The Country of the Pointed Firs

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"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 absent-minded 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.

XIII

Poor Joanna

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 caldron 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 off-shore, 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
always heard that once the Indians come down from up country an'
left a captive there without any bo't, an' 'twas too far to swim
across to Black Island, so called, an' he lived there till he
perished."

"I've heard say he walked the island after that, and sharp-
sighted folks could see him an' lose him like one o' them citizens
Cap'n Littlepage was acquainted with up to the north pole,"
announced Mrs. Todd grimly. "Anyway, there was Indians--you can
see their shell-heap that named the island; and I've heard myself
that 'twas one o' their cannibal places, but I never could believe
it. There never was no cannibals on the coast o' Maine. All the
Indians o' these regions are tame-looking folks."

"Sakes alive, yes!" exclaimed Mrs. Fosdick. "Ought to see
them painted savages I've seen when I was young out in the South
Sea Islands! That was the time for folks to travel, 'way back in
the old whalin' days!"

"Whalin' must have been dull for a lady, hardly ever makin' a
lively port, and not takin' in any mixed cargoes," said Mrs. Todd.
"I never desired to go a whalin' v'y'ge myself."

"I used to return feelin' very slack an' behind the times,
'tis true," explained Mrs. Fosdick, "but 'twas excitin', an' we
always done extra well, and felt rich when we did get ashore. I
liked the variety. There, how times have changed; how few
seafarin' families there are left! What a lot o' queer folks there
used to be about here, anyway, when we was young, Almiry.
Everybody's just like everybody else, now; nobody to laugh about,
and nobody to cry about."

It seemed to me that there were peculiarities of character in
the region of Dunnet Landing yet, but I did not like to interrupt.

"Yes," said Mrs. Todd after a moment of meditation, "there was
certain a good many curiosities of human natur' in this
neighborhood years ago. There was more energy then, and in some
the energy took a singular turn. In these days the young folks is
all copy-cats, 'fraid to death they won't be all just alike; as for
the old folks, they pray for the advantage o' bein' a little
different."

"I ain't heard of a copy-cat this great many years," said Mrs.
Fosdick, laughing; "'twas a favorite term o' my grandfather's. No,
I wa'n't thinking o' those things, but of them strange straying
creatur's that used to rove the country. You don't see them now,
or the ones that used to hive away in their own houses with some
strange notion or other."

I thought again of Captain Littlepage, but my companions were
not reminded of his name; and there was brother William at Green
Island, whom we all three knew.

"I was talking o' poor Joanna the other day. I hadn't thought
of her for a great while," said Mrs. Fosdick abruptly. "Mis'
Brayton an' I recalled her as we sat together sewing. She was one
o' your peculiar persons, wa'n't she? Speaking of such persons,"
she turned to explain to me, "there was a sort of a nun or hermit
person lived out there for years all alone on Shell-heap Island.
Miss Joanna Todd, her name was,--a cousin o' Almiry's late
husband."

I expressed my interest, but as I glanced at Mrs. Todd I saw
that she was confused by sudden affectionate feeling and
unmistakable desire for reticence.

"I never want to hear Joanna laughed about," she said
anxiously.

"Nor I," answered Mrs. Fosdick reassuringly. "She was crossed
in love,--that was all the matter to begin with; but as I look
back, I can see that Joanna was one doomed from the first to fall
into a melancholy. She retired from the world for good an' all,
though she was a well-off woman. All she wanted was to get away
from folks; she thought she wasn't fit to live with anybody, and
wanted to be free. Shell-heap Island come to her from her father,
and first thing folks knew she'd gone off out there to live, and
left word she didn't want no company. 'Twas a bad place to get to,
unless the wind an' tide were just right; 'twas hard work to make
a landing."

"What time of year was this?" I asked.

"Very late in the summer," said Mrs. Fosdick. "No, I never
could laugh at Joanna, as some did. She set everything by the
young man, an' they were going to marry in about a month, when he
got bewitched with a girl 'way up the bay, and married her, and
went off to Massachusetts. He wasn't well thought of,--there were
those who thought Joanna's money was what had tempted him; but
she'd given him her whole heart, an' she wa'n't so young as she had
been. All her hopes were built on marryin', an' havin' a real home
and somebody to look to; she acted just like a bird when its nest
is spoilt. The day after she heard the news she was in dreadful
woe, but the next she came to herself very quiet, and took the
horse and wagon, and drove fourteen miles to the lawyer's, and
signed a paper givin' her half of the farm to her brother. They
never had got along very well together, but he didn't want to sign
it, till she acted so distressed that he gave in. Edward Todd's
wife was a good woman, who felt very bad indeed, and used every
argument with Joanna; but Joanna took a poor old boat that had been
her father's and lo'ded in a few things, and off she put all
alone, with a good land breeze, right out to sea. Edward Todd ran
down to the beach, an' stood there cryin' like a boy to see her go,
but she was out o' hearin'. She never stepped foot on the mainland
again long as she lived."

