The Opened Shutters Part 30

"The pound?" Sylvia stared in wonder. "Do you lose cows every day?"

"Cows! What ye talkin' abaout?"

"Why, you said pound. That's for lost cows and dogs, isn't it?"

Cap'n Lem stared a moment, and then cackled merrily.

"So 'tis, some places," he answered. "Geewhitaker! I must tell Lucil that!" His eyes disappeared. When he could open them again he went on: "I never give a thought to that afore. My pound's a net aout in the fis.h.i.+n' ground; an' I go an' haul it every mornin'."

"Oh, may I go with you some time?" asked Sylvia eagerly.

"Sure ye kin." Cap'n Lem slapped his leg and burst forth again. "Haw, haw, haw, Sylvy. Mebbe we'll find some lost sea cows and dogfish caught out there. No knowin'. Well, anyway, I'm glad to see sech a change come over a gal in a few weeks as there has over you. Yes, indeed, you'll be gittin' up in the mornin' some day. It beats all how folks kin stay in bed. I've took garden sa.s.s to the Derwents' to Hawk Island, and I've found 'em eatin' breakfast at half past eight. Why, it's jest as easy fer us to git up as 'tis for the cawtage folks to lay."

"Do you mean to say that everybody would get up here if it weren't for me?" asked Sylvia disconcerted.

"Wall, Thinkright's allers done his ch.o.r.es afore he sits down with yer; but Lucil, she's kind o' cawtage folks-y in her feelin's. When my woman was alive I allers did git my own breakfast anyway, and let her lay as long as she wanted, and so I do Lucil. Jes' as like as not she lays till half past five o'clock."

"Well, probably it's because you go to bed so early that it's easy for you."

"No, I don't," replied Cap'n Lem promptly. "Lots o' times when I've had a real wearin' day I feel like settin' up to rest in the evenin'. Time an' ag'in I hain't shet my eyes afore nine o'clock."

Sylvia's small teeth gleamed in her prettiest smile. After all, what was the difference between dining at seven and retiring at eleven, and supping at five o'clock, as they always did at the Mill Farm, and retiring at nine?

"Well, I think it's my duty to make you and my cousin Thinkright more lazy," she said.

The old man shook his head. "I don't cal'late to call myself lazy s'long's I don't git one o' these here motor boats fer fis.h.i.+n'. Let a man use one o' them three years, and by that time he's got to hev an auto_mo_bile to git from the house to the boat. They're a good thing fer religion though, 'cause they make a man so mad he can't swear. I'm lazy to what I used to be," continued Cap'n Lem after a meditative pause, "when I used to fish all day and then row all night in a calm to git the ketch to market. Tell ye that wuz workin' twenty-five hours out o' the twenty-four; and when a man does that he 'd ought to git a life-sentence, and if he outlives it he'd ought to be hung." The speaker took off his hat and fanned himself. "It's a-goin' to be some scaldin' to-day, Sylvy."

The girl laughed. "Then when I carry the milk down cellar I shall stay there. It's so funny to have the cellar under the parlor as it is here."

"'Tis out o' the common, but the ground was so shoal at the kitchen end it hed to be dug that way. Judge Trent hed that cellar made. I visited him once to Seaton. Did he ever tell ye?"

"No."

"Well, you'd better believe, he and Miss Lacey they jest hove to, and gave me the best time I ever"--

"Sylvy!" Mrs. Lem's voice sounded from within. "You can come now. The water's as hot as Topet and we can begin."

Thinkright had taken an early start that morning with the team. Sylvia would have liked to go with him, but he explained that he had to bring back a c.u.mbersome load and needed all the room in the wagon.

Her talks with him were ushering her farther and farther each day into a new world. Even his silences were so full of peace and strength that she loved to be with him. She found herself gaining a consciousness of that peace,--a faith in the care of a Father for His children which was the motive power of Thinkright's life. That she had found her cousin, and been guided to him, was to her an undoubted proof and corroboration of much that Thinkright told her. She looked back upon the idle, discontented girl of the boarding-house in Springfield with wonder and perplexity that such a state of mind could have existed for her. She had impulsive longings to have her father back that she might help him as she had never known how to do; and then came the thought, so quietly but persistently instilled by Thinkright, that the beam in her own eye need be her only care, for by the riddance of all wrong consciousness in herself good would radiate to her environment, and that her father was being taken care of.

From the first moment of yielding her heart and thought to Thinkright's influence the eagerness of her nature made her long to show him quickly--at once--that she would not be vain, would not be selfish, would be humble, would arrive at that state which would cause her cousin to say of her as he had of Edna Derwent, "She does some very good thinking."

