CHAPTER II.

ON THE MARSHES.

About ten days after the convention the following letter tumbled out of the mail-bag as it was shaken over the table within the tavern bar which served as the Byfield post-office, the letters and papers occupying the shelves whereon formerly wines and liquors had been kept. The letter was postmarked Boston, and directed to Mrs. Park. It was as follows:

"DEAR SISTER ANNA,--When we sent our Dolly to you for a brief visit, we little thought it might lengthen into months if not a year. We are going to Southern France, and I take it for granted, even before asking, that you will take care of her during our absence. As you know, my health has not been good for a long time, and Dr. Bowditch insists upon a year in that climate, and so strenuously that Malcolm has taken fright and has already engaged our passage in the packet sailing on Saturday next. So there is not time even for the briefest visit to Dolly; and perhaps it is for the best, after all. Comfort her, my dear sister, with motherly comfort, as you know so well how to do. Expect a passionate outbreak at first. Poor child! it will be hard for her, as it is for us. In a couple of days you may expect her trunks.

"I need not assure you again how great a comfort it will be for us, when the wide Atlantic is between, that she is with you and Harry. Love to him and to your manly little Ned. Excuse the brevity of this, for time presses.

"I enclose a letter for Dolly.

"Your affectionate sister,

"HELEN WINSLOW.

"P. S.--I forgot to say that if we remain over the summer we shall most probably send for Dolly to come over with the Grays, who sail the last of May."

Having read her letter, Mrs. Park went in search of Dolly, whom she found with Ned in the kitchen, superintending the preparations for the annual salt-haying. Countless loaves of bread, bushels of dough-nuts, a boiled ham, and chunks of pink saltpetred beef, were being packed into boxes and baskets.

"Oh, Ned, I wish we could go!" Dolly was saying, just as Mrs. Park entered. Catching sight of the letter, she came eagerly forward. "Is it from papa?" she asked, "and is he coming?"

"It is a letter for you, my dear," was the reply. Dolly tore it open impetuously and devoured the contents with a glance. Then, with a passionate cry, she threw it upon the floor and ran out of the room.

"What's the matter, mother?" asked Uncle Harry, who was in the kitchen, fitting a scythe to its snath.

"Malcolm and Helen sail on Saturday for Europe," was the reply. "It's a sudden plan, and there's no time to see Dolly. Helen hinted at an outburst. Poor child! it's hard for her, and I wish we could do something to divert her mind for a time."

"Take her salt-hayin'," suggested Thankful, who was trying to coax a big cheese into a bag much too small for it. "She was jest a-wishin' she c'd go. That would divart her if anything can."

"So it would! I wish we might manage it," said Mrs. Park, looking doubtfully at her husband.

"Nothing easier," replied Mr. Park, after a pause, during which he had been critically surveying his snath with one eye, while he considered the question of salt-haying as a diversion for Dolly. "I guess we can manage it. A change 'll do you good; an' there's the old Marchant House close to the marsh" (he pronounced it "ma'sh"), "and if we take a few fixings it'll be tolerably comfortable. Thankful will send things cooked, as she always does, and we can depend on Skipper Joe for extras."

So it was arranged, and then Mrs. Park said, "Now I'll go and find Dolly, or perhaps, Ned, you had better go. Tell her about the salt-haying, and comfort her as well as you can."

Ned, nothing loath, and feeling great confidence in his powers as comforter, especially when backed by anything so alluring as a stay by the salt marsh, after some search found her on the shady side of the great hay-rick. She had cried out her grief and was lying on the ground, with eyes shut, so at first he thought she was asleep. But as he drew near she opened her eyes.

"Oh, Dolly, I'm no end sorry!" Ned hastened to say. "But father says we can go salt-haying, and mother's going, an' it'll be bully! There!" he added, penitently, "I promised mother I'd never say that word again. A feller must say something or burst. But I've promised, you know. Just stop me, will you, Dolly, when you see it coming? And I say, wouldn't it be first-rate 'f we could ride down in the hay-cart? But I s'pose we shall have to go in the carry-all. But I'll drive, anyhow; father 'll let me; an' you shall sit on the front seat, Dolly." And Ned paused, feeling that he had presented a succession of joys enough to brighten the most hopeless grief.

"Oh, I shall like that!" said Dolly. "And now," looking a little ashamed, "I'll go and get my letter. I wonder what Aunt Anna 'll think of me, throwing it down in that fashion! Mamma is used to my rages."

"Oh, she won't mind," said Ned. "She's used t' me. Mothers don't mind, you know. I guess they're all a good deal alike, anyway. And I think you're first-rate, Dolly. I always hated t' have girls 'round before; but I like you. You ain't afraid of anything--don't squeal when you see a snake or a spider; and I don't b'lieve you'd mind being tipped over in a boat an' getting all mud."

