But it appeared then that no blank was to be filled out and sent to Washington!

With a sharp yelp of joy Snipe sprang from behind the impregnable covert of my legs, and rushed out into the free and gladsome elements.

I gathered up my portion of matter from the illuminated heap of "government," beside the sand-peep pie on the table, and with a fond smile at Lunette I also departed.



XXI

BROKEN WINDOWS

Always now on the evening of post day, after I had read my newspapers, came the worn shawl and the dark, weary eyes—Vesty, to sit awhile with Miss Pray.

"Is there any news of Notely, Major Henry?"

Now and then I made her put the question, but oftener I was kind and volunteered any information on this subject that I had been able to glean; and at the news of joy or success for him, how her eyes glowed! Basin pure and great, with no thought for the shadow of her own lot—Vesty of the Basins.

"Is there any news of Notely, Major Henry?"

She was pinning the shawl at her throat after a short call, before going out; and she gave me her direct, reproachful look, as though I had been teasing her.

But I was not teasing her; my heart yearned over her where she stood, facing the dark.

"I will tell you what I have read," I said, "as I walk home with you. You are 'helping' them at your own father's again now?"

She bowed her head. Her dark eyes filled me with a kind of frenzy to make rest and comfort about her; and I had hard news for her!

"In my papers of the past week the beginning of what concerned Notely Garrison was a medley. 'Reformer,' 'The old never-heeded cry of a St. John in the wilderness,' and again, from the other side, 'Fanatic,' 'Visionary,' 'Throwing out his by no means boundless wealth like water for the sake of chimeras, ideally noble enough, but still vain chimeras!' And the news at the week's end, 'Young Garrison stricken: a shock. Overwork, over-excitement, and the result of an accident suffered not long since. Recovery very doubtful.'"

"I want to go to him," said Vesty. I heard her breath coming painfully and quick.

"I knew that. I have already made arrangements for you to leave early in the morning."

"Just to see him. I promised him. Notely! Notely! I can't bear it—just as though it was little Gurd."

"You shall see him by to-morrow night. I have sent a messenger to make special arrangements for conveyance, in case you should desire this."

"Major Henry, I forgot. I cannot; I have no money."

"Ah, but you can and must. It is arranged."

"And I do not know the way. I was never from the Basin."

"I am going with you. In my country high ladies travel with a servant, thus. Get what rest you can and be ready at four. They will take good care of little Gurd while you are gone."

"Some time," said Vesty, on the morrow, "when Gurd is a little older, and I can take him away somewhere where I can earn wages, I can pay you, Major Henry. They want me now—his mother wants me, somehow, I know."

"You are safe to think that."

"My clothes are not like theirs," said Vesty quietly, when we came at night more and more into the throngs of civilized life. "Do you mind? I knew that I should not be dressed like them."

"In my country high ladies wear what they will."

She gave a low, perplexed laugh, looking at me with curious sorrow for my hallucinations.

"But I am only Vesty."

"Surely. But you remind me so of a lady."

At least Vesty travelled as a princess might. I brought her the long and devious journey swiftly, with as little fatigue as possible: but it was late at night when we mounted the steps of the Garrison town residence; the house was all alight.

Mrs. Garrison brushed past the servant at the door.

"Vesty Rafe! I knew it was you. I knew you would come, somehow, child." She drew her in, and fell on her neck, weeping.

"He is dying?" murmured Vesty then, with cold lips.

"He has not spoken since the shock. He does not know us; but it may be he will know you! Come!"

Servants from the doorways of the wide, rich hall were staring strangely at Vesty and at me. Vesty turned to me now, to consider me.

I gave her the warning look. "I came to show Vesty the way," I said in simple Basin speech. "I will go to my hotel. I will call."

The girl's sad eyes looked reproach at me, but she obeyed me.

"Wait," she said then; "I want to speak with Major Henry." She came to me in the door.

"When will you come back?" she murmured, low.

"I will call in the morning."

"You will come?" A strange abandoned distress was in her eyes, as of a child lost in crowded city ways.

"Vesty!"

She turned, chidden, but with a sort of wilful content.

My heart bounded as I limped down the steps. I smiled to myself, safe in the dark, sardonically. Make what you will of it, with other men she was strong, womanly, serene; with me, she had the sweet grace to show weakness.

The carriage bounded over the paving-stones and stopped at my hotel. The driver lifted his hat obsequiously. I, with sardonic smile, entered the hotel, where I was not unknown. No doubt was made as to the character of my apartments.

I rested sumptuously, but could not sleep.

"How was he now, who lay stricken yonder? Had he known her, or would those rare blue eyes be lifted to her too, unrecognizing, and so break her heart?"

Eyes once seen, to haunt one, the handsomest in form and color and expression that I had ever seen in human head.

Now I saw them again, as I had first seen them at the meeting in the Basin school-house; the firm, brown hand grasping the sailor's bonnet; eyes omnipotent with health and joy, casting their mischievous, beautiful glances over toward Vesty—she, patient, struggling, with her holy look!

And the Basin wind blew in through the cracked windows, and a bird flew upward:

"Softly through the storm of life, Clear above the whirlwind's cry"—

It all resolved itself into that at last; the human voice crying upward, shivering, like the bird's flight; but with sure aim now!

I saw how it was at the first look at Vesty's face, when I called the next morning.

Notely, waking once, had not known her among the group of doctors and attendants; only stared at her as one of them, kindly, vaguely.

But, for the most part, he slept in weary bliss. Once, later, they thought her face had awakened some old memory.

"The school-house—is growing—dark," he murmured, in indistinct, half-recovered speech, then fell off again into his soundless slumbers.

The doctors knew. I knew. The mother read no hope.

"He has so much to leave," she sobbed, turning ever to Vesty, who, numb with sorrow, yet tried to comfort her.

So much to leave!—but who knows ever to how much going! Not so Mrs. Garrison. The bright way ended at this pass, in blank darkness.

And Notely slept on, wearied, heedless; soft, luxurious trappings of life all about him; his reconciled young wife; his hope now of an heir for his name and fortune; the work he had struggled at last so unrestingly to do; and the dear, lost love of his youth, Vesty, bending over him.

Leaving them, not able to be heedful, so deep-wrapped in unknown dreams. Waking once more and turning from them vaguely (ah, the sublime, unconscious contempt of death!); turning from them vaguely, as though in some far Basin the dawn were breaking!

"Uncle Benny," said he, holding out his wasted hand, "the school-house is very dark—I'll go home now."

* * * * * *

So Vesty's heart was broken in her, and to me she came, as to a father, or more as to a friendly, favoring ghost.

"Take me back to the Basin!"

"Yes."

She sat in a kind of patient apathy, numb, her heart faithful with the dead.

"How little Gurd will call for you when he sees you again!" I spoke; but to waken her was to bring such a torrent of tears, choking, she entreated me not.

But, "It is well, I believe," I said to her; "there is life enough! Be sure he does not lack for life. What! do you think we have found the best of it, and all of it, here? I imagine God has enough! It is not because His bread fails Him that any go hungry, or because He lacks for gold that any are poor, but only for His purpose—we must guess—and when the poor, shattered school-house grows dark the light breaks elsewhere."

Vesty had not slept for two nights; the sweet face was haggard.

