The Opened Shutters Part 34

"It is perfect," returned Sylvia, "but how we shall look!" she added.

"Don't worry," said Edna. "I always keep a box of tooth-brushes upstairs for wanderers trapped just as you are. Of course it is a good pie. These berries were growing on the sh.o.r.e of Merriconeag Sound yesterday, and Miss Lacey and I picked them ourselves. Weren't we a happy, disreputable pair, Miss Martha? Our dresses were stained, our fingers were a sight, and our lips,--I'll draw a veil! We both would have done so then if we'd had any."

Sylvia listened, smiling. In her preoccupation she let her fork veer away from her plate.

"Oh!" she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed regretfully. "See what I've done!" A drop of the rich dark juice had fallen on the spotless cloth and seemed to spread mischievously. "Dear, I meant to be so careful."

"Not a bit of harm," returned Edna. "That is a feature of the huckleberry season. The stain vanishes under hot water."

Sylvia's eyes clung to the spot. A thought had suddenly come to her like a lightning flash. She knew vaguely that her hostess was saying pleasant things, but she could not follow them.

"Eat your pie, Sylvia," said her aunt. "We always have a second piece.

Jenny's feelings would be hurt if we didn't."

The girl commenced eating again, mechanically. "You picked these yourselves?" she said. "They grow for anybody to pick?"

"Yes, indeed," replied Edna. "I enjoy it. I think Miss Lacey considers a berrying expedition a good deal of a pleasure exertion."

"They always ripen first in such shut-in fields," objected Miss Lacey.

Edna laughed. "The kind Mrs. Lem would call hot as Topet."

"Oh, I'd love to pick them," said Sylvia. "Do they grow around the Mill Farm, Thinkright?"

Her eyes were s.h.i.+ning as she asked her question.

"No. Nowhere around us,--that is, nowhere near. I've often wondered at it."

"Stay here, and go with me, Sylvia," said Edna cordially. "We'll let Miss Martha off, and you and I will take Benny and make a day of it."

"Oh, I'd love to!" exclaimed Sylvia. "I'll try to come over soon."

"Not at all. Always make the most of a bird in the hand. You're here now. I'm going to keep her,--oh, as long as I can, Thinkright."

He smiled at Sylvia, who smiled back, still with the excited s.h.i.+ning in her eyes. "She seems willing, I must say," he remarked, pleased at the prospect of the two girls thus becoming acquainted.

The hour before he had to start back was spent by them all together, at first on the rocky ledges below the house where the caldrons of foam and fountains of spray made the finest show, and then roaming through the fragrant woods. At each new vista Miss Martha noted the narrowing of her niece's eyes and the absorption of her gaze.

"I guess you have some of your poor father's artistic taste," she said to her at one pause.

"I wish my father could have seen this place," was Sylvia's reply.

When the time came for Thinkright to make his adieux she clung to him.

"I declare I believe she's homesick at the parting," said Miss Lacey to Edna. They two were standing on the piazza and the others a little way off on the gra.s.s; but Sylvia was not homesick, she was whispering to her cousin: "I'm staying for a reason, Thinkright!" she said. "I've had an idea. I believe it's a good one."

He patted her shoulder. "That's right, that's right." He gestured toward the rolling expanse about them. "For every drop of water in that ocean there are thousands of possibilities of good for every one of G.o.d's children. The shutters are open, little one. Why shouldn't the blessing flow in?"

And so began for Sylvia the visit which always afterward stood out in her memory unique in the poignancy of its novel impressions. Despite the simplicity of life at Anemone Cottage, there was an order and smoothness in the management of details which constantly attracted and charmed the guest. The poetry of the wild enchanting surroundings was ever sounding a new note in sky or sea or flower, and the companions.h.i.+p of Edna Derwent was an experience which Sylvia seized upon with an eagerness wholly devoid of worldly considerations.

It was on a Friday that Thinkright had left her at the island. During that night a northeast wind sprang up, and on Sat.u.r.day a storm prevented the expedition after berries. It was a wonderful day to Sylvia.

Torrents of rain beat upon the windows, the atmosphere was a blur through which the surf thundered mysteriously.

Logs blazed merrily in the great fireplace. Sylvia found a feast of many courses in the ill.u.s.trations of the magazines. Edna was interested to see her discrimination.

"Oh, I remember," she said. "Miss Lacey told me your father was an artist."

Miss Martha was sitting by the fire darning stockings, and at this she gave an involuntary alert glance at her niece where she sat with Edna by the round table, her head bent above one of the periodicals.

"My father never learned to apply himself. He was not deeply interested in his work," replied Sylvia. The blue eyes looked up into Edna's dark ones. "No one ever taught my father how to think right," she added.

"I see," returned Miss Derwent; "but your interest must have been a great help to him."

"No, I was never any help to him. As I look back I seem to myself to have been only a chrysalis. I had eyes and saw not, and ears and heard not. I only began to live when I came to the Mill Farm. Poor father!"

Edna's eyes were soft. "I understand," she said.

Miss Lacey did not understand, but she suspected. She saw the look that pa.s.sed between the two girls, and remembered Thinkright's peculiar views and Edna's adherence to them.

"'Tisn't doing Sylvia any harm, anyway," she reflected, "and I know she'll never have a disloyal thought of her father," and she pulled another stocking over her hand.

"Well, you are interested now, certainly," remarked Edna, increasingly surprised at the girl's perception of the quality of the work of the various artists, combined with such comparative ignorance of their names and reputations.

"I have never had much opportunity," said Sylvia simply, "and, as you can see, I never made the most of what I did have. I suppose father had ambition once"--

"Indeed he did, my dear!" put in Miss Lacey emphatically.

Sylvia started. In her absorption she had forgotten her aunt's presence.

"Yes, I suppose so," she replied; "but things went hard with him, and for years past the only work he could depend upon were the pictures he made for advertis.e.m.e.nts and an occasional cartoon for a paper."

"Indeed," returned Miss Lacey, leaning forward and poking the fire in her embarra.s.sment. This was entirely gratuitous frankness on Sylvia's part. "Well, I can a.s.sure you he was made for better things," she went on, bridling. "When you visit me I will show you a landscape in my parlor worth a thousand of the daubs people rave over. Half the time you can't tell whether they're trying to paint a tulip field or a prairie fire. Ridiculous! You can almost count the rings on the horns of the cows in this landscape. It's what I call a _picture_."

It was well that Miss Lacey enjoyed this work of art, for it was all she had to show for many a squeeze given to her slender purse by the artist.

Edna paused in the talk she was led into by her guest's eager attention and questions.

"Listen to the surf!" she exclaimed. "You must see that show, Sylvia.

We must go down to the rocks."

"Fine! But I haven't any other clothes if I wet these," returned the girl, looking down.

"Oh, it's bathing suits to-day, and rubbers, and mackintoshes."

Soon they were equipped; and leaving the cottage by the back door they worked their way around the corner of the house to the sea front, and by the help of the st.u.r.dy trees that were making their usual good fight with the elements managed to creep down to the upper tier of rocks.

Here it was impossible to hear one another speak, and the girls'

exhilaration could be expressed only by glances as they clung to each other and the rocks, where to-day the foam flakes flew about them, although it was usually high and dry for some distance below this. The fine sharp needles of rain, which at first made their eyes smart, ceased for a time, and they watched the giant waves at their hoa.r.s.e, clamorous revel, joining the roar with their own shrieks of mirth and excitement whenever some reckless fling of spray drenched them from head to foot.