Betty Leicester Part 14

DOWN THE RIVER.

THERE was a great stirring about and opening and shutting of kitchen doors early the next morning but one. Betty had been anxious the day before to set forth on what she was pleased to call a long cruise in the Starlight, but Mr. Leicester said that he must give up the morning to his letters, and after that came a long business talk with Aunt Barbara in the library, where she sat before her capacious secretary and produced some neat packages of papers from a little red morocco trunk which Betty had never seen before. To say truth, Aunt Barbara was a famous business woman and quite the superior of her nephew in financial matters, but she deferred to him meekly, and in fact gained some long-desired information about a northwestern city in which Mr.

Leicester had lately been obliged to linger for two or three days.

It was a day of clear hot sunshine and light breeze, not in the least a good day for sailing; but Betty was just as much disappointed to be kept at home as if it had been, and after breakfast she loitered about in idleness, with a look of dark disapproval, until papa suddenly faced about and held her before him by her two shoulders, looking gravely into her eyes, which fell at once.

"Don't be cross, Betty," he said quietly; "we shall play all the better if we don't forget our work. What is there to do first? Where's 'Things to be Done'?"

Betty dipped into her pocket and pulled out a bit of paper with the above heading, and held it up to him. Papa's eyes began to twinkle and she felt her cheeks grow red, but good humor was restored. "1. Ask Seth to sharpen my knife. 2. Find Aunt Mary's old 'Evenings at Home' and read her the Transmigrations of Indur. 3. Find out what 'hedonism' means in the dictionary. 4. Sew on papa's b.u.t.tons."

"Those were all the things I could think of last night," explained Betty apologetically. "I was so sleepy."

"It strikes me that the most important duty happened to be set down last," said Mr. Leicester, beginning to laugh. "If you will look after the b.u.t.tons, I will tell you the meaning of 'hedonism' and sharpen the jack-knife, and I am not sure that I won't read the Transmigrations to Aunt Mary beside, for the sake of old times. I know where those little old brown books are, too, unless they have been moved from their old places. I am willing to make a good offer, for I have hardly a b.u.t.ton to my back, you know. And this evening we will have a row, if not a sail.

The sky looks as if the wind were rising, and you can ask Mary Beck to go with us to-morrow down the river, if you like. I am going to see young Foster the first time I go down the street. Now good-by until dinner-time, dear child."

"Good-by, dear papa!" and Betty ran up-stairs two steps at a time. She had already looked to see if there were plenty of ink in his ink-bottle, and some water in a tiny vase on his writing-table for the quill pens.

It was almost the only thing she had done that morning, but it was one of her special cares when they were together. She gathered an armful of his clothes, and finding that Aunt Mary was in a hospitable frame went into her room for advice and society, and sat busily sewing by the favorite cool western window nearly all the morning.

In the evening, when the tide was high, Betty and Mr. Leicester went out for a little row by themselves, floating under some overhanging oak-boughs and talking about things that had happened when they were apart.

Now we come back to where we began this chapter,--the early morning of the next day, and Serena's and Letty's bustling in the pantry to have a basket of luncheon ready, so that the boating party need not lose the tide; the boating party itself at breakfast in the dining-room; Mary Beck in a transport of delight sitting by her window at the other side of the street, all ready to rush out the minute she saw Betty appear. As for Harry Foster and Seth, they had already gone down to the sh.o.r.e.

On the wide sofa in the hall was a funny old-fashioned leather satchel with a strong strap-handle. It seemed full to overflowing, and beside it lay a warm shawl neatly folded, and, not to make too long a story, Aunt Barbara's third-best bonnet was close at hand, and these were her provisions for spending the day on the river. Mr. Leicester had insisted that she should go with them, and that if she found it tiresome there was nothing to prevent her coming back by train from Riverport in the afternoon. Aunt Barbara felt as if she were being a little adventurous, and packed her small portmanteau with a secret foreboding that she might be kept out over night; still she had always been very fond of boating, and had seen almost none of it for many years, in fact since Betty's father had been at home sometimes, in his college vacations. There was a fine breeze blowing already in the elms and making the tall hollyhocks bow in the garden, and when they reached the wharf and put down the creaking wicker basket on the very edge the tide was still high, and Harry Foster had already hoisted the Starlight's sail with one careful reef in it, and was waiting to row them out two at a time in the tag-boat. Nelly Foster could not go, as she and her mother were very busy that day, but Harry's face looked brighter than Betty had ever seen it, and she was sure that papa must have been very good, and, to use a favorite phrase of his, opened a new gate for him. Mary Beck was strangely full of fears, considering that she was the granddaughter of a brave old sailor; but after she was out of the unsteady smaller boat, and had been decoyed by Betty to the bows of the Starlight, and shown how to stow herself away so that she hindered neither jib nor boom, she began to enjoy herself highly. Aunt Barbara sat under her every-day parasol, looking quite elegant and unseaworthy, but very happy. Harry Foster was steering just beside her, and Mr. Leicester, with Seth's a.s.sistance, was shaking out the reef; for the wind was quieter just now, and they wished to get farther down river as soon as possible, since here, where the banks were often high and wooded and the stream narrow, it was gusty and uncertain sailing for so large a boat. They slipped down fast with the wind and tide, and pa.s.sed the packet, which had started out ahead of them. She carried an unusual number of pa.s.sengers, and was loaded deep with early potatoes. The girls waved their handkerchiefs and the men on board the packet gave a cheer, while Mr.

