, asked herself if it could be really only a day and a half since she said good-by to Aunt Myra in North Tolland; and if in fact it were really herself, little Candace Arden, to whom these wonderful things belonged, or was it some one else?

Perhaps it was all a dream, and she should presently wake up. "If it be I, as I believe it be," was the tenor of her thought, as of the old woman in the nursery rhyme; only Cannie had no little dog at hand to help her to a realization of her own ident.i.ty.

Into Candace's bare little cradle in the hill country had been dropped one precious endowment. From both her father and her mother she inherited the love of reading. If old tales were true, and the gift-conferring fairies really came to stand round a baby's bed, each with a present in her hand, I think out of all that they could bestow I should choose for any child in whom I was interested, these two things,--a quick sense of humor and a love for books. There is nothing so lasting or so satisfying. Riches may take wing, beauty fade, grace vanish into fat, a sweet voice become harsh, rheumatism may cripple the fingers which played or painted so deftly,--with each and all of these delightful things time may play sad tricks; but to life's end the power to see the droll side of events is an unfailing cheer, and so long as eyes and ears last, books furnish a world of interest and escape whose doors stand always open. Winds may blow and skies may rain, fortune may prove unkind, days may be lonely and evenings dull; but for the true lover of reading there is always at hand this great company of companions and friends,--the wisest, the gentlest, the best,--never too tired or too busy to talk with him, ready at all moments to give their thought, their teaching, to help, instruct, and entertain. They never disappoint, they have no moods or tempers, they are always at home,--in all of which respects they differ from the rest of our acquaintance. If the man who invented sleep is to be blessed, thrice blessed be the man who invented printing!

There were not many books in the old yellow farm-house at North Tolland; but all that there were Cannie had read over and over again. Shakspeare she knew by heart, and "Paradise Lost," and Young's "Night Thoughts,"

and Pollock's "Course of Time." She had dipped into her dead father's theological library, and managed to extract some food for her imagination, even from such dry bones as "Paley's Evidences" and "Edwards on the Will and the Affections." Any book was better than no book to her. Aunt Myra, who discouraged the practice of reading for girls as unfitting them for any sort of useful work, used to declare that the very sight of a book made Cannie deaf and blind and dumb.

"You might as well be Laura what's-her-name and have done with it," she would tell her; "only I don't know where to look for a Dr. Howe or a Dr.

anybody, who will come along and teach you to develop your faculties. I declare, I believe you'd rather read a dictionary any day than not read at all."

"I don't know but I would," said Cannie; but she said it to herself. She was rather afraid of Aunt Myra.

With this strong love of reading, the girl's delight may be imagined when Mrs. Gray, true to her promise, put into her hands a great ill.u.s.trated volume of Longfellow, and left her free to dip and select and read as long as she chose. She curled herself up on the staircase bench, and was soon so deep in "The Skeleton in Armor" as to be quite oblivious to all that went on below. She did not hear the bell ring, she did not see various ladies shown into the drawing-room, or notice the hum of conversation that followed. She never lifted her eyes when Georgie Gray and a friend, who was no other than the identical Miss Joy of the "Eolus," stood at the staircase foot for some moments and held a whispered conversation; nor was she conscious of the side glances which the visitor now and then cast up toward the brown gingham skirt visible above. It was not till

"_Skoal!_ to the Northland! _skoal!_"

ended the poem, that her dream ended, and she roused herself to find the callers gone and luncheon on the table.

Mrs. Gray was wont to say that they always had a meal at noon and a meal at night; and when her husband was at home, the first was called lunch and the second dinner, and when he was away the first was called dinner and the second supper; and that the princ.i.p.al difference between them was that at one there was soup and at the other there was not. Candace did not particularly care what the meal was called. Under any name she was glad of it, for sea-air and a morning drive had made her very hungry; and this time she was on her guard, watched carefully what others did, and made no serious blunders.

"What are you girls going to do this afternoon?" asked Mrs. Gray.

"Berry Joy has asked me to drive with her," replied Georgie; "she wants to take her friend over to the Fort to hear the band play. You have no objection, have you, mamma?"

"No; none at all. And you, Gertrude?"

"I haven't made any particular plan."

"Then suppose you and Candace take a walk on the Cliffs. I have to take Marian to the dentist; but Cannie has not seen the sea yet, except at a distance, and you both ought to have a good exercise in the fresh air, for I am almost sure it will rain by to-morrow. You might take her to the beach, Gertrude, and come home by Marine Avenue."