Again passing among crowds of restless, hurrying life, faces cold and strange, or often staring curiously, the haunted look of one lost came again into her eyes.

"I must go and take care of Gurd," she said, "as well as I can, while I live. O God! I hope he never may get lost, out in the world."

"No; how could he, in God's world?"

"When we get back to the Basin then you will be tired of staying there in the bleak and cold. You will never wait for me to pay you; you will laugh at me, and you will go back to the world."

"Vesty!"

Wearily she turned her heavy eyes on me—a ghost; there was the forced, unconscious cry in them of the child, or even of the woman.

Sacredly I shielded their glance, and ghostly; it was as though I had not seen.

"You mistake my courage. There is no winter," I said, smiling, "strong enough to drive me from the Basin."



XXII

"NEIGHBORIN'"

Vesty never said "Stay!" but that unconscious look in her eyes made a sort of forlorn fireplace of hope to me, desolate, open to all the winds. As God wills. I wait.

I went often to Captain Leezur; the nervine lozenges were potent.

"We all'as dew neighbor a great deal in winter," said he approvingly, stretching those dear felts before the blaze.

"Is that a piece of the log we used to sit on?" I inquired mournfully.

"Wal, neow! I r'a'ly believe ye feel a kind o' heart-leanin' to'ds her, don't ye?"

"How can I help it?"

"Sartin! sartin!" said he, delighted; "we're jest like twin-brothers. But neow don't you werry one mite. She 's done a good werk an' she 's returnin' to Natur's God. I've got another one 't I'm goin' to roll deown, first hint o' spring. I don't calk'late ever to be feound, like them wise an' foolish virgins, without no log to set on."

"Thar 's somethin' abeout a log," continued Captain Leezur; "when ye go inter the heouse in warm weather, an' sets deown in a cheer, the women kind o' looks at ye as though you was sick or dreffle lazy; but when ye're eout settin' on a log ye feels as though God was on yewr side, an' man nor woman wa'n't able to afflict ye. They 's a depth an' a ca'm to the feelin' of it, 't them 't sets on fringe an' damarsk sofys don't know nothin' abeout."

"You must have required a great deal of oil in sawing up the old log, captain," I said.

The captain gave the restful sigh of battles overpast.

"Mebbe you think 't the drippin's o' one skunk did it," said he; "but they didn't. Did ye ever think," he resumed, "o' what a wonderful thing ile is, an' what 'd we dew without 'er?—heow the wringin' machine 'ud seound when ye was turnin' on 'er for yer wife, Monday mornin's?"

"No," said I sadly.

"Then ag'in, it 's ile in yer natur' keeps ye ca'm an' c'llected, an' it's ile in yer dispersition l'arns ye t' say, 'Moderation 's the rewl, even in passnips.'"

Lubricated with a sense of peace and blessing, I arose.

"Ye're jest like me," gurgled Captain Leezur; "ye don't feel easy in a cheer! Ye wanter be eout on the old log, don't ye?"

"Yes," said I. "This isn't quite like."

"We're nateral twin-brothers!" he exclaimed, following me to the door. There he looked cautiously backward.

"Dew you remember what I said to ye once," said he, "on the subject o' kile?"

"Ahem!—female affection?" I inquired gently. "Yes."

"Some calls it that," said my twin-brother, beaming on me, "and some calls it kile. Wal, neow, ef a sartin person shows a dispersition to kile, let 'em! Let 'em," said Captain Leezur, irradiating my thin being with the glory of his countenance; "let em."

"Ah," said I, and shook my head again sadly, "I think more and more we will have to go our pilgrimage without that, my friend."

"Neow you look a' here," said Captain Leezur. "I ain't a-sayin' nothin', that they will or that they won't, but if they dew, let 'em. Did ye ever think o' what a heap o' wisdom there is in a poor old bean-pole?

"Mornin' glory comes up an' looks at it. Bean-pole stands up stiff, without no feelin's: don't look at 'er, nor bend over an' kiss 'er, nor nothin'. Mornin' glory don't git skeered, an' she peouts out a lot o' leaves an' tenderls an' begins to kile. Bean-pole takes a chaw o' terbakker an' looks off t'other eend o' the field t' see what the pertater crop 's goin' to be. Mornin' glory peouts out more leaves an' blossoms, an' keeps a-kilin'. By 'n' by thar ain't no poor old God-forsaken bean-pole standin' there—it 's all one mess o' kile an mornin' glory!

"I tell ye, major, we need once in a while for t' l'arn a lesson from natur'. I ain't a-goin' to press ye to stay longer, for I know ye wanter go neighborin'!"

Dazzled, I turned away from the refulgent keenness of his wink.

But I did not take the direction that wink had indicated. I had an invitation, not from Vesty, but from the two most ancient of the Basins to tea, and I stopped in, a solitary and thoughtful bean-pole, at Captain Pharo's on the way.

The music-box was playing. I was glad to hear that; a tune in undertone, like waves slowly, softly breaking.

"She used ter play fifteen different tunes when we first had her," said Captain Pharo pensively; "but she got to squeakin', an' so we had Leezur up to ile 'er, an' ever sence she 's played one tune fifteen times! Poo! poo! hohum! Wal, wal—



Shouldn't care so much, though, ef 'twas only 'The Wracker's Darter.'

"I've threatened a good many times to overhaul her myself, but I ain't no knowledge o' instermental music, and I s'pose I might spend a week on 'er, and not combine 'er insides up to playin' no 'Wracker's Darter,' arter all. Hohum!



At each successive pause the organs of the music-box wheezed, struggled, almost faintly let go of life, then began again the undertone, of waves softly breaking.

"I like it," I said. "I like it wonderfully."

Captain Pharo gave me a keen look and went to the door and winked. I was no longer supine under such invitations. I rose and followed him. "Look a' here, major," said he, when we were alone, coughed. "My foot 's 'most well."

"I am glad of it, captain."

"Look a' here, major," said he, desperately, "what makes you so took up with that 'ere monotonous tune in thar? I'm afeered I may 'a' misled ye, times past, with regards to female grass." He coughed again and lit his pipe. I waited.

"'Specially," he groaned, "some things I may h've said with regards to red and white clover."

Still I waited.

"Look a' here, major, when anybody sets down 'n' admires to sech a monotonous tune as that in thar, thar's somethin' the matter with 'em."

Still I would not speak. Tears almost were in his eyes.

"Now I may h've said some things on partickaler pesterin' 'casions in times past, but in general my verdick—hohum!—is fav'rable to female grass; 'specially—hohum! hohum!—wal, wal, ye knows my meanin', major—'specially with regards to red and white clover: hohum! how 's Vesty?"

The captain gave a sigh that would have exculpated him from the gravest of crimes, and looked steadfastly toward the west.

"I haven't seen her to-day."

"Ye'll think it over, won't ye, major?" said he, still with that far withdrawn vision.

"Well, yes; I'll think it over."

I had proceeded but a little way when he called me back.

"I had it on my mind to tell ye," said he, "when I heered 't ye'd been 'nvited down t' Aunt Gozeman's and Aunt Electry's t' tea; ef they give ye some o' their green melon an' ginger persarves, do ye manage to bestow 'em somewhar's without eatin' of 'em, somehow. They're amazin' proud an' ch'ice of 'em, an' ye don't want to hurt their feelin's, but ye'd better shove 'em right outer the sasser inter yer britches pocket 'n eat 'em—leastways that 's the way they 'fected me."