Leicester saluted with the Starlight's flag, and it was altogether a ceremonious occasion. Seth said that he "guessed folks would think old Tideshead was waking up." Of all the pleasure-boat's company Seth was perhaps the best satisfied. He had been in a state of torture lest he might not be asked to make one of the crew, and it being divulged that although of up-country origin he had once gone to the Georges Banks fishing with a seafaring uncle, Mr. Leicester considerately asked for his services. Seth had put on the great rubber-boots and a heavy red woolen shirt that he wore on shipboard in March weather. He was already obliged to fan himself incessantly with his straw hat, as they were running before the wind, and presently, after much suffering, made an excuse to go into the little cabin, whence he reappeared, much abashed, in his stocking feet and a faded calico shirt, which had been luckily put on under the red one. Aunt Barbara held her parasol so that it covered her face for a few minutes, and there was a considerate silence, until Seth mentioned that he "had thought he knew before what it was to be het up, but you never knew what kind of weather 't was to be on the water."

At the next bend of the river the wind made them much cooler, while the boat sailed even better than before. There had been plenty of rain, so that the sh.o.r.e was as green as in June and the old farm-houses looked very pleasant. Betty had not been so far down as this since the day she came to Tideshead, and was looking eagerly for certain places that she remembered. Aunt Barbara and papa were talking about John Paul Jones and his famous river crew, some of whom Aunt Barbara had known in their old age, while she was a girl. Harry Foster was listening with great interest. Betty and even Becky felt proud of Harry as he steered, looking along the river with quick, sure eyes. They did not feel so familiar with him as usual; somehow, he looked a good deal older since the trouble about his father, and there was a new manliness and dignity about him, as if he knew that his mother and Nelly had no one but himself to depend upon. It was plain to see that his early burden of shame and sorrow had developed a strong character in the lad. There was none of the listlessness and awkward incapacity and self-admiration that made some of the other Tideshead boys so unattractive, but Harry Foster had a simple way of speaking and of doing whatever had to be done.

There was a group of wooden pails on the boat, and a queer apparatus for dredging which Mr. Leicester had made the afternoon before with Seth's and Jonathan's help. They had implored a flat-iron from Serena for one of the weights, and she had also contributed a tin pail, which was curiously weighted also with small pieces of iron, so that it would sink in a particular way. It was believed that a certain uncommon little creature would be found in the flats farther down the river, and Mr.

Leicester told the ship's company certain interesting facts about its life and behavior which made everybody eager to join the search. "I have been meaning to hunt for it for years," he said. "Professor Aga.s.siz told me about it when I was in college; but then he always roused one's enthusiasm as no one else could, and made whatever he was interested in seem the one thing in the world that was of very first importance."

Betty's heart glowed as she listened; she thought the same thing of papa. "He was such an inspirer of others to do good work," said Mr.

Leicester, still thinking lovingly of his great teacher.

Sometimes the river was narrow and deep and the Starlight's course lay near the sh.o.r.e, so that the children came running down to the water's edge to see the pretty boat go by, and envy Betty and Mary Beck in the shadow of her great white sail. Some of them shouted Hollo! and the two girls answered again and again, until the little voices sounded small and piping and were lost in the distance. Halfway to Riverport, where the houses were a good way from any village, it seemed as if these old homes had remained the same for many years; none of them had bay-windows, and the paint was worn away by wind and weather. It was like stepping back twenty or thirty years in the rural history. Aunt Barbara said that everything looked almost exactly the same along one reach of the river as it did when she could first remember it. The sh.o.r.es were green with pines and ferns and gray with ledges. It was salt water here, so that they could smell the seaweed and the woods, and could hear the song-sparrows and the children's voices as they pa.s.sed the lonely farm-houses standing high and fog-free above the water. From one of these they heard the sound of women's voices singing.

