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

somethin’; and mother got her to promise that she would make some sign to the Black Island folks if she wanted help. I never saw her myself to speak to after that day.”

“I expect nowadays, if such a thing happened, she’d have gone out West to her uncle’s folks or up to Massachusetts and had a change, an’ come home good as new. The world’s bigger an’ freer than it used to be,” urged Mrs. Fosdick.

“No,” said her friend. “ ’Tis like bad eyesight, the mind of such a person: if your eyes don’t see right there may be a remedy, but there’s no kind of glasses to remedy the mind. No, Joanna was Joanna, and there she lays on her island where she lived and did her poor penance. She told mother the day she was dyin’ that she always used to want to be fetched inshore when it come to the last; but she’d thought it over, and desired to be laid on the island, if ’twas thought right. So the funeral was out there, a Saturday afternoon in September. ’Twas a pretty day, and there wa’n’t hardly a boat on the coast within twenty miles that didn’t head for Shell-heap cram-full o’ folks an’ all real respectful, same’s if she’d always stayed ashore and held her friends. Some went out o’ mere curiosity, I don’t doubt⁠—there’s always such to every funeral; but most had real feelin’, and went purpose to show it. She’d got most o’ the wild sparrows as tame as could be, livin’ out there so long among ’em, and one flew right in and lit on the coffin an’ begun to sing while Mr. Dimmick was speakin’. He was put out by it, an’ acted as if he didn’t know whether to stop or go on. I may have been prejudiced, but I wa’n’t the only one thought the poor little bird done the best of the two.”

“What became o’ the man that treated her so, did you ever hear?” asked Mrs. Fosdick. “I know he lived up to Massachusetts for a while. Somebody who came from the same place told me that he was in trade there an’ doin’ very well, but that was years ago.”

“I never heard anything more than that; he went to the war in one o’ the early regiments. No, I never heard any more of him,” answered Mrs. Todd. “Joanna was another sort of person, and perhaps he showed good judgment in marryin’ somebody else, if only he’d behaved straightforward and manly. He was a shifty-eyed, coaxin’ sort of man, that got what he wanted out o’ folks, an’ only gave when he wanted to buy, made friends easy and lost ’em without knowin’ the difference. She’d had a piece o’ work tryin’ to make him walk accordin’ to her right ideas, but she’d have had too much variety ever to fall into a melancholy. Some is meant to be the Joannas in this world, an’ ’twas her poor lot.”

XV On Shell-Heap Island

Some time after Mrs. Fosdick’s visit was over and we had returned to our former quietness, I was out sailing alone with Captain Bowden in his large boat. We were taking the crooked northeasterly channel seaward, and were well out from shore while it was still early in the afternoon. I found myself presently among some unfamiliar islands, and suddenly remembered the story of poor Joanna. There is something in the fact of a hermitage that cannot fail to touch the imagination; the recluses are a sad kindred, but they are never commonplace. Mrs. Todd had truly said that Joanna was like one of the saints in the desert; the loneliness of sorrow will forever keep alive their sad succession.

“Where is Shell-heap Island?” I asked eagerly.

“You see Shell-heap now, layin’ ’way out beyond Black Island there,” answered the captain, pointing with outstretched arm as he stood, and holding the rudder with his knee.

“I should like very much to go there,” said I, and the captain, without comment, changed his course a little more to the eastward and let the reef out of his mainsail.

“I don’t know’s we can make an easy landin’ for ye,” he remarked doubtfully. “May get your feet wet; bad place to land. Trouble is I ought to have brought a tag-boat; but they clutch on to the water so, an’ I do love to sail free. This gre’t boat gets easy bothered with anything trailin’. ’Tain’t breakin’ much on the meetin’-house ledges; guess I can fetch in to Shell-heap.”

“How long is it since Miss Joanna Todd died?” I asked, partly by way of explanation.

“Twenty-two years come September,” answered the captain, after reflection. “She died the same year as my oldest boy was born, an’ the town house was burnt over to the Port. I didn’t know but you merely wanted to hunt for some o’ them Indian relics. Long’s you want to see where Joanna lived⁠—No, ’tain’t breakin’ over the ledges; we’ll manage to fetch across the shoals somehow, ’tis such a distance to go ’way round, and tide’s a-risin’,” he ended hopefully, and we sailed steadily on, the captain speechless with intent watching of a difficult course, until the small island with its low whitish promontory lay in full view before us under the bright afternoon sun.

The month was August, and I had seen the color of the islands change from the fresh green of June to a sunburnt brown that made them look like stone, except where the dark green of the spruces and fir balsam kept the tint that even winter storms might deepen, but not fade. The few wind-bent trees on Shell-heap Island were mostly dead and gray, but there were some low-growing bushes, and a stripe of light green ran along just above the shore, which I knew to be wild morning-glories. As we came close I could see the high stone walls of a small square field, though there were no sheep left to assail it; and