Say and Seal Volume I Part 7

"It must needs travel a crooked road."

"Did you?"

"It has left a meandering sort of recollection in my mind."

"Where did it lead to?"

"It led to another."

"What I want to know is," said Miss Danforth, "where did you find yourselves when you were furthest from home."

"Let me shew you," said he. "Suppose your plate to be a rock, and this tumbler of radishes a tree, and the table-cloth gra.s.s,--the moon over your head, crickets under your feet. Miss Faith walks round the rock, I follow her,--and we both follow the road. On the way, the still night air is enlivened with owls, gra.s.shoppers, family secrets. Our attention is thus divided between the moon and sublunary affairs. Miss Faith--what shall I give you?"

Miss Danforth's curiosity seemed for once willing to be satisfied with fun; and Faith's hunger was in the same predicament.

"But child," said Mrs. Derrick, who had bent her attention upon the diagram at the other end of the table, "I don't recollect any such place!"

"Mother!" said Faith,--and her gravity gave way hopelessly.

"Squire Deacon sends his best compliments of the season," said Cindy opening the door a while later, "and he says they'll be to take supper precisely at four. I'm free to confess he don't look much sweeter than common," added Cindy.

"Pray Miss Faith," said Mr. Linden as they left the table, "what is the precise depth of water down at the sh.o.r.e?"

Faith had very near broke down again, for she laughed and blushed, a good deal more than her wont; and at last replied that "it depended on how far people went in--she never went very far herself."

"I was naturally curious," said he.

After a dinner somewhat more hasty than usual, Mr. Linden and two of the ladies set off for the sh.o.r.e. The blackberry jam, or some other hindering cause, kept Mrs. Derrick at home.

The country by daylight looked rich and smooth. At not a very great distance a slight hilly elevation bounded the horizon line, which nearer seen would have been found bristling with stern grey rock, itself a ridge of rock, one of the ribs of the rigid soil. But where the lane led down to the water, fair fields and crops extended on every side, spotted very picturesquely with clumps of woodland. All looked genial in the summer light. If the distant rocks spoke a stubborn soil, the fine growth between said that man had overcome it; and the fine order everywhere apparent said too that the victory had been effectual for man's comfort and prosperity. The stone walls, in some places thin and open, told of times when they had been hurriedly put up; moss on the rail fences said the rails had been long doing duty; within them no fields failed of their crops, and no crops wanted hoeing or weeding. No straw lay scattered about the ricks; no barrack roofs were tumbling down; no gate-posts stood sideways; no barnyards shewed rickety outhouses or desolate mangers. No cattle were poor, and seemingly, no people. It was a pretty ride the party had, in the little wagon, behind an old horse that knew every inch of the way and trotted on as if he were a part of it.

"How do you like Pattaqua.s.set, Mr. Linden?" said Faith, leaning forward to reach him where he sat alone on the front seat.

"I like it--well," he answered a little musingly.

They came to the bridge and stream; and now they could see that Awasee River did not fill its sometime channel, but flowed in a bottom of alluvial soil, rich in bright-coloured marsh gra.s.s, which stretched up the country between two of those clumps of woodland they had seen from a distance. A little further on, just where the sandy road branched off to the sh.o.r.e, there stood a farm house, with a conglomerate of barns and outhouses, all painted to match, in bright yellow picked out with red.

"Do you see that settlement of farm-houses?" said Faith, leaning forward again,--"of all sizes, in uniform?"

"Is it the fashion here to put 'earmarks' on buildings?" he answered with a smile.

"Mr. Linden! You should ask Mr. Simlins that. I see his wagon there--he'll be down at the sh.o.r.e very likely. He's a character. He lives a mile and a half further on, just where the road turns off to Mrs. Somers'."

"Simlins!" was the only reply.

"He's a good sort of man, but he's funny."

"What is a good sort of man, Miss Faith?"

The old horse was walking quietly along the sandy road, and the smell of the salt water was becoming pleasantly perceptible.

"I suppose I mean by it," said Faith thoughtfully, "a man who is not _very good_, but who is on the good side of things."

