The Country of the Pointed Firs, Sarah Orne Jewett [classic english novels .txt] 📗

“So she’s really gone, and the funeral was up to Lynn!” repeated Mrs. Todd, as if to impress the sad fact upon her mind. “She was some years younger than we be, too. I recollect the first day she ever came to school; ’twas that first year mother sent me inshore to stay with aunt Topham’s folks and get my schooling. You fetched little Louisa to school one Monday mornin’ in a pink dress an’ her long curls, and she set between you an’ me, and got cryin’ after a while, so the teacher sent us home with her at recess.”

“She was scared of seeing so many children about her; there was only her and me and brother John at home then; the older boys were to sea with father, an’ the rest of us wa’n’t born,” explained Mrs. Fosdick. “That next fall we all went to sea together. Mother was uncertain till the last minute, as one may say. The ship was waiting orders, but the baby that then was, was born just in time, and there was a long spell of extra bad weather, so mother got about again before they had to sail, an’ we all went. I remember my clothes were all left ashore in the east chamber in a basket where mother’d took them out o’ my chist o’ drawers an’ left ’em ready to carry aboard. She didn’t have nothing aboard, of her own, that she wanted to cut up for me, so when my dress wore out she just put me into a spare suit o’ John’s, jacket and trousers. I wasn’t but eight years old an’ he was most seven and large of his age. Quick as we made a port she went right ashore an’ fitted me out pretty, but we was bound for the East Indies and didn’t put in anywhere for a good while. So I had quite a spell o’ freedom. Mother made my new skirt long because I was growing, and I poked about the deck after that, real discouraged, feeling the hem at my heels every minute, and as if youth was past and gone. I liked the trousers best; I used to climb the riggin’ with ’em and frighten mother till she said an’ vowed she’d never take me to sea again.”

I thought by the polite absentminded smile on Mrs. Todd’s face this was no new story.

“Little Louisa was a beautiful child; yes, I always thought Louisa was very pretty,” Mrs. Todd said. “She was a dear little girl in those days. She favored your mother; the rest of you took after your father’s folks.”

“We did certain,” agreed Mrs. Fosdick, rocking steadily. “There, it does seem so pleasant to talk with an old acquaintance that knows what you know. I see so many of these new folks nowadays, that seem to have neither past nor future. Conversation’s got to have some root in the past, or else you’ve got to explain every remark you make, an’ it wears a person out.”

Mrs. Todd gave a funny little laugh. “Yes’m, old friends is always best, ’less you can catch a new one that’s fit to make an old one out of,” she said, and we gave an affectionate glance at each other which Mrs. Fosdick could not have understood, being the latest comer to the house.

One evening my ears caught a mysterious allusion which Mrs. Todd made to Shell-heap Island. It was a chilly night of cold northeasterly rain, and I made a fire for the first time in the Franklin stove in my room, and begged my two housemates to come in and keep me company. The weather had convinced Mrs. Todd that it was time to make a supply of cough-drops, and she had been bringing forth herbs from dark and dry hiding-places, until now the pungent dust and odor of them had resolved themselves into one mighty flavor of spearmint that came from a simmering cauldron of syrup in the kitchen. She called it done, and well done, and had ostentatiously left it to cool, and taken her knitting-work because Mrs. Fosdick was busy with hers. They sat in the two rocking-chairs, the small woman and the large one, but now and then I could see that Mrs. Todd’s thoughts remained with the cough-drops. The time of gathering herbs was nearly over, but the time of syrups and cordials had begun.

The heat of the open fire made us a little drowsy, but something in the way Mrs. Todd spoke of Shell-heap Island waked my interest. I waited to see if she would say any more, and then took a roundabout way back to the subject by saying what was first in my mind: that I wished the Green Island family were there to spend the evening with us⁠—Mrs. Todd’s mother and her brother William.

Mrs. Todd smiled, and drummed on the arm of the rocking-chair. “Might scare William to death,” she warned me; and Mrs. Fosdick mentioned her intention of going out to Green Island to stay two or three days, if the wind didn’t make too much sea.

“Where is Shell-heap Island?” I ventured to ask, seizing the opportunity.

“Bears nor-east somewheres about three miles from Green Island; right offshore, I should call it about eight miles out,” said Mrs. Todd. “You never was there, dear; ’tis off the thoroughfares, and a very bad place to land at best.”

“I should think ’twas,” agreed Mrs. Fosdick, smoothing down her black silk apron. “ ’Tis a place worth visitin’ when you once get there. Some o’ the old folks was kind o’ fearful about it. ’Twas ’counted a great place in old Indian times; you can pick up their stone tools ’most any time if you hunt about. There’s a beautiful spring o’ water, too. Yes, I remember when they used to tell queer stories about Shell-heap Island. Some said ’twas a great bangeing-place for the Indians, and an old chief resided there once that ruled the winds; and others said they’d