Visions of a past mortal suffering flitted across Captain Pharo's face.

"I'll try," I said.

"Ef thar 's melon an' ginger persarves settin' by yer plate, d'ye ask them two old women, in some kind of genteel s'ciety ructions sort o' a way, ter go outer the room an' git ye somethin', an' soon 's they've gone d'ye jump up an' thring a shawl over that darn' parrot o' theirn 't stands there noticin' 'an' swearin', an' chuck 'em in over behind the wood-box or somewhar's, but don't eat 'em."

"All right," I said, as he shook my hand with suggestive earnestness once more in parting.

The sisters, by mutual adoption, not by birth, lived together in the "Laury Gleeson;" the sign of a wrecked schooner nailed up over their shanty door.

"And why not? We be all a-sailin', been't we?" said Aunt Electry, who was ninety years old, lighting her pipe; "only I wish 't some 't 's sailin' solitary had mates 't 's fit for 'em—how is Vesty?"

"I don't know," I began, afflicted with a sort of lightness of head. I wanted to take out Uncle Benny's pocket-mirror that I carried with me now. Was I beautiful, and tall, and fair? What had happened me!

"Lectry 's a great girl for straight-for'ard langwidge," said Miss Gozeman kindly, pitying my confusion; she was only eighty and did not smoke.

They led me out more nimbly, almost, than I could follow, to show me the "stock"—some forlorn, fantastic stumps of trees, long dead, all whitewashed with tender art! the pet coon, the tame crow, the wicked goat.

There was another treasure; who, as we came in and sat down to tea, eyed me from his cage with grudging and disfavor: it was the parrot; and I presume injunctions were upon him to keep still, but I did not know.

"Does he talk?" I Inquired kindly.

He snapped viciously at the cage.

"A friend 't had him on shipboard gave him to us long ago," explained Miss Gozeman, with gentle evasion; "we ain't ever been able to break him of it." What the habit was of which they had not been able to break him I sadly inferred.

There was a munificent dish of the green melon and ginger preserves by my plate. I was chatting with my friends, and at the same time meditating what to do, when the tame crow, who had slyly entered the house behind us and stolen Miss Gozeman's spectacles, was now discovered through the window hastening to hide them in the chip-pile.

My entertainers trotted nimbly out after him. I rose, and, lifting the cover of the stove, dashed in the contents of my saucer—when I was startled by a shrill voice and a mocking laugh.

"Oh, I see ye! I'll tell!"

I had forgotten to cover the parrot.

"You are no gentleman if you do!" I retorted, forgetting with whom or what I was talking.

"Shut up!" said the parrot, and laughed. "I see ye, d—n ye! I'll tell!"

At all events I turned, with the intention of going out to assist the ladies in their search for the spectacles, when the scene through the window held me for a moment spellbound.

The crow, having accomplished his mischievous device, was perched near by, gravely regarding the search of the two estimable and time-honored women, who were peering with their faces near the earth, and their backs turned unconsciously; when the cherished goat, creeping maliciously up, made a rush at them from the rear, and pitched them both into the chip heap.

This unspeakably base proceeding had the result, however, of discovering to them the glasses, with which they soon after entered, smiling.

"Bill often hides our glasses," said Aunt Electry.

"Does the goat often bunt you over?" I inquired, with dismay.

"Shut up!" said the parrot, at the sound of my voice. "Oh, I see ye! I'll tell!"

My kind friends gave him a sharp glance, but considerately did not look at me. They saw my emptied preserve plate, however, and concluding that I had taken advantage of their absence the more greedily to gorge myself on its contents, they generously piled it full again of what they imagined to be the same coveted substance.

Seeing this, the parrot shrieked with fiendish joy.

"Indeed it is excellent——" I began.

"Oh, stow your gab!" sneered the parrot, in a suddenly gruff bass voice.

Aunt Electry rose and stamped her foot at him.

"He only knows what he 's been taught long ago—by a friend," said Aunt Gozeman reassuringly; "he can't—tell anything new, right out!"

All the crime they imputed to me then was gluttony in the matter of preserves! Very well; I preferred that.

"They were really so delightful," I began, with the natural reaction from my qualms.

"Oh, wur-r-r!" interrupted that horrible grating voice, and then laughed high and loud.

The sisters in affliction rose and bore the cage out into the shed But I heard oaths and cackles of malicious intention fired at me through the door.

"Sing 'We be a-sailin',' sister," said Aunt Electry, when we had retired again to the fireside.

Miss Gozeman obediently began, in a soft, timid tremulo.

"We are eout on the ocean sailing," came in mocking, strident accents from the wood-shed; "Oh, h—ll! give us a rest!" But dear Aunt Gozeman sang right on, smiling pitifully:

"'To our home beyond the tide.'"

Ah, what tides! what tides had been in these two lives! And stranded here for a little, how they cherished with a great heart of compassion the dead trees that bore them no fruit, loving and pitying the wicked parrot that mocked at them, the crow that stole from them, the goat that upset them.

My own notions of charity seemed so little and mean in comparison.

"Ask me again," I pleaded; "I have been so seldom invited to tea. I have enjoyed it."

Even the fate of the green melon and ginger preserves lay hard on my awakened conscience. But I made up for that. Not for this winter nor any winter, so long as they live, should Aunt Electry or Aunt Gozeman want either for preserves or less brilliant condiments.

Indeed, I play at making home and occupation, and they of the Basin are to me as my sheep through this wild, strange winter; and I as their sly shepherd—sly, like Captain Leezur.

All except Vesty. To her child I can make gifts, unknown, through my stanch friend, Lunette, even of food and clothing, but not to her. The old frayed shawl is grander than any ermine, and the goddess' chest is erect and broad; the winter will not kill her—but I have gazed sadly in the mirror, and I go often to Captain Leezur.



XXIII

THE "FLAG-RAISIN'," OR "THE OCCASION"

"If there 's any fun going on," frankly admits Mrs. Kobbe, "you'll all'as find me up an' dressed!" Perhaps I sympathize more truly with her kind-hearted spouse, who says with a deep sigh: "We mustn't be tackiturn jest because the wind's off the snow-banks."

So I go to the flag-raising.

"The Crooked Rivers and Capers have had their flag up these three weeks," said Lunette; "and I heard how the Artichokes had h'isted theirn yesterday. When the Artichokes have got their flag up, seems as though the Basins had better be thinkin' o' what time it is in the mornin'!"

"What is the flag to be raised for?" I inquired, with unsuspecting innocence.

There was an afflicted silence; still they loved me. Lunette alone answered at last, turning to Tyson, not to me.

"I should think it 's enough to have a flag-raisin' without a-askin' what it is for!" said she. "What does trees grow for? What does anything in natur' act the way it does for?"

I, ever safe anchored behind Lunette's championship, looked out securely at the derelict Tyson, to see if he could answer. He could not, but was abashed. Still I so far appropriated the hint, wisely and delicately delivered, that I made no further inquiries, only giving myself unhesitatingly to the joy of preparation.

The flag was to be raised over the school-house, and instead of wending our way dissonantly thither, as was our habit in attending the meetings, we were to go in procession!

A curious awe attached to this idea, in which I fully shared, as, being formed in line, I tried to limp martially behind the valiant Lunette.

