Read Ebook: Wits' End by Blanchard Amy Ella Bridgman L J Lewis Jesse Illustrator

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Ebook has 1508 lines and 77133 words, and 31 pages

"It looks real nice," said Miss Phosie admiringly. "I'll go stir up the cake. I guess I can get one in before dinner."

"You go help her, Ora," commanded the girl's grandfather. "I guess Phenie can spare you now."

"I did want her to help me make the bed," said Miss Phenie, a round-faced, rather stout woman, who must have been good looking in her youth, but who, like most of the women on the island, had aged early. Those who had not faded had grown heavy and hard featured. Miss Phosie preserved her gentle expression, but exposure and hard work had seamed the delicate skin and turned the slimness of youth to angularity. Miss Phenie loved ease and was not inclined to do more than she must, therefore she had grown stout, but the sparkling prettiness of youth had given place to a certain coldness of eye and sensuousness of mouth which indicated the growth of selfishness. But for the authority of Cap'n Ben Miss Phosie would have been more put upon than she was.

"Go on, Ora," said her grandfather, as the girl hesitated. "If Phosie has two cakes to bake, she'll need two pairs of hands, and I cal'late one woman's enough to make one bed."

So Ora joined Miss Phosie in the kitchen. She, like her younger aunt, was fair-haired and blue-eyed, with the milk-white skin and delicately tinted cheeks of the northern girl. She was but sixteen and was already ambitious to have "a waist you could span." She therefore wore a belt several inches too small for beauty, unaware that such compression was out of fashion. Her hair was arranged in the extremest of pompadours, but, alas! among her possessions she did not count a toothbrush as her innocent mouth only too plainly evidenced. However since most of her companions were no more particular than herself, she did not realize how much her looks suffered because of her neglect.

Miss Phosie looked up with a smile as her niece came in. "Could Phenie spare you?" she asked.

"She had to. Grandpap said I was to help you."

"That's real nice," said Miss Phosie gratefully. "You just cream the butter and sugar together in this bowl and I'll get the eggs. I must get out my pies first. I hope the cake will turn out firstrate so's the boarders will be satisfied."

"I guess they'll have to be," returned Ora with a little toss of her head. "Nobody asked them to come."

"Now Ora, that ain't the right spirit," reproved Miss Phosie. "They'll pay for what they get, and we hadn't ought to take their money without making a proper return. That would be next door to stealing."

"That's not the way Aunt Phenie talks," answered Ora. "She says if we put ourselves out to accommodate them they'd ought to be satisfied with what they can get."

"We ain't putting ourselves out so very much, and if we are we're doing it in order to earn their money," replied Miss Phosie. "I guess they'll be satisfied, and I don't see the use of talking in that stiff-necked way. The niece will be nice company for you, Ora."

"She won't be then," returned Ora with a quick movement of her spoon. "I can get along without the Highlanders as well as they can without me."

"You hadn't ought to talk that way, Ora," Miss Phosie continued her reproof. "I realize that us natives haven't so much in common with city folks, and yet I'm perfectly willing to be polite to them when they are to me. I haven't a doubt but what they'd treat us well if we went to where they live. I don't believe in being so stand-offish as some are."

Ora made no reply but continued to stir the butter and sugar vigorously.

"We don't know their ways and they don't know ours," Miss Phosie went on, "and while maybe we can't be as intimate with them as we can be with those we've been brought up with, I don't see why we can't be polite and friendly like your grandpap is. Everybody likes and respects him."

"I don't want to be liked and respected except by them I like and respect," retorted Ora obstinately.

"There comes Zerviah Hackett," said Miss Phosie. "She'll want to know everything I suppose. Well, I can't stop to talk. She'll have to go to Phenie."

Miss Zerviah Hackett was the newsmonger of the place. Not an ill-natured gossip at all; quite the contrary, but nothing went on that her vigilant eye did not observe; nothing was planned about which she did not have an opinion. They were often good opinions too, just as her advice was good, and her views of life sound. But, as Miss Phosie often plaintively said: "Zerviah can't even see you darn a stocking without telling you how it ought to be done." Miss Hackett was not the sharp-eyed, angular woman her name would suggest, but was plump and fair, though possessed of a voice which shrilled out like a steamboat whistle, in striking contrast to the unusually pleasant tones of her neighbors. She was a small person, though one whose presence could not be ignored. She now entered the kitchen without knocking,--all had that privilege when they came to Cap'n Ben's,--and throwing off her shawl, she began: "Busy getting ready for your boarders, are you, Phosie? Well, I hear they're coming to-day. I hope Thad Eaton won't be sot by the ears when Miss Elliott gets here. He does hate to have women folks interfering while he's building. It's going to be a right sightly cottage, he says, but I could have told Miss Elliott she'd be kept awake nights by the noise, so near the water."

"She's been here before. She knows what it's like, Zerviah," said Miss Phosie.

"Yes, but she didn't realize it, like as not. She's going to have her front door facing east'ard, too, and she'll regret that, I know."