"How large an island is it? How did she manage in winter?" I
asked.

"Perhaps thirty acres, rocks and all," answered Mrs. Todd,
taking up the story gravely. "There can't be much of it that the
salt spray don't fly over in storms. No, 'tis a dreadful small
place to make a world of; it has a different look from any of the
other islands, but there's a sheltered cove on the south side, with
mud-flats across one end of it at low water where there's excellent
clams, and the big shell-heap keeps some o' the wind off a little
house her father took the trouble to build when he was a young man.
They said there was an old house built o' logs there before that,
with a kind of natural cellar in the rock under it. He used to
stay out there days to a time, and anchor a little sloop he had,
and dig clams to fill it, and sail up to Portland. They said the
dealers always gave him an extra price, the clams were so noted.
Joanna used to go out and stay with him. They were always great
companions, so she knew just what 'twas out there. There was a few
sheep that belonged to her brother an' her, but she bargained for
him to come and get them on the edge o' cold weather. Yes, she
desired him to come for the sheep; an' his wife thought perhaps
Joanna'd return, but he said no, an' lo'ded the bo't with warm
things an' what he thought she'd need through the winter. He come
home with the sheep an' left the other things by the house, but she
never so much as looked out o' the window. She done it for a
penance. She must have wanted to see Edward by that time."

Mrs. Fosdick was fidgeting with eagerness to speak.

"Some thought the first cold snap would set her ashore, but
she always remained," concluded Mrs. Todd soberly.

"Talk about the men not having any curiosity!" exclaimed Mrs.
Fosdick scornfully. "Why, the waters round Shell-heap Island were
white with sails all that fall. 'Twas never called no great of a
fishin'-ground before. Many of 'em made excuse to go ashore to get
water at the spring; but at last she spoke to a bo't-load, very
dignified and calm, and said that she'd like it better if they'd
make a practice of getting water to Black Island or somewheres else
and leave her alone, except in case of accident or trouble. But
there was one man who had always set everything by her from a boy.
He'd have married her if the other hadn't come about an' spoilt his
chance, and he used to get close to the island, before light, on
his way out fishin', and throw a little bundle way up the green
slope front o' the house. His sister told me she happened to see,
the first time, what a pretty choice he made o' useful
things that a woman would feel lost without. He stood off fishin',
and could see them in the grass all day, though sometimes she'd
come out and walk right by them. There was other bo'ts near, out
after mackerel. But early next morning his present was gone. He
didn't presume too much, but once he took her a nice firkin o'
things he got up to Portland, and when spring come he landed her a
hen and chickens in a nice little coop. There was a good many old
friends had Joanna on their minds."

"Yes," said Mrs. Todd, losing her sad reserve in the growing
sympathy of these reminiscences. "How everybody used to notice
whether there was smoke out of the chimney! The Black Island folks
could see her with their spy-glass, and if they'd ever missed
getting some sign o' life they'd have sent notice to her folks.
But after the first year or two Joanna was more and more forgotten
as an every-day charge. Folks lived very simple in those days, you
know," she continued, as Mrs. Fosdick's knitting was taking much
thought at the moment. "I expect there was always plenty of
driftwood thrown up, and a poor failin' patch of spruces covered
all the north side of the island, so she always had something to
burn. She was very fond of workin' in the garden ashore, and that
first summer she began to till the little field out there, and
raised a nice parcel o' potatoes. She could fish, o' course, and
there was all her clams an' lobsters. You can always live well in
any wild place by the sea when you'd starve to death up country,
except 'twas berry time. Joanna had berries out there,
blackberries at least, and there was a few herbs in case she needed
them. Mullein in great quantities and a plant o' wormwood I
remember seeing once when I stayed there, long before she fled out
to Shell-heap. Yes, I recall the wormwood, which is always a
planted herb, so there must have been folks there before the Todds'
day. A growin' bush makes the best gravestone; I expect that
wormwood always stood for somebody's solemn monument. Catnip, too,
is a very endurin' herb about an old place."

"But what I want to know is what she did for other things,"
interrupted Mrs. Fosdick. "Almiry, what did she do for clothin'
when she needed to replenish, or risin' for her bread, or the
piece-bag that no woman can live long without?"