"Halt, by clam!" said our general.

"What is it?" came in whispers along the line.

"Jakie Teel" (one of the sculpins) "'s got his trousers on hind side afore!"

"Flory dressed him by candlelight this mornin', so 't she could get time to make three loaves o' angel-cake for the flag-raisin'."

The victim of this mysterious adventure was led away by his mother for reaccoutrement, while we as a regiment waited patiently for his return to warlike rank and file.

"If these condummit ructions are over," said our general—for the wind was blowing cold—"forwards ag'in, by clam!" and we marched upon the schoolhouse; but we encountered so many difficulties, of wayward ropes, in hoisting our ensign, that Captain Pharo declared, rubbing his chilled hands:

"'T we'd omit the usual cheerin' 'tell we'd been in and thawed out—ef they was any thaw to us—leastways baited."

Vesty was there with the rest, munching a slice of angel-cake—fit food for her! I smiled kindly upon her, but did not forget that I was an indifferent bean-pole.

"Major!" cried the Basin, toward the close of the repast, with its mouth sweet and full—"Major, a speech! a speech!"

Now I had a heart given to the Basin, with a simple thought or two, and I requisitioned the best of my forces for the "Occasion," conscious of my morning glory there—oh, she of the skies! munching angel's food.

Whatever I had said or done, moreover, the Basin would have applauded; yet such cheers as I heard now left no doubt upon my too-willing and plastic sense of a phenomenal and hitherto unsuspected ability.

"Vesty," said Elder Skates, starting to his feet, "will you start—start—start—anything?"

"We always do sing

"'In the prison cells I set, Thinking, mother dear, of you,'

to flag-raisin'," said the ever well-informed and officious Lunette.

"Somehow," said Captain Pharo, shrugging his shoulders, "thar 's too much of a sea-rake blowin' acrost the back o' my neck t' sing 'Prison Cells;' 'tain't clost enough for it here. What d'ye say to 'Hold the Fort'?"

What they said was unanimous. Even Captain Leezur knew it, and the sculpins, of terrible voice. It was sung with such complete personal abandonment to strong oral gifts that, at the second verse, the remaining quota of plastering upon the school-house roof became loosened and fell with a crash upon the head of that very unfortunate sculpin who under other blighting circumstances had been forced to undergo temporary absence from our ranks in the morning.

He uttered a mature sea-oath, and was again marched violently from our presence by his mother; but I was happy to see that he returned soon afterward and renewed his portion of the song with a gusto which the added quality of defiance now rendered deafening, while through all our din sounded true the flute of Vesty's sweet voice.

"We mustn't forgit the occasion, I s'pose," said Captain Pharo, our general, at length. "Poo! poo! hohum! I s'pose it's about time we was thinkin' o' goin' out to cheer the flag. Forwards, by clam! Poo! poo! hohum! Wal, wal—



"Sh!" said Mrs. Kobbe, deftly getting audience at his ear.

"Ladies an' gentlemen an' childern," said Captain Pharo, taking his place beside the flag; "we've h'isted of 'er, an' here she blows"—he put his hand in his pocket for his pipe, and drew from his vest a match.

Mrs. Kobbe coughed loudly, and even shook her head at him: he put them back.

"We have h'isted on 'er," he continued, "an' here she blows!"

Mrs. Kobbe's cough of deeper warning and high-mounting blushes on his account nerved him.

"We've h'isted of 'er," he shouted with desperate defiance, "and thar she blows, don't she, by clam! on the full, the free, the glorious, an' the ever-lastin' h'ist!"

A sturdy round of applause was not wanting, but on this point Mrs. Kobbe was visibly sceptical: she received her lord with sniffs of disdain.

"'The full, the free, the glorious, an' the ever-lastin' h'ist'!" said she. "Where was you eddicated, Cap'n Pharo Kobbe?"

"It don't make but darn little difference whar ye've been eddicated," replied Captain Pharo, "when ye're tryin' to make a speech, an' one o' them devil-fish boys goes around behind ye an' snaps a live lobster onto the slack o' yer britches!"

Giggles from a school of sculpins safe hidden somewhere lent further aggravation to the dilemma.

"Jakie Teel an' Pharie Kobbe, Junior, 'll come to judgment," cried Mrs. Kobbe, in a loud voice, "'specially Pharie Kobbe as soon 's ever he gits home," whereat giggling from that miscreant quarter ceased, and she relieved her lord of his painful embarrassment.

But at this point a new and surprising development arose. The Basin horses attached to some wholesale herring-boxes, extemporized as sleighs, were driven to the scene. Captain Pharo, with heart-whole joy at the sight, lit his pipe and declared, with now beaming countenance:

"It has been arranged, to crown this happy 'casion, for all our unmarried Basins over sixteen year o' age, not forgettin' widders under forty, to have a sleigh ride. Elder Skates'll reel off the names, accordin' to which you can pile yerselves in accordin'ly, two 'n' two, side by side, thus 'n' so, male an' female, created He them!"

Flushed with inspiration, Captain Pharo glanced triumphantly at his wife, who, at this more than Pentateuchal illustration, refused to sneer.

So absorbed was I in watching the gleeful embarkation, and so little dreamed I of being considered in a case like this, it had not even occurred to me that I too was an unmarried Basin widely over sixteen years of age, and yet a little under forty, when—

To the choicest seat in the very largest herring-box, the back of which was stylishly bedizened by the splendors of the star bedquilt, I heard my own name called:

"Major Paul Henry and the Widder Rafe!"

Who and where was the Widow Rafe? Lo! Vesty stepped out. To be sure—the formal, the flag-raising, the "Occasion" name of Vesty!

I led her to her place, but, as for me, I sat down, lost to mortal woes, silent and dazed, among the stars.

"Didn't you want to sit with me?" said Vesty, her face rather grave.

"Oh, why do you ask that?"

"You looked, when they called our names, as though you didn't want to."

Now I tried to dwell upon the words of Captain Leezur, but, however callous I succeeded in appearing on the outside, at heart I was a happy, happy bean-pole.

"I was stunned," I said. "Besides, you see, I did not expect to be invited."

"Why not, Major Henry?"

Oh, the beautiful Basin! the beautiful Basin! I tried to speak, but could not.

"You never seemed before," said she, a sea-shell color glowing in her cheeks, "to feel above us!"

She felt humbled, and my poor brain was too dizzy and incredulous to frame fitting words. I swallowed hard; that was a Basin prerogative, and by exerting it a direct Basin inspiration seemed to come to me.

"Feel above you! O Vesty!"

At that the sea-shell color went away down low, even to her lips, but no further illumination came to me.

Past ghostly hill and moor and still-gleaming flood we flew. "I am happy," I could say at last, "as I ought not to be. In all scenes and places where I may ever be I shall remember this, Vesty."

She shivered a little. Ah! the sad old shawl! I clinched my hands.

Past hill and moor and still-gleaming flood: the light of day changed to one unfathomed, possible, as of sweet, unspoken dreams becoming blessed at nightfall.

Then all at once, round and full above a distant hill-top, rose the hoyden moon, and the Basins saluted her with shouts of natural delight, all save Vesty and I, who were silent.

Now, I saw, was the hour when each Basin put his arm about his girl. I could not have touched my girl, not under all the rollicking moonbeams that ever fired the heart of youth and man. Farther she seemed to me than that far white hill-top, glittering and high.