The impulse led her to offer help to Mrs. Lem, which, being accepted, Sylvia found herself making beds, wiping dishes, and weeding a flower garden; and her industry so astonished herself that she wondered that those about her could take it so calmly. Her previous life had consisted of more or less definite yearnings for good times. These "good times" had consisted in an occasional dance or visit to the theatre, and had been the oases in a dull life of idleness varied only by occasional hours when she would pick up her father's materials, and, without permission, would work on one of his unfinished pictures, or else make lively sketches of his friends, to his unfailing amus.e.m.e.nt.

"I wish you'd be serious over it, Sylvia," he used to say at such times. "There isn't a bit of doubt that some day I should be able to point to you with pride."

Upon which his daughter would be likely to respond that neither of them belonged to the laboring cla.s.s, and he could not contradict her.

While she was still very young he had perceived her talent, and from time to time in his desultory fas.h.i.+on had instructed her. There were those among his friends who endeavored to rouse his ambition for the girl, but he had not the force to combat her hereditary objection to work, and he always shrugged away their pleas.

"Sylvia's bound for a matrimonial port, anyway," he used to say. "With her face she'll make that harbor fast enough. It would only be throwing money away to start her on a career."

He had made similar speeches often in her hearing, and she recalled them now as with clearer vision she looked out upon life and peered wistfully into the possible vistas of her future.

When her father had seen his end approaching with swiftness, and the realization came that his pretty child was unprepared to meet the world, he had said a good word for his actor friend, as the most practical and substantial admirer on Sylvia's list; and this she remembered, too, with a great wave of grat.i.tude for deliverance.

The Mill Farm abounded in spots which tempted one to live out of doors.

There was the tall pine with its mystical whispered songs. Thinkright had swung a hammock from one of its branches since Judge Trent's visit.

From beneath its shade was no view of the sea, but one could lie there and listen to the rhythmic murmur of the waves answering the strains of an aeolian harp which Thinkright's clever hands had fas.h.i.+oned and placed in the shadow of the upper branches. There Sylvia took the books which her cousin gave her to study, and read and study she did, despite the temptation to day-dreaming. Little by little, by gentle implications, Thinkright had conveyed to her that there was to be no thought of her leaving him; and her love moved her strongly to do his bidding and win his approval.

"He doesn't do it for my sake. He does it for G.o.d and mother," she reflected, as often as some new proof of his thought for her appeared.

Little hints of the old yearnings to be admired, to be paramount, flashed up through her new-found humility at times, but they grew fainter with each discovery of her own ignorance, and her mental world enlarged; and in this inner realm she always found two ideals reigning, a prince and a princess,--John Dunham and Edna Derwent. They were beings who breathed a rarer air than she had ever known. All that was fine in her leaped to a comprehension that the more she developed, the more she should value that in their experience which at present was a sealed book to her. She always cla.s.sed them together resolutely in her thought. It was a species of self-defense which she had begun to employ from the moment of mental panic which ensued upon Miss Derwent's mention of Dunham's name.

Sylvia had read countless novels, for her father had been insatiate of them; but she had been so confident of her own charm, and so busily engaged in picturing the manner in which she should discourage or make happy her suitors, that the possibilities of her own active heart-interest had not absorbed much of her thought. The coming of John Dunham into her life had changed all that. In a moment of high and sensitive excitement he had dawned upon her vision as a novel type of manhood, and one representing all that was desirable. In vain she knew the superficiality of this judgment. In vain she reasoned her ignorance of him and his character. He had captivated her imagination, and this was the reason that Edna Derwent, as soon as she mentioned him, loomed to Sylvia's stirred thought in the light of a dangerous foe. Edna's very invincibility, however, aided Sylvia's final capitulation to Thinkright. There was neither reason nor comfort for her in desiring to rival the finished and all-conquering Miss Derwent. Thinkright held out the hope that she could alter her own thought; change that sore and miserable consciousness to one where reigned the beauty of peace. Never since that night of bitterness had she strayed from the path which her new light revealed. Judge Trent's visit removed the last doubt as to her remaining with Thinkright, and she knew that if the Mill Farm were to be her home neither Miss Derwent nor Mr. Dunham would remain a stranger to her. Then it became doubly necessary for her to think right concerning them. They had not met for years until this summer; and now there could surely be but one result from their meeting again. So they stood, equal and preeminent, prince and princess of Sylvia's mental realm, and there she meant to let them reign; meant to rejoice in their happiness, and never to permit herself to dream one dream of this ideal man which could not pa.s.s under the espionage of Edna's bright eyes.

