Vesty of the Basins Part 28

She sat down close to me--for n.o.body minded me--and put her finger on the place.

Now "the book," though jointly purchased by the Basins from a travelling salesman, as a highly illuminated volume, promising much of a lively nature, had turned out to be to an altogether unexpected degree serious and didactic.

I followed Belle O'Neill's finger.

"Impressive Lesson.

Perishableness!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: Skull]

"What does it mean?" said the girl, with pale, inquiring lips.

Now as I loved the courtly valor of my race, I laughed.

"You do not understand those long words, Belle. It means, in those peculiar words, something about a Jack-o'-lantern."

"Oh," said Belle, gazing at it with sudden refreshment, "I guess it 's the only funny one in the book! They're usually so solemn."

We turned to the next page:

"Important Lesson.

Discontent.

The Bachelor's b.u.t.ton that wanted to be a sunflower: the scow that wanted to be a schooner."

"Why," said Belle, with her finger on the cut of the angry and resentful bachelor's b.u.t.ton that was throwing down its petals because it could not be a sunflower--"why did it want to be a sunflower?"

"I can't imagine," I said.

"Wouldn't you just as soon be a bachelor's b.u.t.ton as a sunflower?"

"Well, I don't know," I murmured; but while I affected still to be pondering this subject doubtfully, Wesley came up from the clam flats.

He pointed to the cut on the opposite page:

"Warning Lesson.

Slothfulness."

A plump and evidently highly contented maiden was here represented as lolling on a sofa.

"'T means _lazy_. She looks jest like Belle O'Neill, don't she?" said Wesley, grinning maliciously.

"Who"--flamed up Belle O'Neill--"put straws into the cow's teats, an'

let the milk run, while he laid out on the gra.s.s an' slep', and Miss Pray found it out and flailed him with the broomstick?"

Wesley's grin froze on his features; he returned wearily to his rake.

"Comforting Lesson.

A saint walking among the saved, on Revival Terrace."

But the saint, though tall and bearded, wore a ball dress such as the unchastened belles of society sport upon earth, a profuse skirt, with flashing train; and he was walking quite alone.

"Where are the 'saved'?" said Belle, with ghastly hope.

"They are just around the corner," said I cheerfully; "where that suggestion of clouds is--see!"

"N-no, but I guess they are. Ain't he the lookin'est thing you ever saw?"

"Quite the lookin'est!"

Belle giggled. I bore her out in it sympathetically.

Wesley, who observed how we were at least keeping the crows off of the clams, smiled upon us with feeble indulgence.

But as we read on, Belle did come to a lesson of such useful terror that she decided to take her rake and a.s.sist Wesley among the flats.

I approved her, and lay back, smiling, in the I heard Wesley's little old voice pipe up, considerately: "You'll scare 'em jest as well if you do go to sleep, major."

I kept on smiling. The sun seemed a lake of glory and I a boatman, fair and free, sailing vast distances upon it with just one stroke of my wand-oar--and here I began to scare the crows unconsciously.

The air of the Basin anon exhilarated one, anon soothed one into wondrous, deep, peace-drunken slumber.

When I awoke Vesty stood over me, calling me.

There was a purple, dark sky--now but little after mid-day--glowing with red at the edges like a sunset; the wind was blowing strong. It was dark, yet all was distinct about me. I sprang to my feet with a sort of solemn exultation and bared my head.

"Wake, major, wake!" Vesty cried to me. She drew me and pointed out to sea. "Notely's boat--it was trying to make home--it is on the reefs."

I saw it then by a flash of that unearthly light, the wind descending like the last of days. I hastened with Vesty to the low beach, where the people were moving strangely, looking out on the sea with its swift-crested breakers.

From the yacht, beating helpless on the ledges, Notely and the few who had sailed with him that morning were putting out the life-boat; but Captain Rafe kept running his weather-stained hand down his white face, his head shaking.

"Bare chance t' save half of 'em in the gale--they'll swamp her; nay, nay, they'll never get her home with that freight; and it's no sea--it 's a herricane, above and below. I see the sky in broad day like that but once before, and then----"

His voice was hushed, the boat was off, was lost; then once again we saw her; we felt the gale rushing; when we could see again, there were a few struggling in the waves, a few climbing back upon the sinking masts of the vessel, with wild signals.

The little Basin boats were old and frail; only Gurdon had lately been building a new fishing-boat. While we were looking off he had been hauling it down the steep bank by the cottage.

Now when we saw him Vesty ran to him and put the child in his arms and clung to him. I saw a great light come over his face.