Janet of the Dunes Part 15

"He's gone up into the Light, Susan Jane."

The woman turned anxiously toward the window. "It's an awful storm risin', Janet. Wind off sea, but changin' every minute. Draw the shade.

I'm fearin' the ocean will rise high enough fur us t' see the breakers over the dunes! I ain't seen the ocean fur thirty odd years, an' I ain't goin' t' now!" Her voice rose hysterically, like a frightened child's.

"I jest won't see the ocean!" Janet pulled the green shade down, and hid from her own aching eyes the vanishing sight of Billy's struggling boat, but her loving heart went with it as, spurning the wind and darkness, it made for the dunes and duty!

"All day!" the girl thought; "all day, and not to let me know! Oh, Cap'n Daddy, what mischief have you been up to?" The quivering smile rose over the hurt, but anxiety lay deep in the troubled heart.

A crash of thunder rent the air! A blinding flash of lightning turned the black bay to a molten sea. Janet could see it through the gla.s.s of the outer door in the entry.

"Janet!"

"Yes, Susan Jane."

"Come away from the draught! I think you might know, how if you got struck by lightnin' I couldn't do a blessed thing but look at you."

Janet came into the darkened room.

"Light the lamp!" Susan commanded. "I ain't goin' t' save oil, when I'm in this state. Oh! Janet,"--a splintering crash shook the house,--"did you ever hear the like?"

"It's pretty bad, Susan Jane!" But the girl was thinking of the little boat struggling on the bay, the strong hand upon the tiller, and the faithful heart, fearless in the midst of danger.

"Janet, since you ain't got no nerves, can you read t' me an' sort o'

drown the storm? I'm powerful shaken. I can't run if the house is struck; I can't do nothin' but jest suffer." The woman was crying miserably.

"I'll read to you, Susan Jane; and the storm's pa.s.sing. I can count now."

"How many? How many, Janet?" A blinding flash showed around the green curtain's edge and dimmed the light of the kerosene lamp.

"One--two." The awful crash stilled the word.

"'T ain't fur enough off, Janet, to trust any! Oh! G.o.d help me! If I could only put my hands over my ears!" But the poor, helpless hands lay white and shrivelled in the woman's lap.

"Here, Susan Jane. Shut your eyes tight and lean your head upon my shoulder. There! Now when I see the flash I will cover your ears. That will help."

"Janet,"--a mildness stole into the peevish, whining voice,--"Janet, times is, when I see that Billy warn't all wrong in his bringin' of you up. He's sort o' left the softness like a baby in you." The hidden eyes did not see the glare, but the thin form quivered as the girl's firm hands were pressed over the sensitive ears.

"It's kinder m.u.f.fled-like," panted the woman. "In between, Janet, can you say any of it?"

"Your chapter, Susan?"

"Yes. David knows the most of it, an' nights, bad nights, he says it when he ain't so plumb sleepy he can't."

"I'll say what I can, Susan Jane." The gray head nestled close to the strong young shoulder. The nagging woman rested, breathing deep. The fierce storm was rolling away; darkness was giving place, outside, to the sunset glow which, during all the terror and gloom, had lain waiting.

"'And I saw a new heaven, and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were pa.s.sed away and there was no more sea.'" Janet's voice repeated the words slowly, tenderly. Their beauty held her fancy.

"Davy explains that"--Susan's m.u.f.fled words came dully--"this way. He says the old happy time, when William Henry an' me was young an' lovin', you know about that?"

"Yes, Susan Jane."

"Well, that was the first heaven an' earth fur us, an' it's pa.s.sed away!" The woman was sobbing as a frightened child sobs when fear and danger have pa.s.sed and relief has opened the flood gates.

"I don't know how William Henry is goin' t' bide a new heaven without any sea, Janet; he sot a lot by the sea! Always a-goin' out when it was the wildest an' trickiest! He use t' say, he'd like t' go to glory by water, an' he did, he did! I wasn't none older than you be, Janet, when he went down, an' the cruel waves kept him, kept him forever!"

"There, there, Susan Jane, you know they did not keep the part you loved. That part is safe where there is no more sea!" Solemnly the girl spoke as she smoothed the throbbing head.

"Yes! Like as not you're right, Janet. An' he'll find other comfort in that heaven. He was the patientest, cheerfulest body; an' never a quick word fur me. Janet, don't you ever tell, but I'm afraid t' see the ocean! I'm afraid, because I'm always a-thinkin' his dead white face might come up t' me--on a wave!"