CHAPTER XVII

THE ROSY CLOUD

Another spot which was a favorite with Sylvia was out beyond the sheltered sh.o.r.es of the basin and the Tide Mill, on the point of land where the open waters of Cas...o...b..y stretched toward the neighboring islands. Here the fir trees were small and huddled together in groups to withstand the buffeting of winter winds; and here Sylvia sat within a rocky nest she knew, during many a happy solitary hour, watching the sword-fishers go out or return, and the smaller mackerel boats flit lightly on their way.

On days when the great waters were gray and racked from storm, she saw, in their turbulence and moaning, pictures of what her life might have been, and then likened it to the quiet embowered waters of the basin, where Thinkright's love held her safe. To feel grat.i.tude was a novel sensation to Sylvia, born with her new life. She could not remember ever having been grateful for anything until she met her cousin.

The afternoon of this day when he had gone alone to town in the farm-wagon she took her books and sought this rocky nest. There was a steady sailing wind, and she wished for Thinkright, who often took her out with him. Placing behind her back the calico-covered cus.h.i.+on she had brought, she sank into her niche and opened her book, but immediately her eye was allured and caught by the view, and again there swept over her a longing, that for weeks had been increasing, to capture this loveliness and make it her own. The general awakening of her thought had long since banished the indifference with which during the first days at the Mill Farm she had viewed its surroundings. In place of apathy now there dwelt a craving to exercise the power which she felt was hers; to paint some of these ever changing, alluring phases of sea and sky whose beauty possessed her very soul.

She longed unspeakably for materials for the work, and mourned that she had not gathered whatever among her father's shabby, neglected belongings might be useful, and brought them with her. She recalled carefully all that had ever been said seriously of her talent. A burning regret for neglected opportunities and a burning desire to make up for lost time now possessed her. She fluttered the leaves of the book in her lap. Out dropped pencil sketches of the Tide Mill and a gallery of the residents at the farm.

There was Cap'n Lem's straw hat shading the nose and chin which drew closer together as the kindly, toothless smile widened. There was Mrs.

Lem's majestic pompadour and psyche knot, and the company expression which always dilated her nostrils. There was Minty, her round eyes staring, and her lips pursed; and there was---- No, Sylvia shook her head. There was not Thinkright. As she looked fondly and wistfully at the retreating hair and short beard, the horizontal lines in the brow and the deep-set eyes, she knew that what made her cousin's face precious was not to be conveyed by pencil or brush. Swiftly she turned the paper over, and taking her pencil, with a few sure, swift strokes sketched the back of a pair of slightly bent shoulders and a head revealing one ear and the line of the cheek.

"There," she sighed, smiling; "that's better. I know what I should see if he turned around." Then she sank back again, narrowed her eyes, and looked off at the skyline,--the distant dark clump of trees on Hawk Island; the nearer sh.o.r.e of Walrus Island; the ineffable sky. Oh, oh, for paints, for brushes, for paper,--in other words, for money! Health and strength were returning to her in full measure. What work was awaiting her? There was no room in Thinkright's universe for drones. He never referred to her becoming self-supporting, but it was a part of her new realization to see that a parasite could never be a healthy growth. She was not sure enough how much substantial worth was indicated by her talent to ask money from Thinkright for its development, and certainly there was no one else to whom she would turn. She reminded herself that right here came an opportunity to apply the trust and confidence that her guardian was teaching her. It was wrong to s.h.i.+ver under one shadow of doubt. The sun would not go out of its course to s.h.i.+ne upon her, but she was beginning to know that an unfaithful consciousness was all that could prevent her coming into that place where it would s.h.i.+ne upon her.

"If it is right, the way will open. If it isn't right, then you don't want it," was one of Thinkright's declarations; and for the rest she had only to keep her mental home clean and fragrant, wholesome and loving.

Sylvia's eyes rested on the graceful rolling billows advancing in stately procession from the black clump of trees on Hawk Island.

The Father's Love had brought Edna Derwent a summer of play because she needed it. The same love would bring Sylvia Lacey a season of work if that were best. If it were not right to ask Thinkright for the help for which she longed, then some other way would be provided. Supposing she could succeed in some artistic line! Supposing instead of being a dead weight upon her cousin, or at best an a.s.sistant to the housekeeper who had been all-sufficient without her, she were able to help him; really to help Thinkright as he grew older! The thought made her cheeks flush, and her eyes grew soft. She bit her lip and closed her eyes.

"Not to send one doubting thought into the world," she reminded herself. Then her thought arose. "Dear Father, Thou knowest my longing.

Help me to know the nothingness of every barricade to thy light that I may receive what I need."

After a minute she looked up to see the waters foaming gently away from her nest. They never reached it except in a storm. At the same moment her eye caught a sailboat entering the broad path of water that led to the Tide Mill. She leaned forward to see the better, and recognized Benny Merritt. She noticed that he had a pa.s.senger, but the sail hid all but the woman's skirt from the watcher.