"Or company," suggested Mrs. Todd. "Joanna was one that loved
her friends. There must have been a terrible sight o' long winter
evenin's that first year."

"There was her hens," suggested Mrs. Fosdick, after reviewing
the melancholy situation. "She never wanted the sheep after that
first season. There wa'n't no proper pasture for sheep after the
June grass was past, and she ascertained the fact and couldn't bear
to see them suffer; but the chickens done well. I remember
sailin' by one spring afternoon, an' seein' the coops out front o'
the house in the sun. How long was it before you went out with the
minister? You were the first ones that ever really got ashore to
see Joanna."

I had been reflecting upon a state of society which admitted
such personal freedom and a voluntary hermitage. There was
something mediaeval in the behavior of poor Joanna Todd under a
disappointment of the heart. The two women had drawn closer
together, and were talking on, quite unconscious of a listener.

"Poor Joanna!" said Mrs. Todd again, and sadly shook her head
as if there were things one could not speak about.

"I called her a great fool," declared Mrs. Fosdick, with
spirit, "but I pitied her then, and I pity her far more now. Some
other minister would have been a great help to her,--one that
preached self-forgetfulness and doin' for others to cure our own
ills; but Parson Dimmick was a vague person, well meanin', but very
numb in his feelin's. I don't suppose at that troubled time Joanna
could think of any way to mend her troubles except to run off and
hide."

"Mother used to say she didn't see how Joanna lived without
having nobody to do for, getting her own meals and tending her own
poor self day in an' day out," said Mrs. Todd sorrowfully.

"There was the hens," repeated Mrs. Fosdick kindly. "I expect
she soon came to makin' folks o' them. No, I never went to work to
blame Joanna, as some did. She was full o' feeling, and her
troubles hurt her more than she could bear. I see it all now as I
couldn't when I was young."

"I suppose in old times they had their shut-up convents for
just such folks," said Mrs. Todd, as if she and her friend had
disagreed about Joanna once, and were now in happy harmony. She
seemed to speak with new openness and freedom. "Oh yes, I was only
too pleased when the Reverend Mr. Dimmick invited me to go out with
him. He hadn't been very long in the place when Joanna left home
and friends. 'Twas one day that next summer after she went, and I
had been married early in the spring. He felt that he ought to go
out and visit her. She was a member of the church, and might wish
to have him consider her spiritual state. I wa'n't so sure o'
that, but I always liked Joanna, and I'd come to be her cousin by
marriage. Nathan an' I had conversed about goin' out to pay her a
visit, but he got his chance to sail sooner'n he expected. He
always thought everything of her, and last time he come home,
knowing nothing of her change, he brought her a beautiful coral pin
from a port he'd touched at somewheres up the Mediterranean. So I
wrapped the little box in a nice piece of paper and put it
in my pocket, and picked her a bunch of fresh lemon balm, and off
we started."

Mrs. Fosdick laughed. "I remember hearin' about your trials
on the v'y'ge," she said."

"Why, yes," continued Mrs. Todd in her company manner. "I
picked her the balm, an' we started. Why, yes, Susan, the minister
liked to have cost me my life that day. He would fasten the sheet,
though I advised against it. He said the rope was rough an' cut
his hand. There was a fresh breeze, an' he went on talking rather
high flown, an' I felt some interested. All of a sudden there come
up a gust, and he gave a screech and stood right up and called for
help, 'way out there to sea. I knocked him right over into the
bottom o' the bo't, getting by to catch hold of the sheet an' untie
it. He wasn't but a little man; I helped him right up after the
squall passed, and made a handsome apology to him, but he did act
kind o' offended."

"I do think they ought not to settle them landlocked folks in
parishes where they're liable to be on the water," insisted Mrs.
Fosdick. "Think of the families in our parish that was scattered
all about the bay, and what a sight o' sails you used to see, in
Mr. Dimmick's day, standing across to the mainland on a pleasant
Sunday morning, filled with church-going folks, all sure to want
him some time or other! You couldn't find no doctor that would
stand up in the boat and screech if a flaw struck her."

"Old Dr. Bennett had a beautiful sailboat, didn't he?"
responded Mrs. Todd. "And how well he used to brave the weather!
Mother always said that in time o' trouble that tall white sail
used to look like an angel's wing comin' over the sea to them that
was in pain. Well, there's a difference in gifts. Mr. Dimmick was
not without light."

"'Twas light o' the moon, then," snapped Mrs. Fosdick; "he was
pompous enough, but I never could remember a single word he said.
There, go on, Mis' Todd; I forget a great deal about that day you
went to see poor Joanna."