"Poor Susan Jane! It will never come to harm you. I would not fear. I love the sea. If it had been my William Henry, I should have watched for his face shining in the beautiful curly waves, and had I seen it, I would have stretched out my arms to him, and we would have gone away--to glory together!"

"Not if the face was a--dead face, Janet!" A horror rang in the words.

"Somehow," the girl replied, "I could never think it dead, if it came that way. 'And G.o.d shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are pa.s.sed away.'"

"That's it, Janet," Susan Jane's voice trailed sleepily; "the former things are the things what has the tears, an' the pains, an' the hurts; an' they must pa.s.s away before there can be any kind of a heaven that's worth while. I wonder--" drearily, "I wonder how it will seem when I ain't got any pains, nor any tears, an' when there ain't any more black nights to think about them in? I'll feel terrible lost just at first. It will be about as hard fur me t' get use t' doin' without them, as it will fur William Henry t' do without the sea. I guess we'll all have considerable t' do t' learn t' get along without the former things, whatever they was. Maybe some of the joy will be in learnin' all over.

Janet, I'm powerful sodden with weariness. Weariness is one of the former things!" A whimsical humor stirred the words. "Sometimes the former things get t' be dreadful foolish day after day."

"Let me carry you to the bedroom, Susan." Janet had a.s.sumed this duty in order to spare David, the nights he must go up aloft. The thin, light body was no burden to the st.u.r.dy girl.

"There, Susan, and see the storm is past!" The evening glow was shining in the bedroom window. "And I will undress you, just as easy as easy can be, and put you so, upon the cool bed! The shower has cleared the air beautifully. Now are you comfortable, Susan Jane?"

"I'm more comfortable than what I've been fur a time past. Leave the shade up t' the top, Janet; I like to see the gleam of Davy's Light when it is dark. I like t' think how it helps folks find their way to the harbors where they would be. Janet, that was a terrible queer thing you said about the face in the wave."

The girl was folding the daily garments of the tired woman and placing them where David's bungling hands could find them for another day's service.

"What was that, Susan Jane?" She stood in the fair full light of the parting day.

"About it not being a dead face! That's been the horror of it, all these years; it has always been a dead an' gone face! That's why I hated the sea. But if"--and a radiance spread over the thin, wasted features--"if it should be that William Henry came back t' me, alive an' smilin' as he always did, why, like as not, I'd put my arms out--" then she paused and the voice broke; "no, I could not put my arms out--but I could smile like I've most forgotten how t' do, an' I could go with William Henry, anywhere, same as any other lovin' woman! I never thought about his face bein' alive in the wave! But, do you know, it's a real pleasant idee, that of seein' the sea again an' William Henry a-smilin' an' wavin' his arms like he use t' when he was bathin'! I declare it's a real grateful thought. Janet!"

"Yes, Susan."

"I wish you'd go up int' the Light after you've cleared the settin'

room, an' tell Davy good night! I forgot t' say it when he started up.

We'd had some difference 'bout money; least, Davy had, I never have any different idee about it. It's him as changes. Go get the box, Janet, an'

put it under the bed. If it wasn't fur me, I guess Davy would know!"

It was after sunset, when Janet, hearing Susan Jane's even breathing, felt herself free. She stretched her arms above her head and so eased the tension. The manner of bearing life's burdens by the people of the dunes was but an acquired talent with her. The first and natural impulse of the girl's nature was to cry out against care and trouble, to make a noise, and act! It was second nature only that had taught her to a.s.sume silently and bear secretly whatever of unpleasantness life presented.

"Oh! Cap'n Daddy," she had once cried to Billy, when something had stirred her childish depths, "why don't we yell, and kick and scare it off?"

"'T ain't sensible with them as lives near the sea, Janet," Billy had calmly returned. "The sea teaches a powerful pinted lesson 'long o' them lines. Troubles is like the sea. When they is the worst, they do all the shoutin' an' roarin' themselves, an' ye jest might as well pull in yer sail an' lie low. When they is past, an' the calm sets in, 't is plain shallowness t' use yerself up then. Folks in cities don't learn this lesson; they ain't got no such teacher, an' that's why they wear out sooner, an' have that onsettled air. They think noise an' bustle o'

their makin' can do away with troubles, but it can't, Janet. So like as not, the sooner ye learn, the better."

Janet thought of this hard lesson now as she stretched her strong young body, and quelled the rebellious cry upon her lips.

"I'll go up and bid Davy good night," she whispered half aloud. Then lower: "Good night, my Cap'n Daddy! You've reached the dunes safely, but you'll have to own up some day!" She waved in the direction of the Station.

"How dark the water looks!" she suddenly cried; "stars in plenty--where is Davy's Light?"