"I don't see why," returned Miss Phosie.

"Now, Tryphosy Tibbett, you know the storms come that way, and the rain'll beat in, and the wind."

"She won't be here in winter, and it won't matter much in summer."

"Of course it will matter. Well, it ain't my business, I suppose; but I do hate to see things going wrong when they could be bettered. What you making, Ora?"

"Cake," was the laconic reply.

"You've got gingerbread, too, I see. Going to give 'em both? What kind you making?"

Ora told her.

"Well, I s'pose you're bound to feed 'em good, but as long as they ain't going to stay any longer than they can get into their own house, I don't see the odds. Thad cal'lates they'll be in by the middle of June, but I s'pose you know that. He says they'd ought to have had their well dug first, and I say so, too. Ten to one they won't strike water."

"Asa Bates was up with his willow wand and he prophesies they'll get a plenty," Miss Phosie told her.

"Well, I don't gainsay it, but they'll have to board up their windows whilst the men are blowing the well."

"I hear they ain't going to begin the well till fall. They'll use Miss Grey's well this summer. She's given them leave."

"That so? Then maybe they can make out, but I'd have had my well before I did my house. Got the room ready for 'em?"

"Yes, Phenie is in there now."

"Then I'll go look at it. I won't get another chance, maybe." And Miss Zerviah went confidently through to the best room, leaving Miss Phosie and Ora with smiles on their faces and glad to be free of their inquisitive caller.

THE COTTAGE

The small steamer, after winding a tortuous way from island to island, at last turned into the little cove, which made a safe harbor for the fishermen of Fielding's Island. There were not many passengers at this time of year, and there were, in consequence, few lookers-on at the landing. Ira Baldwin, who combined the offices of shopkeeper and postmaster, was there to receive the mail-bag. Manny Green hung around ready for a jest with the purser. Cap'n Ben with his dog Tinker at his heels, loomed up a conspicuous figure to welcome the arriving guests. These stood on the deck waiting for the gang-plank to be thrown across to the wharf. As the tide was up it made a steep descent for Miss Elliott who crept down cautiously followed by her niece, Gwendolin Whitredge, coming at a more fearless pace. Cap'n Ben's big hand was there to give assistance at the last, and his cheery voice was the first to greet the two.

"Got here all right, didn't ye? Right hawndsome day, ain't it? Give me them traps. I'll lug 'em for ye."

"I can carry them," spoke up Gwen.

The captain turned his twinkling blue eyes upon her, and gave a quick sideway jerk of his head. "Ain't going to le' ye. Women-folks has petticoats to manage."

"Cap'n Ben, this is my niece, Gwendolin Whitredge," said Miss Elliott hastening to give the introduction which had been wanting before.

"That's what I cal'lated she was," came the reply. "Didn't guess you'd changed your mind and brought another gal along. Wal, Miss Elliott, your cawtage is gettin' on. They've begun to shingle. Guess you're glad of that."

"I am indeed. Will it be ready for us in time, do you think, Cap'n Ben?"

"Don't take long to run 'em up, and when they git her roofed in the weather don't make much difference. Pretty warm down your way?" He turned with a smile to Gwen.

"It does beat all how you city folks always want to get close to the water," said Cap'n Ben. "I like to keep as far away from all that bellerin' as I can, but here you go climbing over rawks, spending your time watching waves, dragging in all sorts of stuff and sticking it up in your houses. Why, last year somebody actually wanted one of my old fish nets to hang up inside. Looked crazy enough when she got it there, too, but I let her have it. I cal'lated it pleased her and didn't hurt me."

Gwen laughed. "I can fancy it was very artistic," she said.

"I know a man who gets five hundred dollars for the smallest of his pictures," said Gwen, "and for the big ones he gets several thousand."

The captain cast his shrewd eyes upon her, and gave a chuckle. "You think mine's too big a fish story, do ye? and you're going to get ahead of me. All right, I'll believe you when I see the checks."

They had reached the white house by this time. The vines climbing up the trellis at the side were putting forth young buds. Small green shoots were beginning to appear in the garden which covered the southern slope of the hill. Beyond the slope groups of fir trees stretched their pointed tips toward the sky. Upon the hummocky ground which undulated between the stile and the sea, the brown reaches of grass were giving place to a tender emerald-hued growth, violet-strewn in patches. Upon the gray lichen-covered rocks which had failed to gather sufficient soil for a holding of grass roots, a few fugitive strawberry plants had lodged, and were already combining their green of leaf and red of stem with the soft neutral tints surrounding them. Further away the line of cottages faced the sea which sparkled and danced in the afternoon light. The sound of hammers coming from the most distant of the cottages betokened the carpenters at work. Mingled with this staccato was the rush of waves beating against the rocky shore, but above all was the sweetly insistent note of a song-sparrow, "sitting alone on the housetop."

Gwen looked around and breathed a long sigh. "Now I know how beautiful it is," she said. "I'd like to explore it all at once. How can I wait?"

"There is plenty of time," returned her aunt, as they followed the captain into the house.

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