"They're havin' a meetin' in there, I expect," explained Seth. "Yes, I hear 'Liza Loomis's voice too. You know, Miss Leicester, she used to live up to Tideshead and sing in the Methodist choir. She's got a lovely voice to sing. She's married down this way. They like to git together in these scattered places, but 't is more customary up where I come from to have them neighborhood meetin's of an afternoon." Betty watched the small gray house with deep interest, and thought she should like to go in. There were little children playing about the door, as if they had been brought and left outside to amuse themselves. It was very touching to hear the old hymn as they sailed by, and Aunt Barbara and Betty's father looked at each other significantly as they listened. "Becky, you ought to be there to help sing," Betty whispered, as they sat side by side, but Becky thought it was very stupid to be having a prayer-meeting that lovely morning.

Seth Pond had celebrated the Fourth of July by going down to Riverport on the packet, and he had gathered much information about the river which he was glad to give now for everybody's pleasure and enlightenment.

"There's a bo't layin' up in that cove that's drowned two men," he said solemnly. "There was a lady with 'em, but she was saved. I understand they'd been drinking heavy."

Betty looked at the boat with awe where it lay with the stern under water and the bows ash.o.r.e and all warped apart. "Isn't she good for anything?" she asked.

"n.o.body'll ever touch _her_," said Seth contemptuously,--"she's drowned two men."

But Miss Leicester smiled, and said that it appeared to have been their own fault.

They could see into the low ruined cabin from the deck of the Starlight, and, after they pa.s.sed, the cabin port-hole seemed to watch them like an eye until it was far astern.

"I suppose she will lie there until she breaks up in a high tide, and then the women will gather her wreck wood to burn," said Mr. Leicester, watching the warped mast, and Harry Foster said that no fishermen on the river would ever touch a boat that they believed to be unlucky.

Just then they came round a point and pa.s.sed a little house close by the water, where there were flakes for drying fish and a collection of little weather-beaten boxes shaped like roofs which were used to cover the fish in wet weather. Betty thought they looked like a village of baby-houses. At this moment a woman darted out of the house door, screaming to some one inside, "I've lost Georgie and Idy both!" and off the anxious mother hurried along the steep path to the fish flakes, as if that were where she usually found the runaways. Presently they heard a child's shrill voice, and a pink pinafore emerged from among the little roofs. Ida was deposited angrily in the lane, while the mother went back to hunt for the other one. It was very droll to see and hear it all from the river, but it was some minutes before loud shrieks announced the adventurous Georgie's capture.

"Georgie must ha' been hull down on the horizon," remarked Seth blandly, trying to be very nautical, and everybody laughed; but Betty and Mary thought the woman very cross, when it was such a pretty place to play out there among the bayberry, and perhaps there were ripe blackberries.

Harry Foster said that children did mischief in pulling off bits of the dry fish and spoiling them for market; but there was no end of fish, and everybody felt a sympathy for "Idy and Georgie both" in their sad captivity.

Before long the houses were nearer together, and even cl.u.s.tered in little groups close by the river, and sometimes the Starlight pa.s.sed some schooners going up or down, or being laden with bricks or hay or firewood at small wharves. Then they came in sight of the Riverport steeples, only a few miles below. The wind was not so gusty now and blew steadily, but it was very light, and the Starlight moved slowly. Harry and Seth had already hoisted a topsail, and while Mr. Leicester steered Harry came and stood by the masts, looking out ahead and talking with the two girls. But Harry felt responsible for the boat, and could not give himself up to pleasuring until, as he said, he understood the tricks and manners of the Starlight a little better. It was toward noon, now, for they had come slowly the last third of the way; and Mr.

Leicester, after a word with Aunt Barbara, proposed that they should go ash.o.r.e for a while, for there was a beautiful piece of pine woods close at hand, and the flats which he was going to investigate were also within rowing distance. So down came the sails and alongside came the tag-boat; and Aunt Barbara was landed first, parasol and all, and the others followed her. The tide was running out fast, and it was not easy to find a landing-place along the muddy sh.o.r.es. Betty thought the Starlight looked much smaller from the sh.o.r.e than she seemed when they were on board. Harry and Seth made everything trig and came in last, leaving the cat-boat at anchor far out.

Even after the joy of sailing it was very pleasant ash.o.r.e under the shady pines, and Mr. Leicester found a delightfully comfortable place for Aunt Barbara to sit in, while the girls were near by. "What an interesting morning we have had!" Betty heard Aunt Barbara say. "Sailing down the river brings to mind so many things in the past. The beginnings of history in this part of the country always have to do with the river.

I wish that I could remember all the stories of the early settlements that I used to hear old people tell in my childhood."