Yet it pierced me that it was a gloomy ride for her. "It was good and kind of them," I said, "to place a poor old fellow like me here beside you; but you should have one of those rosy, handsome lads with you; you so young, though we forget it. Your life is yet to live."

At the reproach in her eyes—a look of anger, too, but for its wild and dark distress—my heart had almost leaped to my lips.

But—too merry the rollickers, who had fallen behind us, driving on the homeward road; there had been several laughing, reckless adventures of overturned herring-boxes in the snow-drifts; now the pole attached to one of these had broken; the frightened horses had cleared themselves and were veering madly on the narrow road, with the swinging cross-bar, toward that side of the sled where my girl sat, unconscious of the danger, still and pale.

I sprang, fell in a heap, but rose again somehow; and now at last I put up my arm. It was not without strength—in this case more than mortal strong—still, in the end, I fell.

When I came to myself we were still flying through the wild, swift-changing scene, homeward bound; one of my hands was numb, and my wrist bandaged, and my head—was on Vesty's shoulder! We were in right Basin fashion now, only by needs it was Vesty's arm that was about me.

"Am I dead, Vesty?" said I, half believing it in my bliss; besides, I had ever a great appreciation of the Irish humor.

"Oh, don't, major; don't!" said Vesty; "you saved me from getting terribly hurt, they say—or——"

"Ugh!" I groaned.

"Your poor arm!" said she. "Oh, the pain!"

"Nothing pains me," said I.

"Your arm wasn't broken, major; but it 's terribly bruised and sprained."

"And my neck, Vesty—you are sure that was not broken?"

She sighed, but since I was bent, she followed my humor.

"Never fear," said this demure young woman; "that 's too proud ever to get a twist."

Here was a dilemma—that I should be developing into a wit and Vesty into a coquette!

"Well," said I, "I must try and straighten myself up again," and with that endeavor the pain did cut me so cruelly I fainted, quite without any maiden affectation, back again on to Vesty's arm.

"Try and think," said she, when I could hear her voice, "that I am some old woman, just trying to take care of you—somebody not disagreeable to you, and keep still till we get home."

"Very well," said I, tormenting myself with the thought that she was acting under some compelling sense of obligation; and that should never be.

So I answered briefly all at once; and no sooner had I spoken than I endured a gnawing consciousness that I was the hatefullest thing that had escaped extermination that night. I kept still, however; the pain was something to dread.

At least I had my beautiful mother's hair, thick and curling; that was all Vesty could see now there on her shoulder. I comforted myself with that thought as a child. I was weak, and I let some tears roll down my face that Vesty could not see.

When the strong fellows took me out of the sleigh and bore me very gently up to the door they stopped there for a moment, while I wondered; and if any bitter sense of their physical supremacy pierced me at that moment it ceased forever, as with a preconcerted signal from the foremost they lifted the caps from their heads and cheered my name, thrice and again, and again, with ringing cheers—and Vesty standing by!

The old Basin flag—almost as dilapidated as I—had heard nothing like it; but when they dressed the swollen arm pain sent me off into oblivion again. Vesty's was the last face I saw bending over me:

"Do you"—timidly—"do you want me to come to-morrow, and see how you are?"

"Oh, if you will—thank you! Still, I am all right—I shall be all right, never fear."

She lingered still a moment, but spoke calmly:

"If you don't care anything about me why did you risk your life to save me from getting hurt?"

A demon possessed me. Pity I could have endured, but if she were stung on by that inflicted sense of gratitude?

"Why did you risk your life to save me?"

"Oh, it was pity, child," I answered her; the surging bitterness within made it almost a sneer—"natural human pity: it is strong in all my race."

She looked at me with a beautiful sorrow, and as though she called me proudly, to a better contempt of myself.

"I wish you had a mother," said she then, and flushed, the holy eyelids low, pinning the old shawl—"as it is, I don't know what to say."



XXIV

THE STORY OF THE SACRED COW

Vesty came next day at evening, but she took pains to be found in company with almost the entire Basin.

I was so much better that I was able to be about and receive my guests; at sight of Uncle Coffin even the maimed hand seemed to tingle healthily. He marched me to a chair with an ostentation of violence, that really treated me, however, with the softest gentleness, and sat me down.

"Dodrabbit ye!" he cried, standing off and regarding me. "What ye been a-doin' of, you young smashin', slashin', cavortin'-all-around young spark, you!"

"Well," said I, naturally feeling rakish after this, "I will tell you. Miss Pray had a brood of chickens come off unseasonably to-day, who desired particularly and above all things, having taken a general outlook on life, not to live. Under Miss Fray's directions I have been amusing myself with trying to defeat that purpose. I have watched for any signs of hope in their world-disgusted eyes, dipped their unwilling beaks in food, put chips upon their backs to help them maintain an earthly equilibrium—so little desired by them, however, that oftener they have toppled over and turned their infantile legs entreatingly upward; but I have conquered; they live."

"Wal, neow," said Captain Leezur, my chiefest admirer, "ef you ain't a case to describe anything in natur'! Ef I had you areound I shouldn't never want no dagarrier of a sick chicken, for you'd call 'em right up afore me!"

I murmured my low thanks, blushing as usual under flattery.

Vesty was talking brilliantly with some of the company, quite away from me. She had a bright, disdainful look, when I chanced to glance that way, new to her, but quite befitting—ah me! ah me!—some lady one might dream of, of high, disdainful quality.

"Ain't he a case neow to describe anything in natur'?" joyfully reiterated Captain Leezur to Uncle Coffin.

Uncle Coffin, with his hands on his knees, shook his head at me, finding no words quite to the mark.

"Dodrabbit ye!" said he; "you sly young dog, you!"

"That's what I tell him!" rippled the deep-gurgling brook of Captain Leezur's voice; "we're jest like nateral twin-brothers. Only," he added tenderly and gravely, "he ain't nigh so ongodly as I use' ter be."

"Ongodly! Why, dodrabbit ye, Leezur!" said this native Artichoke, "ye never done an ongodly thing in yer life—'cept, maybe," he added, "to cuss a little when ye was fishin' for the bucket."

"'Specially," said Captain Leezur intelligently, "when the women folks has been thar afore ye, r'ilin' the water and jabbin' of her furder deown."

Uncle Coffin gave me an irresistible but a loving and true, not a malicious, wink.

"Speakin' o' women folks, Leezur," said he, "is there any news from Lot's wife?"

Captain Leezur cleared the mellow symphonies of those organs through which he intoned his speech; and was about to reply, fully and sweetly, when Captain Pharo made his appearance at the door.

Uncle Coffin sprang from his chair, and with a grave face, which only later broke out into those beams of affection which were storming his bosom, shook him violently by the collar, dragged him across the floor, and set him in a chair by the fireplace with a loud, conclusive thump.

"Dodrabbit ye, man!" said he, "I hain't heered your voice since I was a baby."

Captain Pharo, with a countenance full of delight and sympathy, pulled his ruffled jacket down nearer to the waist line, and lit his pipe.

"Dodrabbit ye, Pharo!" continued Uncle Coffin, and turned from his pet to me with another wink, "what are yer days like now? They ain't like the grass, are they? I b'lieve they are, jest like the same old grass, or like the morning flower, the blighting wind sweeps o'er. She withers in an'—why don't ye never finish on 'er out, Pharo? Why don't ye never ring the last note on 'er—eh?"