"Very well, mamma; I will, certainly," said Gertrude. But there was a lack of heartiness in her tone. Like most very young girls she had a strong sense of the observant eyes of Mrs. Grundy, and she did not at all approve of the brown gingham. "I wonder why mamma can't wait till she has made Cannie look like other people," she was saying to herself.

There was no help for it, however. None of Mrs. Gray's children ever thought of disputing her arrangements for a moment; so the two girls set forth, Cannie in the despised gingham, and Gertrude in a closely fitting suit of blue serge, with a large hat of the same blue, which stood out like a frame round the delicate oval of her face, and set off the feathery light hair to perfection.

Their way for a little distance was down a sort of country lane, which was the short cut to the Cliffs. It ended in a smooth greensward at the top of a wall of broken rocks; and, standing on the edge, Cannie called out, "Oh!" with a sense of sudden surprise and freedom.

Before her was a bay of the softest blue, with here and there a line of white surf, where long rollers were sweeping in toward the distant beach. Opposite, stretched a point of land rising into a low hill, which shone in the yellow afternoon sun; and from its end the unbroken sea stretched away into a lovely distance, whose color was like that of an opal, and which had no boundary but a mysterious dim line of faintly tinted sky. Sails shone against the moving water; gulls were dipping and diving; a flock of wild-ducks with glossy black heads swam a little away out from the sh.o.r.e. Beyond the point which made the other arm of the little bay rose an island, ramparted by rocks, over which the surf could be seen to break with an occasional toss of spray. There was a delicious smell of soft salty freshness, and something besides,--a kind of perfume which Candace could not understand or name.

"Oh, what is it; what can it be?" she said.

"What?"

"The smell. It is like flowers. Oh, there it is again!"

"Mamma makes believe that it is the Spice Islands," answered Gertrude, indifferently, "or else Madeira. You know there is nothing between us and the coast of Africa except islands."

"Really and truly? How wonderful!"

"Well, I don't see how it is so very wonderful. It just happens so. I suppose there are plenty of sea-side places where they can say the same thing."

"Perhaps,--but I never saw any sea-coast but this. It is all new to me."

"I suppose so," responded Gertrude, with a little yawn. She looked to right and to left, fearing that some acquaintance might be coming to see her in company with this rather shabby little companion. "Would you like to walk up the Cliffs a little way, or shall we go down to the beach?" she asked.

"Oh, let us just go as far as that point," said Candace, indicating where, to the right, past a turnstile, a smooth gravel path wound its way between the beautifully kept borders of gra.s.s. The path ran on the very edge of the Cliff, and the outer turf dipped at a steep incline to where the sharp rock ran down perpendicularly, but to the very verge it was as fine and as perfectly cut as anywhere else. Candace wondered who held the gardeners and kept them safe while they shaved the gra.s.s so smoothly in this dangerous spot, but she did not like to ask. Gertrude's indifferent manner drove her in upon herself and made her shy.

A hundred feet and more below them the sea was washing into innumerable rocky fissures with a hollow booming sound. The cliff-line was broken into all sorts of bold forms,--b.u.t.tresses and parapets and sharp inclines, with here and there a shallow cave or a bit of shingly beach.

Every moment the color of the water seemed to change, and the soft duns and purples of the horizon line to grow more intense. Candace had no eyes but for the sea. She scarcely noticed the handsome houses on her right hand, each standing in its wide lawn, with shrubberies and beds of dazzling flowers. Gertrude, on the contrary, scarcely looked at the sea.

It was an old story to her; and she was much more interested in trying to make out people she knew at the windows of the houses they pa.s.sed, or on their piazzas, and in speculating about the carriages which could be seen moving on the distant road.

"How good it is of the people who own the places to let everybody go through them!" exclaimed Candace, when it was explained to her that the Cliff walk was a public one.

"Oh, they can't help themselves. There is a right of way all round the Island, and n.o.body would be allowed to close it. Some owners grumble and don't like it a bit; but mamma says it is one of the best things in Newport, and that it would be a great injury to the place to have it taken away. The Cliff walk is very celebrated, you know. Lots of people have written things about it."

"Oh, I should think they would. It is the most beautiful place I ever saw."

"You haven't seen many places, have you?" observed Gertrude, rather impolitely.

"Oh no, I never saw anything but North Tolland till I came to Newport."

"Then you can't judge."

They had now turned, and were walking eastward toward the beach. Its line of breaking surf could be distinctly seen now. Carriages and people on horseback were driving or riding along the sands, and groups of black dots were discernible, which were other people on foot.