"I don't call that a good sort," said Mr. Linden,--then looking round with a little smile he said, "You ought to say 'sort o' good.'"

Faith looked serious and as if she felt half rebuked.

"But," she said, "you would not call that a _bad_ sort?"

"Then you mean that he is in the same road with what you call the _best_ people, only not so far advanced?"

"No," said Faith doubtfully, "I don't mean so much as that.--I don't think Mr. Simlins is in the same road with you."

"How many best roads are there to the same place? As for instance--does it matter which of these two I take to the sh.o.r.e?"

"Only one leads to the sh.o.r.e," said Faith.

"Yet they seem to lie near together at the outset. The same is true of the 'other sh.o.r.e.'"

Faith sat back in her place with a face exceedingly unlike a young lady who was going to a merry-making.

But they were near the sh.o.r.e now; not only the salt smell proclaimed it, but they could see the various bathing and other houses collected at the place, and the flag which floated high from the flag-staff, telling all who were not concerned that it was a gala day. A piece of ground immediately surrounding these buildings was fenced in; as they neared the gate, it was opened for them, and a tall farmer-looking man, whose straw hat shaded a sensible face, nodded as they pa.s.sed.

"That is Mr. Simlins!" said Faith.

Mr. Simlins seemed for the present to be king of the castle. Horses there were, and wagons, standing here and there, and one or two oldish faces looked out from the windows of one long shanty; but the rest of the birds had flown--into the water! It was the time of low tide, and the long strips of rippling water which lay one beyond the other, were separated by sand banks nearly as long. In these little tide lakes were the bathers,--the more timid near sh.o.r.e, taking almost a sand bath; the more adventurous going further and further out, till the last party bathed beyond the last sand bank. Not dressed in the latest Cape May fashion, nor the latest fashion of any kind; for each had brought some dress too old to be hurt with salt water. Calico frocks, of every hue and pattern,--caps, hand kerchiefs, sun-bonnets,--gave additional force to the cries and shouts and screams which were wafted insh.o.r.e.

But when they began to come in!--and when the bathing dresses were hung on the fence to dry!--and when mermaid visions appeared at the windows!--who shall describe the scene then? Over all, a blue smoke now began to curl and float, rising from the stove-pipe of the eating-house.

Mr. Linden had driven up to one of the fence posts, and fastening his horse stood a while watching the show, till the bathers began to draw in from the water. Then helped the ladies out.

"Which of these baskets contains my tea, Miss Faith?" he said. "I feel a particular interest in that basket."

"Perhaps your tea is in some other basket," said Faith; "but both of these must come into the eating-house. O, thank you, Mr. Linden!"

The eating-house was a long shanty, built for the express purpose of feasting picnic and other parties. At one end of it, within the house, was a well of excellent water; at the other end a door opened into a cooking-house, which held a stove; and through the length of the apartment a narrow table of boards was erected, ready to be covered with any description and any succession of table-cloths. In this room Mr. Linden with Faith's help deposited her baskets; while Miss Danforth looked on. At the door of the shanty coming out they met Mr. Simlins.

Faith made the introductions.

"Happy to have your acquaintance," said Mr. Simlins. "This is a piece of Pattaqua.s.set, sir, that we all of us rather cord'ally like. You haven't seen it before?"

"Yes, I don't wonder you like it," said Mr. Linden. "The sea-sh.o.r.e is no novelty to me, sir--such a sh.o.r.e party is."

"I hope you'll enjoy it, as the rest of us do. We all do as we like, Mr. Linden--I hope you'll use the grounds as your own. We have the flag flying, sir, and it ratifies liberty to all who amuse themselves under it."

Mr. Linden looked up at the stars and stripes, with an acknowledging smile for the benefits thereby conferred.

"Faith! Faith Derrick!" called out half a dozen mermaids from the bathing house; and Faith was obliged to go,--while her companions walked up the green slope, and entered into a deep discussion of the crops and the weather.

A while after, when Faith was busy about the supper table--twenty young voices chiming around her, another voice that she did not know spoke close at her elbow.