"Oh no," said Dolly, brightening more and more under these healing ministrations, "I should like that--I _know_ I should like that! Papa says I'm just like him when he was a boy. I just revel in dirt."

They went back to the house, and Dolly picked up her letter, while Thankful drew a flaky apple turnover from the oven.

"Here's somethin' you'll like, I know," she said, offering it to Dolly on the wooden shovel with which she had taken it from the hot brick floor of the oven. Thankful had great faith in the efficacy of "good victuals" for the healing of ordinary wounds of the spirit.

Then Dolly found Aunt Anna, and apologized for her rage; and Aunt Anna took her into her motherly arms, and they had a comfortable talk.

"When I was a little girl, Aunt Anna," said Dolly, "I used to fly into such rages! When I was a baby, mamma says, just a two-year-old baby, I used to throw myself down straight and stiff, and knock my curly head hard on the floor, when I was mad. Wasn't it funny? I don't do that now, of course, and I thought I was getting the better of it;" and she looked somewhat doubtfully at Aunt Anna.

"Well, I'm sure you have every reason to be encouraged," said Aunt Anna, cheerfully. "Throwing down your letter was a decided advance upon throwing yourself down and knocking your head against the floor;" and she laughed, and Dolly with her. "Well, well, Dolly, we all have our battles to fight, and here's one motto I have found of great use--'There's no lock but Patience has the key.'"

The old Marchant House stood close by the marshes, not another house within a mile in any direction, although by climbing up to the top of a range of grass-grown hills hard by you might see the spires of Dukesborough far away to the south-east. The house was a weather-beaten structure of one story, spreading itself generously over the ground, and in it lived, the year round, an old sailor known as Skipper Joe.

Skipper Joe was his own house-keeper and cook. In this latter capacity he had served on board ship at different times, and could make capital slapjacks and duff, with other delicacies known to sailors. Every year his house was opened to the hands who came salt-haying, and he fried their fish, compounded relishing chowders, and made their coffee, for which he had a delicious and secret recipe learned from a French cook.

He had once been to the Banks of Newfoundland in command of a fishing schooner, and had thus won his title of skipper. Like all old sailors, he had a fund of stories literally true, although to landsmen they sounded like romances, which he, sailor-like, was fond of telling to any chance listener. After his long and lonely winter, varied only by an occasional trip to Dukesborough, the coming of summer, which brought not only the salt-haymakers but, later on, the sportsmen for game and fish, was thrice welcome. To all these his old time-gray house opened wide its doors, and not infrequently every cranny was filled.

On the evening of the day upon which the salt-haying party from Park's tavern arrived, he might have been seen sitting in one corner of the ample fireplace, in which a wood fire, rendered desirable by the chilly neighborhood of the sea, burned cheerfully, lighting up the dingy wainscoted old kitchen till it glowed like the heart of a damask rose.

In the opposite corner, in an old arm-chair that comfortably held the two, sat Dolly and Ned, listening in open-eyed wonder as Skipper Joe poured out a ceaseless tide of story a deal more fascinating than the "Arabian Nights," and only to be equalled by the thrilling narrative of "Robinson Crusoe," to which it bore a certain resemblance.

"It was in th' autumn of 18--," he was saying, "'n I'd jest shipped on th' _Chandler Price_, Cap'n John R. Pease, bound on a whalin' v'y'ge. We sailed out o' Edgartown harbor with a fair wind, that kept astern of us till we run slap inter th' Doldrums, where th' _Chandler Price_ wallered for ten days, more or less, pitch a-stewin' out o' her at ev'ry seam, sea like blue ile, an' th' whole air as thick an' steamy as Nancy Blake's kitchen on a washin'-day.

"Wa'al, tiresome 'nough 'twas haulin' 'n bracin', 'n tryin' t' ketch ev'ry little han'ful o' wind, th' sun a-blazin' down 'n makin' th' men sweat like porpuses, 'n th' rails 'n yards squirmin', as 'twere, in th' heat. As I said, this kep' up for ten days, more or less, 'n we lay t' th' nor'ards o' th' Line, waitin' 'n waitin', 'n one day pooty much like another, 'n th' Southern Cross a-hangin' jest above th' h'rizon at night. Ah!"--and Skipper Joe took his pipe out of his mouth, with a nod to Dolly, whose hazel eyes had darkened and brightened as she listened to his sailor-talk--"them stars beat your eyes, my little lass. It makes a man feel kind o' queer, a sailor-lad who b'lieves 'n them things, t' see that cross a-hangin' ther' night a'ter night.

