Vesty of the Basins Part 4

Miss Pray's fireplace stretched wide between door and door. Opposite it were the windows; you saw the water, the moon shone in.

Miss Pray did her own farming and was sleepy, yet sat by me with that religious awe of me as befitting one who had elected to pay seven dollars a week for board! I surprised a look of baffled wonder and curiosity on her face now and then, as well as of remorse at allowing me to attach such a mysterious value to my existence.

She did not know that her fire in itself was priceless.

It burned there--part of a lobster trap, washed ash.o.r.e, three buoys, a section of a hen-coop, a bottomless chopping tray, a drift-wood stump with ten fantastic roots sending up blue and green flame, a portion of the wheel of an outworn cart, some lobster sh.e.l.ls, the eyes glowing, some mussel sh.e.l.ls, light green, and seaweed over all, shining, hissing, lisping.

Miss Pray snored gently. I put some of the spruce gum Vesty had given me into my mouth; well, yes, by birth I have very eminent right to aristocratic proclivities.

But the spruce woods came again before me with their balm, and her face. I dwelt upon it fondly, without that pang of hope which most men must endure, and smiled to think of Captain Leezur's dismay if he should know how Vesty had already coiled herself around my heart-strings!

III

"GETTIN' A NAIL PUT IN THE HOSS'S SHU"

They never noticed my physical misfortune except in this way: they invited me everywhere; to mill, to have the horse shod, all voyages by sea or land; my visiting and excursion list was a marvel of repletion.

Captain Pharo came down--my soul's brother--with more of "a h'tch and a go," than usual in his gait.

"My woman read in some fool-journal somewheres, lately," he explained, "about pourin' kerosene on yer corns and then takin' a match to her and lightin' of her off.

"Wal', I supposed she was a-dressin' my corns down in jest the old usual way, last Sunday mornin', when--by clam! ye don't want to splice onto too young a shipmate, major." (This last was a divinely Basin thought, treating me as a subject of the wars.)

"I've married all states but widders," said Captain Pharo, with a _blase_ air of conjugal experience; "but my advice above all things is," he murmured, lifting his maimed foot, "don't splice onto too young a shipmate. They're all'as a-tryin' some new ructions on ye. Now Vesty, even as stiddy as she is, she 's all'as gittin' the women folks crazy over some new patron for a apern, or some new resute for pudd'n'

and pie. So," he added, "ef you sh'd come to me, intendin' to splice, all the advice 't I c'd give 'ud be, I _don't_ know widders; poo!

poo!--hohum! Wal, wal--

[Ill.u.s.tration: Music fragment: 'My days are as the gra.s.s, Or as--']

_try_ widders."

As I stood speechless with conflicting emotions, he lit his pipe and continued, more hopefully:

"I've got to go up to the Point to git a nail put in the hoss's shu, so I come down to ask you to go up to the house and jine us."

Now I already knew that the Basin way of proceeding to get a nail put in the horse's shoe meant a day of widely excursive incident and pleasure, in which the main or stated object was cast far from our poetical vision. I accepted.

"My woman invited Miss Lester to go with us. The old double-decker rides easier for havin' consid'rable ballast, ye know--and Miss Lester tips her at nigh onto about two hunderd; she 's a widder too, ain't she, by the way? but she 's clost onto sixty-seven; hain't no thoughts o' splicin', in course. Miss Lester 's a vary sensible woman. But I thought cruisin' 'round with her kind o' frien'ly on the back seat, ye might git a sort of a token or a consute in general o' what widders is."

"True," said I gratefully, with flattered meditation.

"It 's a scand'lous windy kentry to keep anything on the clo's-line,"

said the captain, as we walked on together, sadly gathering up one of his stockings and a still more inseparable companion of his earthly pilgrimage from the path.

"What 's the time, major?" said he, as he led me into the kitchen, "or do you take her by the sun? I had Leezur up here a couple o' days to mend my clock. 'Pharo,' says he, 'thar 's too much friction in her.'