"Because, Coffin," said Captain Pharo, with a smile of deep meaning, "because thar's so many things that when they're onct finished they 're completely done for in this world; eat a meal o' vittles and thar 's the end on't; smoke a pipe an' she runs dead; I like t' have one thing left over. I like to feel, Coffin, by clam! 't thar's somethin' 't thar ain't go'n' to be no end on!"

Uncle Coffin had been studying him attentively, with his hands on his knees.

"Kobbe," said he, "you're a philosoffarer."

Captain Pharo wiggled uneasily.

"I don't say hippopotamar nor rhinosossarer," said Uncle Coffin; "I say philosoffarer."

Captain Pharo drew a strange breath of relief.

"Mebbe we're a little alike in that respec'," Captain Leezur assured him deliciously; "'cept 't he ain't nigh so ongodly as I use' ter be."

"I don' know," said Captain Pharo. "I have worked sometimes, Sundays—poo! poo! hohum!—but not 'less 'twas somethin' 'mportant, gettin' in hay or somethin' like that. And I have—poo! poo! hohum! Wal, wal—hauled out my lobster car sometimes Sundays waitin' for the smack—hohum!"

"Pharo," said Uncle Coffin, holding up his finger, "no more! I know ye. Thar ain't an ongodly bone in yer body—'cept maybe when ye've lost yer pipe an' cussed a little."

"An' the women folks wants to haul ye over somewhar's on a flat sea to have yer gol darn pictur' took!" said Captain Pharo, with poignant recollection of a still unquiet grief.

"Kobbe," said Uncle Coffin, "no more!"

"'I know not why I love her, The fair an' beau'chus she; She bro't the cuss upon me, Und'neath the apple-tree: But she asked me for my jack knife, And halved 'er squar' with me, Sence all'as lovely woman Gives the biggest half to thee.'"

"Judah's wife writ that," exclaimed Captain Pharo, with a generic awe of poetry as poetry.

"She did," said Uncle Coffin, with eyes appreciative of the muse fixed gravely on the fire, "she did."

There was a daughter of Eve who was treating me very severely.

Instead of the old encouraging smile and gleam of merry recognition or sympathy in her eyes, there was now an averted gaze, bent very brightly, it seemed, on every one but me; in that direction alone, a studied coldness, a haughty carriage of the head. What could I expect?—but it broke my heart.

I subscribed silently to the mood of Belle O'Neill, whose mind was subject to vagaries, and who in the midst of the gay company was playing weird, plaintive "revival" tunes upon the mouth-harp, enthusiastically absorbed in her art.

Her mistress, Miss Pray, who notably for some time had been receiving the attentions of Pershal, the man who had been in California, had withdrawn with him, with tacit understanding of apologies, to the kitchen, where they were carrying on their courting, as all good Basins should, undisturbed.

The young people were playing a game of forfeits. I heard Vesty's penalty pronounced; it was, to go and put her hand upon "the handsomest man in the room."

She began to move, with her lovely, erect head and brilliant, averted smile, toward the fireplace. Surely she would not put any ignominy or mockery upon me—ah, no! I knew in my heart. But she came nearer, and I gazed, spellbound; and then she bowed her beautiful head with a tender, laughing smile, and laid her hand on Captain Leezur's shoulder.

"Here!" she said.

Oh, how he laughed! Robins by the brook, and sun-sparkles.

"That 's right, Vesty!" he exclaimed; "that 's right, darlin'. Come and kile yourself areound them 't 's got some feelin's!"

He winked at Captain Pharo and Uncle Coffin. The sweet girl blushed disdainfully—for some one—and, with a lingering touch on the dear man's shoulder, went away.

"I've all'as been kiled over a good deal," explained Captain Leezur gently, with a smile the subtlety of which he sought in a measure to hide.

"And we mustn't forgit," he added, "that thar 's a time for all things under the sun. Thar 's a time to be a bean-pole and thar 's a time to kile."

He winked at me; fearing that I had not understood, he winked still broader; then, moving his back toward his two companions, he directed full upon me a wink so vast and expressive that I endeavored at once to signify my enlightenment by replying in kind; but, unpractised as I was in the art, I could only infer what the unlovely aspect of my features must have been from the look of sorrowful disgust which immediately thereafter overspread Vesty's own.

But it transpired that that look of disgust was not for me. It was for Belle O'Neill, who, moved by another inspiration, had thoughtfully abandoned her mouth-harp to creep through the surreptitious channel of the wood-box and learn how Miss Pray and Pershal were progressing in their courting.

She returned with a face of excitement.

"Be they j'indin' hands, or anything like that?" we asked.

"No," said Belle O'Neill: "he told 'er winter pears was the pears for him, an' she giv' him a slap an' started down suller to get a dish o' fruit, an' he told 'er when she come back he was goin' ter tell her a story 't he hadn't never told or dreamed o' tellin' to anybody but her; he said he'd all'as kep' it to himself, 'cause folks 't hadn't been in Californy was ign'runt an' env'ous, an' wouldn't believe nothin' 't was told 'em, but he guessed she loved him well enough to b'lieve it; an' he said the name of it was 'The Story o' the Sacred Cow!'"

On uttering these words with a countenance of feverish eagerness and expectation, Belle O'Neill unhesitatingly turned and crept back through the passage.

Not long afterward I found myself lifted bodily over into the wood-box, and guided by the silent wake of Captain Pharo's pipe before, and entreated gently by Uncle Coffin from behind, I crawled to the little store-room adjoining the kitchen.

The door was slightly ajar; and with whatever shame I have only to record that I stood with delectation by this door and waited for the Man-Who-had-Been-in-California to tell "The Story of the Sacred Cow."

"Arter all, Jane," said he, plunging his knife into a choice pear, "you'd orter seen the winter fruit we use' ter have in Californy!"

Miss Fray's face fell. We heard Captain Pharo groan silently; moreover, his pipe had gone out, and he dared not relight it.

"I thought you was goin' to tell a new one—about the Sacred Cow?" said Miss Pray.

"So I will, Jane," said Pershal; "but the fact is, it 's sech a true, sech a solemn an' myster'ous thing, that I fa'rly dread to tackle it!"

Belle O'Neill would have gasped, had she dared. She kicked the calf of my lame leg convulsively instead.

"Thar's been a great many stories," continued Pershal, "about sacred cows. Folks has claimed t' seen 'em. Circuses has claimed t' had 'em: but the fact, an' the solemn fact, is, thar wa'n't never but one Sacred Cow, and that was raised on my farm in Californy.

"She was white, and nothin' monst'ous, jest about the size of an ordinary cow"—Captain Pharo drew an inaudible sigh of relief—"it was the intellex of her and the sacredness; wal, the go-to-meet'n-ness of her, as ye might say, that was so monst'ous an' so strange that I trem'le to call it up ag'in; but I've promised, an' I will."

Belle O'Neill, pale in the darkness, stifled another gasp.

"She wa'n't nothin' byordinar' as a calf; run an' gambil around with the other calves, bunt everythin', an' shake her heels out with the sinfullest. It was when she got to be a cow, and a old cow, that these here ructions o' sacredness, as ye might say, begun to develop themselves in her.