"See that little green farm in the middle of the sunburnt pastures across the river," said Mr. Leicester, who had been looking that way intently. "Look, Betty! what a small green spot it makes with its orchard and fields among the woods and brown pastures, and yet what toil has been spent there year after year!"

Betty looked with great interest. She had seen the green farm, but she had not thought about it, and neither had Mary Beck, who could not tell why she kept looking that way again and again, and somehow could not help thinking how good it would be to make a green place like that by one's own life among dull and difficult surroundings. Betty was her green place; by and by she could do the same thing for somebody else, perhaps.

"What a lovely place this is!" said Aunt Barbara, still enthusiastic.

"There is such sweet air here among the pines, and I delight in the wide outlook over the river. I begin to feel as young as ever. I thought that I was almost too old to enjoy myself any more, last winter. It is such a mistake to let one's self make great things out of little ones, as I did, and carry life too heavily," she added.

"You must feel ever so much older inside than you look outside," said Betty, who was in famous spirits.

Mr. Leicester laughed with the rest, and then looked over his shoulder with a droll expression, as if something was causing him great apprehension. "Aunt Barbara!" he began, and then hid his face with his arm, as if he were about to be well whipped.

"What mischief now?" said she.

"I have played you a trick: you are not leaving your home and friends for one day, but for two."

Miss Leicester looked puzzled.

"You were very good not to say that I was foolish to carry two extra sails."

"I did think it was nonsense, Tom," he was promptly a.s.sured, "but then I remembered that you had only hired the boat, and thought perhaps the sails went with it. Of course they take up too much room in the cabin.

You can't mean that you are going on a longer voyage?"

"_Tents!_" shouted Betty, jumping up and dancing about in great excitement. "_Tents!_ don't you see, Aunt Barbara? and we're going to camp out." It was a very anxious moment, for if Aunt Barbara said, "We must go home to-night," there would be nothing to do but obey.

"But your Aunt Mary will be worried, won't she?" asked Miss Leicester, whose quick wit suspected a deep-laid plot. She was already filled with a spirit of adventure; she really looked pleased, but was not without a sense of responsibility.

"I thought you would like it," explained Mr. Leicester, in a matter-of-fact way; "and there was no need of telling you beforehand, so that you would make your will and pay your taxes and get in all the winter supplies and have the minister to tea before you started. Aunt Mary knows, and so does Serena; you will see that Serena contemplated the situation by the way she filled these big baskets."

"I saw that they were amused with something that I didn't quite understand. And Mary Beck's mother will not feel anxious?" she asked, for a final a.s.surance. "I never expected to turn myself into a wild Indian at my age, even to please foolish children like you and Betty, but I have always wished that I could sleep one night under the pine woods."

"You said so when we were reading Mr. Stevenson's 'Travels with a Donkey' aloud to Aunt Mary," Betty stated eagerly, as if the others would find it hard to believe her grandaunt. Somehow, a stranger would have found it difficult to believe that Miss Leicester had unsatisfied desires about gypsying.

Mary Beck was deeply astonished; she had a huge admiration for her dignified neighbor across the way, and yet it was always a little perilous to her ease of mind and self-possession to find herself in Miss Leicester's company. Many a time, in the days before Betty came to Tideshead, she had walked to and fro before the old house hoping to be spoken to or called in for a visit, and yet was too shy to properly answer a kind good-morning when they met. Aunt Barbara used to think that Becky was a dull girl, but they were already better friends. It took a long time to rouse Becky's enthusiasm, but when roused it burned with steady flame. To think that she should be camping out with Miss Leicester!

But Mr. Leicester and Betty and Becky were soon at work making their camp, and the novices took their first lesson in woodcraft. The young men, Harry Foster and Seth, came ash.o.r.e bringing the tender loaded deep with tents and blankets, some of them from Jonathan's carefully kept chests in the carriage-house, and Miss Leicester wondered again how anybody had contrived to get so many things from the house to the boat without her knowledge. There were two sharp hatchets, and presently Seth and Harry were dispatched to gather some dry wood for the fire, though until near evening the tents need not be put up nor the last arrangements made for sleeping. By and by everybody could help either to cut or carry hemlock and spruce boughs for the beds.

Betty helped her father to roll some stones together for a fireplace just at the edge of the river beach, and pleased him very much by rolling a heavy one up to the top of the heap on a piece of board which had washed ash.o.r.e, just as she had seen farmers do in building a stone wall. Mary Beck, in a trepidation of delight, was helping Miss Barbara Leicester unpack the baskets, to see what should be eaten for dinner and what should be kept for future meals, when Mr. Leicester called them.