So, by clam! he took out most of her insides and laid 'em by, and poured some ile over what they was left, and thar' she stands! She couldn't tick to save her void and 'tarnal emptiness. 'Forced-to-go never gits far,' says Leezur, he says--'ye know.'"

Captain Pharo and I, standing by the wood-box, nudged each other with delight over this conceit.

"'Forced-to-go never gets far, you know,'" said I.

"'Forced-to-go,'" began Captain Pharo, but was rudely haled away by Mrs. Pharo Kobbe, to dress.

That was another thing; apparently they could never get me to the house early enough, pleased that I should witness all their preparations.

They led me to the sofa, and Mrs. Kobbe came and combed out her hair--pretty, long, woman's hair--in the looking-gla.s.s, over me; and then Captain Pharo came and parted his hair down the back and brushed it out rakishly both sides, over me. Usually I saw the children dressed; they were at school. It was too tender a thought for explanation, this way of taking me with brotherly fondness to the family bosom.

"How do you like Cap'n Pharo's new blouse?" said his wife.

In truth I hardly knew how to express my emotions; while he sniffed with affected disdain of his own brightness and beauty, I was so dim-looking, in comparison, sitting there!

"When I took up the old carpet this spring, I found sech a bright piece under the bed, that I jest took and made cap'n a blouse of her--and wal, thar? what do you think?"

I looked at him again. The hair of my soul's brother had ceased from the top of his head, but the long and scanty lower growth was brushed out several proud inches beyond his ears. He was not tall, and he was covered with sections of bloom; but as he turned he displayed one complete flower embracing his whole back, a tropical efflorescence, brilliant with many hues.

"She is beautiful," I murmured; "what sort of a flower is she?"

"Oh, I don' know," said Captain Pharo, with the same affected indifference to his charms, but there was--yes, there was--something jaunty in his gait now as he walked toward the barn; "they're rather skeerce in this kentry, I expect; some d--d arniky blossom or other!

Poo! poo!

[Ill.u.s.tration: Music fragment: 'Or as the morning flow'r, The blighting wind sweeps o'er, she with-']

Come, wife, time ye was ready!"

I was not unprepared, on climbing to my seat in the carriage, to have to contest the occupancy of the cushions with a hen, who was accustomed to appropriate them for her maternal aspirations. I was in the midst of the battle, when Mrs. Kobbe coolly seized her and plunged her entire into a barrel of rain-water. She walked away, shaking her feathers, with an angry malediction of noise.

"Ef they're good eggs, we'll take 'em to Uncle Coffin Demmin' and Aunt Salomy," said Mrs. Kobbe.

She brought a bucket of fresh water, benevolently to test them, but left the enterprise half completed, reminded at the same time of a jug of b.u.t.termilk she had meant to put up.

She went into the house, and Captain Pharo, absorbed in lighting his pipe, and stepping about fussily and impatiently, had the misfortune to put a foot into two piles of eggs of contrasting qualities.

"By clam!" said he, white with dismay. "Ho-hum! oh dear! Wal, wal--

[Ill.u.s.tration: Music fragment: 'My days are as--']

Guess, while she 's in the house, I'll go down to the herrin'-shed and git some lobsters to take 'em; they're very fond on 'em." He gave me an appealing, absolutely helpless smile of apology, and the arnica blossom faded rapidly from my vision.

Left in guardianship of the horse, I climbed again to my seat and covered myself with the star bed-quilt, which served as an only too beautiful carriage robe. Thus I, glowing behind that gorgeous, ever-radiating star, was taken by Mrs. Kobbe, I doubt not, for the culprit, as she finally emerged from the house and the captain was discovered innocently returning along the highway with the lobsters.

Let this literal history record of me that I said no word; nay, I was even happy in shielding my soul's brother.

"Now," said Mrs. Kobbe, as we set forth, "Miss Lester said not to come to her house for her, but wherever we saw the circle-basket settin'

outside the door, there she'd be."

"I wish she'd made some different 'pointment," said the captain, with a sigh.