"First I knew, she wouldn't eat nothin': we warmed her mess an' we salted it; no, nothin' 'u'd do. We tried all manner o' gimcracks an' fussin' with her. Finally says Jim—my man—say she: 'Perhaps she's the Sacred Cow,' says he, laffin', an' went in an' got a hymn-book an' sot it up afore her, and"—Belle O'Neill shivered—"what does the old cow do but pitch in and eat her mess regalar! Minit we took that hymn-book away or shet it up, she'd stop eatin'."

Captain Pharo and Uncle Coffin nudged each other in voiceless agony. I felt, but could not see, the calm irradiance of Captain Leezur's look.

"Then another singalar thing begun to be noticed. All them 't drunk the milk from her was took an' possessed to jine the church! I use' ter send out peddlin' carts o' milk—for my ranch was the biggest in that section—it use' ter be all mixed together in course, an' the smallest elemunt o' that old cow's milk in it made it jest the same as ef 'twas all hern. Sometimes I thought ser'ously whether I hadn't ought to take her and go around an' start seasons o' special interest with her all over the kentry; and then thinks I—no, I'll stay here and I'll let 'em build new churches. So they kep' a-goin' up—three new Baptis', four new Methodis', in a month's time."

Captain Leezur was softly but strenuously sucking a nervine lozenge. I heard Captain Pharo crunching one down stormily, at the same time one was pressed into my hand. "They come high," whispered the beloved voice; "cent apiece, dollar a hunderd, but——"

"But the strangest and singalarest of it all, I didn't find out till 'long toward the last. I was a-milkin' on her one day, an' I spilled the milk accidental, an' I said a word that I hadn't ort'er said. When she heered that she up an' kicked me, an' I give her tail a yank, an' she began to sing——"

Belle O'Neill clutched me by the neck.

"I don' say that she sung as Vesty doos. I don' say that she pernounced the words jest regalar; but as fur as tune goes, she hit the tune right squar' in the bull's eye every time. She sung:

"'From Greenlan's icy mountings, From Injy's coral stran', Whar Aferk's sunny fountings Roll down their goldin' san';'"

And when she got as fur as that"—Pershall showed evidences of lively distress—"she keeled right over an' died."

"You've heered o' the tewn 't the old cow died on? Wal, that 's whar it all started, Jane; right thar. That was the very cow and the very event. It was my old cow that died."

"Give me sea-room here, by clam!" muttered Captain Pharo, shooting his arms about.

"Ef I b'lieved in gho's, I sh'd say 't your but'ry was harnted, Jane," came from the kitchen the solemn and shifty voice of the Man-Who-had-Been-in-California: "le's step around by the outside way to the door whar the folks is. Jest look at the stars, Jane," he continued, when they were safe out. "See anythin' o' my old cow up in the Milky Way? Down in the southern latitude, whar I was, the Milky Way use' ter be so plain some nights 't ye could see——"

We lost it in the distance, as we returned, by the honorable and legitimate highway now offered us, to the guest-room. "I never keered so much about money in the bank," said Uncle Coffin, giving me a nudge; "all 't I ever as't for was luck!"

But I yearned in secret to know the developments of the Milky Way; especially as the length of time absorbed by Pershal and Miss Pray in walking between the two doors advised me with an only too tragic hint of the marvel and interest I had lost.

I could not wonder that Vesty was now loftier toward me than ever. Uncle Coffin, Captain Pharo, Captain Leezur and I kept close together as a sort of brazen and disgraceful community. Uncle Coffin, having to retrace his steps to Artichoke, was the first to leave the party.

"I can't tell ye, Miss Pray," said he, "how much I've enjiyed the evenin'—no, honest, I can't tell ye!"—he winked at Captain Pharo, who choked and had to resort to song—"but I und'stand thar 's a happy event comin', an' I wish ye jiy; ye know I do!"

As he disappeared down the road he indulged in a continued, loud, and exact imitation of Admiral 'S I Sums-it-up (who was also a justice of the peace, and who married people):

"G'long, ye old fool! Git up, ye old skate!"

At which we all, including Pershal and Miss Pray, laughed inordinately, gazing out into the sweet Basin night; and indeed I was even ready to avow with my life that it was a joke of the extremest savor. Even had all Uncle Coffin's sins been known, he would have been forgiven.

Captain Leezur put on Vesty's shawl for her:

"Sence I'm the han'somest man in the room," he gurgled.

"So you are!" The tender, girlish light of her great eyes was on him; no kind look for me.

"Vesty!" Captain Leezur whispered, but a whisper that could not be dark and secret to save itself; I heard: "why don't ye speak to major? Ye ain't spoke tew words tew him the hull endurin' evenin'."

She darted a dark flash at him too.

"Vesty! Vesty!" said the beloved old man, in that whisper that so thoroughly deceived him—"I know 't I set ye up to this bean-pole business. But it won't dew for both on ye to be bean-poles. One or the other on ye 's got to kile. Neow, Vesty, ye know 't major 's got some misfortin's in his looks 't makes him beound to be preoud; ye wouldn't have him other ways. Ye see, Vesty, he don't know 't——"

She stopped him with a haughty look.

"An' in course," said he, "I don't know, neither. But it dews make me feel dreadful t' think I've started sech a rank bean-pole farm as this, when I've all'as told ye, my little gal, 't we'd ort'er use moderation"—Captain Leezur wiped his blessed shining eyes—"moderation in all things, even in passnips—I have said—an' neow I change it to bean-poles."

Vesty's mouth quivered; her eyes looked fit to enfold the whole sinful world for his sake.

"Good-night, major!" she said coldly; but she had spoken. And, beautiful and tall, she passed out of sight.

As Captain Leezur turned to me, in spite of the dark duplicity of his conduct toward me, my heart gushed out to him unawares. I grasped his hand silently.



XXV

IN THE LANE

I met her on the morrow in the lane. She would have passed me with a mere morning salutation, but I spoke to her. "I will tell the story at least," I thought, "before I go away."

"Vesty," said I timidly. Even the handsomest of the Basins were timid in putting the question; and I, so miserable, and believing it not to be a question at all, but only a confession, was choking.

"Yes, sir," said Vesty, with reassuring meekness, but there was something wicked about her mouth and eyes. O Vesty, had you been of the world I fear you would have been a sad one!

"What did you mean," said I, starting in wise Basin fashion, at a millennium distance from the intended point, "what did you mean, the other night, when you said that you wished I had a mother?"

"Oh, because we all need them, for comfort—and then, sometimes—for correction."

"And which did you think that I needed one for?"

Vesty turned her sheathed eyes away toward the safe west with a smile that gave me no other answer.

"It is lifting to be a glorious day," I said.

"If you want to talk about the weather," rippled the girl's voice, quite gently, "why don't you go and sit on the log with Captain Leezur? He rolled down another this morning."

"I am going," I sighed. "What do you think he would tell me about the weather?"

"What we all say: 'The wind's canting in from the west, and you'll see this fog hop.'"

"It is what I say, and shall say forever, in such a case. 'The wind's canting in from the west, and you'll see this fog hop.'"

"You only pretend to be a Basin!"

"God forgive you! No; I don't pretend. I shall never get over it. I shall be one forever and ever, wherever I go, Vesty."

She looked down and paled. "Are you going away, major?"