"I felt she saw us coming, and knew us a great way off; yes,
I seemed to feel it within me," said our friend, laying down her
knitting. "I kept my seat, and took the bo't inshore without
saying a word; there was a short channel that I was sure Mr.
Dimmick wasn't acquainted with, and the tide was very low. She
never came out to warn us off nor anything, and I thought, as I
hauled the bo't up on a wave and let the Reverend Mr. Dimmick step
out, that it was somethin' gained to be safe ashore. There was a
little smoke out o' the chimney o' Joanna's house, and it did look
sort of homelike and pleasant with wild mornin'-glory vines trained
up; an' there was a plot o' flowers under the front window,
portulacas and things. I believe she'd made a garden once,
when she was stopping there with her father, and some things must
have seeded in. It looked as if she might have gone over to the
other side of the island. 'Twas neat and pretty all about the
house, and a lovely day in July. We walked up from the beach
together very sedate, and I felt for poor Nathan's little pin to
see if 'twas safe in my dress pocket. All of a sudden Joanna come
right to the fore door and stood there, not sayin' a word."

XIV

The Hermitage

MY COMPANION and I had been so intent upon the subject of the
conversation that we had not heard any one open the gate, but at
this moment, above the noise of the rain, we heard a loud knocking.
We were all startled as we sat by the fire, and Mrs. Todd rose
hastily and went to answer the call, leaving her rocking-chair in
violent motion. Mrs. Fosdick and I heard an anxious voice at the
door speaking of a sick child, and Mrs. Todd's kind, motherly voice
inviting the messenger in: then we waited in silence. There was a
sound of heavy dropping of rain from the eaves, and the distant
roar and undertone of the sea. My thoughts flew back to the lonely
woman on her outer island; what separation from humankind she must
have felt, what terror and sadness, even in a summer storm like
this!

"You send right after the doctor if she ain't better in half
an hour," said Mrs. Todd to her worried customer as they parted;
and I felt a warm sense of comfort in the evident resources of even
so small a neighborhood, but for the poor hermit Joanna there was
no neighbor on a winter night.

"How did she look?" demanded Mrs. Fosdick, without preface, as
our large hostess returned to the little room with a mist about her
from standing long in the wet doorway, and the sudden draught of
her coming beat out the smoke and flame from the Franklin stove.
"How did poor Joanna look?"

"She was the same as ever, except I thought she looked
smaller," answered Mrs. Todd after thinking a moment; perhaps it
was only a last considering thought about her patient.
"Yes, she was just the same, and looked very nice, Joanna did. I
had been married since she left home, an' she treated me like her
own folks. I expected she'd look strange, with her hair turned
gray in a night or somethin', but she wore a pretty gingham dress
I'd often seen her wear before she went away; she must have kept it
nice for best in the afternoons. She always had beautiful, quiet
manners. I remember she waited till we were close to her, and then
kissed me real affectionate, and inquired for Nathan before she
shook hands with the minister, and then she invited us both in.
'Twas the same little house her father had built him when he was a
bachelor, with one livin'-room, and a little mite of a bedroom out
of it where she slept, but 'twas neat as a ship's cabin. There was
some old chairs, an' a seat made of a long box that might have held
boat tackle an' things to lock up in his fishin' days, and a good
enough stove so anybody could cook and keep warm in cold weather.
I went over once from home and stayed 'most a week with Joanna when
we was girls, and those young happy days rose up before me. Her
father was busy all day fishin' or clammin'; he was one o' the
pleasantest men in the world, but Joanna's mother had the grim
streak, and never knew what 'twas to be happy. The first minute my
eyes fell upon Joanna's face that day I saw how she had grown to
look like Mis' Todd. 'Twas the mother right over again."

"Oh dear me!" said Mrs. Fosdick.

"Joanna had done one thing very pretty. There was a little
piece o' swamp on the island where good rushes grew plenty, and
she'd gathered 'em, and braided some beautiful mats for the floor
and a thick cushion for the long bunk. She'd showed a good deal of
invention; you see there was a nice chance to pick up pieces o'
wood and boards that drove ashore, and she'd made good use o' what
she found. There wasn't no clock, but she had a few dishes on a
shelf, and flowers set about in shells fixed to the walls, so it
did look sort of homelike, though so lonely and poor. I couldn't
keep the tears out o' my eyes, I felt so sad. I said to myself, I
must get mother to come over an' see Joanna; the love in mother's
heart would warm her, an' she might be able to advise."

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