"Yes." Then said I, looking at her, "How far do you think pity could lead one, Vesty—you, so pitiful and kind? Do you think that it could even lead you—to marry me? To take little Gurd and go away with me—and help me to live—for pity?"

"No! oh, no!" she gasped.

"Then," said I, grasping hard on my cane with my feeble hand, "as God wills!"

"Because," said Vesty, "I'm not so unselfish as that. I can't marry you for that reason—because—I love you!"

The red of the Basin sunset, that would be by and by unsurpassed, glowed in her cheeks.

As for me—forever a Basin—I dashed my hand across my eyes. A Voice above land and sea rolled toward me in that moment, through her voice, in gathering waves that covered all the pitiful accident and despair of a maimed, halting, birth-marked universe:

"And the crooked places shall be made straight; and the rough places plain. Then shall the lame man leap as an hart."



XXVI

JUST THE SCHOOL-HOUSE

Waves, slowly, softly breaking, not on the Basin shore: though ever, in remotest lands, we dream of that.

We hold it mystic more and more, for love of it!—ay, we have it mingled in our thoughts with that one safe and sweet possession, the Land unspoken, the Basin whose colors dawn at eventide!

And we never count: "Such an one was lost," and, "Such an one was living, when we knew." For there, there are none lost. They live again!

I suggested once that we should build a house fitting those grand sea-cliffs, sometimes to occupy it.

But Vesty, ever wise, was silent, troubled, and I read her thought.

No, we should introduce no discordant element there, of liveries and servants, and riches and seclusive walls, of mine and thine.

"Mine is thine if thou needest it," was ever the Basin code: "even my life!" Before such a spirit the admission of worldly wealth and rank were tawdry.

But Vesty communicates with them (dear to me when they arrive are the stamps unutterably erased by Lunette's faithful art): and we know that they are happier for us, and by us comforted.

And do I never blush for Vesty in her new position? Ay, a thousand times, for pride and joy! Her manners are from a high source indeed; you will not find me any that are higher.

Full are her hands of charity and mercy, given, as the great Founder of our nobilities gave, without stooping, of condescension. Saint Vesta! who gives a glory to my name it never had before—the high and noble lady of my house!

And love makes, as fully as may be in this world, security about her steps, which yet it would not hamper.

Driven in her state carriage, robed in velvet and sable, she is royal; yet not so queenly, not so matchless, as when walking, pitiful, lonely, and strong against misfortune, by the Basin shores, with her child upheld upon her arm, and the old shawl.

One evening I found her by the window, gazing out wistfully where the wind was tossing the rain, which ceased now and then in strange intermittent gusts, still wild of the tempest.

She looked up at me with a smile, trustful, but earnest and pathetic.

"I want to go out in the storm," she said.

"Then go, child," I answered her. "Your possessions are wide, and, as we of the Basin say, you are not made of sugar, to melt; neither," I added, "are you like Lot's wife."

She showed her fine teeth over that old tender and beloved reminiscence, but the wistful look, and sad, was still in her eyes.

"And—I would like to put on the old shawl again, just this once," she said.

"Oh," said I, "that is another thing. That is priceless, and I have it, as you know, locked among my treasures. Still, this once, yes." And I brought it to her.

Still smiling at me, as pleading for her fancy, she held it at her throat as of old.

I made haste to resume my reading with seeming preoccupation apart, for I thought she wished to go alone.

"Aren't you coming?" said she, wistfully again, and paled and turned to me.

The look in her eyes—she wanted me! Oh, how my heart leaped—a trick taught it at the Basin, which now it will never get over.

But, sly as Captain Leezur, I hid my delight in the folds of my great overcoat.

Long we walked together. "What inspired you to this? This is best of all," I said.

"Why?" said Vesty, glowing and beautiful.

"Because now I see again that you are 'Vesty.' And my Lady of M—— was a possible dream always. But Vesty seemed unattainable.

"That rose color," I added, looking at her cheeks, "I never saw anywhere except at certain sunsets—you know where."

For we of the Basin—however wilfully inclined sometimes, as Captain Pharo—at heart bow down to our wives, and make love to them, long, long after we are married: quite, indeed, until death do us part, as all true Basins should.

"Paul!" said Vesty. Now "Paul" was really my name, with considerable before and after it, but never mind all that.

"Paul!"

"Well?" I said.

Confused with the rose-color blushes: "I forgot," she murmured, "what I was going to say."

No, she had not forgotten it! Her face was eloquent; only she cannot talk with that fluency with which she can look beautiful and sigh. Especially when she would express anything of deep feeling, she has a way of brushing a speck of dust from my right shoulder, and letting her hand rest there a moment, that tells me worlds, but would not go for much, I admit, on a smart female rostrum.

But "Paul!" that voice creeps to me at all times, for counsel, for sympathy; comes impulsively, that is the best of it—comes ever impulsively. I do not know why I am so blessed among my fellows! Just as the lad comes to me—he, too, of the highest breeding. I never saw a look of wonder or shrinking on his face; and once, in an illness that he had he clung to me, cried for me, even above his mother.

I gave my heart to him then. When a sick child, with a mother like Vesty, turns and clings to one—well, it is like to set one up.

He quotes me, refers to me, defends me, apes all my mannerisms, and struts with them proudly as clear legal type and documentary evidence.

He has my name, Gurdon "Paul," with the rest: he is my heir. Handsome, stalwart, as our race has notably been; loving, generous, fearless, all that the world can give him will be his besides; tutors, splendors, wide, luxurious travel, the entrance to glittering courts—only, God grant that he may find just the Basin at last!—the true, the pitiful, the pure of heart: that he may come up to the stature of his father, who knew but one plain path, and that the royal one; who, in the battle with fear and death, was greater than the storm.

So, often in rich and high cathedrals with Vesty by my side, the organ has but to peal forth plaintively, and those stately, emblematic windows fade away to others, broken, swaying in the wind, and the roar of the tides comes in, and high above the great clouds pass wondrously.

And I think how the Christ, painted in purple and crimson glories in these walls, and before whose image the hosts bow down, was a poor Basin of the Basins, in His birth and in His death; who had never a sure pillow, and who minded all woes save His own.

And above the written scroll of the preacher I hear the old prophetic voice, how "not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called." . . .

Vesty walks this new way with me, that was not of her knowledge or choosing with a patience in any tedious form or imposed convention, far surpassing mine.

Then I tell her that I am only an adopted Basin, and have missed so many of the first important years of good breeding; when I was taught to be only moody, if I would, and solitary and selfish.

Then she turns the rose-color, and her eyes shine on me; and if I have been patient with some vapid visitor, uttering weary commonplaces (longing, oh how infinitely, all the while in my heart, for Captain Leezur and the log!) she comes to me afterward, and leans over me with a caress and says, "That 's a dear Basin!"

Thus I observe always my lady's rank, and am happy when she exalts me to it.

Sometimes in dark hours, when gigantic shadows, unexplained, oppress heart and soul——lo! the "Boys" play softly to us once again upon instruments above our art, with a touch that thrills above these masters.

We recognize that life is not a draught, either of joy or misery, but a sweet, stern task set us, in a failing tenement; and half between smiles and tears we dream how, to that darkening school-house, when the shadows grow heartbroken and weary, some loving Basin, only great because of the faith that was in him, shall come to lead us home.



THE END