"'N the sharks kep' round, jest as the pesky critters will, hopin', I reckon, that we'd rot a hole 'n th' bottom o' th' _Chandler Price_ 'n drop through inter their jaws. But they were destined t' disapp'intment, for all 't once come a bust o' wind from the nor'-east that sent us spinnin', all sails set, with a screechin' wind astern, straight f' th' whalin'-grounds. Wa'al, we were destined t' disapp'intment tew, 'n 'twas many a long day before we set eyes on them whalin'-grounds, an' this was how 'twas."

Here Skipper Joe paused to empty the ashes from his pipe and to refill it, settling back at last into his roundabout chair with the air of a man who has a congenial piece of work to do and means to do it.

He was a short, fat man, with a face round and jolly as the full moon, which was completely encircled with a growth of gray, stubbly beard and hair like a halo. He looked around upon his audience beamingly. Several of the men, to whom his stories were as familiar as their A B C's, and to one or two of them perhaps more so, were nodding and snoring outright. The remainder, to whom, as to Dolly and Ned, they had the charm of freshness, were waiting patiently for him to take up the thread of his narrative, having meanwhile made use of the break to refill their pipes also.

"Wa'al, as I was a-sayin', we were destined t' disapp'intment," he resumed, repeating the sonorous phrase with evident relish. "For one mornin', what did th' man at th' lookout spy but a piece o' spar driftin', 'n another 'n another, an' planks 'n ropes 'n casks, 'n then we knew ther' must 'a be'n a wreck, tho' ther' wa'n't nothin' put down nowheres on the chart round about there f'r anybody t' get wrecked on. An' so we began cruisin' f'r land, f'r Cap'n Pease wa'n't th' man t' leave a perishin' feller-critter, t' say nothin' 'bout a feller-seaman, 'n we cruised 'n cruised f'r six day 'thout seein' signs o' land, only this drift which stuck close t' th' _Chandler Price_ with a kind o' feller-feelin' as 'twere.

"Wa'al, by that time the crew nat'rally began t' get uneasy thinkin' o' th' time lost an' their wage, an' so th' cap'n finally said, C'lumbus-like, 'f land wa'n't sighted _that_ day he'd give it up 'n steer f'r th' whalin'-ground. Wa'al, 'twa'n't sighted, 'n that night th' _Chandler Price_ was headed ag'in for th' whalin'-ground, 'n th' cap'n he went off t' his bunk ruther down 'n th' mouth; an' now, mates," and here Skipper Joe took his pipe from his mouth, and, laying it on the jamb of the fireplace, looked solemnly from one to another, "comes th' queerest part o' my yarn. Cap'n Pease was a prayin' man--he _b'lieved_ in prayer; an' long a'ter this he told a friend o' hisn that a'ter he'd turned in he couldn't sleep f'r thinkin' o' them poor shipwrecked critters, an' so he jest prayed t' th' Lord that 'f they were alive he'd jest d'rect him which way t' steer, 'n he did; f'r somewhere out o' th' night 'n th' dark there come a voice sayin', 'Steer sou'-by-west,' 'n the cap'n, 'bedient like Paul t' th' heavenly vision, jumped out o' his bunk 'n rushed on deck, 'thout stoppin' t' put on his clothes, 'n shouted t' th' man at th' wheel, 'Head her sou'-by-west!' 'n th' steersman he said nothin', but jest kind o' stared 't th' old man, thinkin' he was crazy-like, 'n walkin' 'n his sleep; 'n then th' cap'n he jest shouts ag'in, 'Head her sou'-by-west,' 'n then he down with th' helm 'n steered sou'-by-west, 'n next mornin' at break o' day I'm jiggered 'f ther' wa'n't land a-lyin' sou'-by-west, as pooty a little coral island 's y' ever see, covered with cocoa-nut trees, 'n a white shirt a-flyin' from th' tallest one--leastways we l'arned 'twas a white shirt a'terwards, tho' 't looked 's much like a white swab 's anything then.

"The cap'n, a-smilin' kind o' ser'ous, thinkin' 'bout the voice I reckon, looked thro' his glass 'n see a boy runnin' 'long th' beach t' th' other side o' th' island, 'n pooty soon he come ag'in with a dozen 'n more white men, all a-shoutin' 'n wavin' their hands, 'n d'rectin' us 'round th' other side o' th' island, where ther' was an openin' 'n th' reef. 'N, mates, I've seen men 'n all succumstances o' grief 'n joy, but I never see men so crazy with joy 's them men. They laughed 'n they hugged us when we come ashore, 'n they cried like babies. 'N no wonder, when y' come t' think on't, f'r th' island was swarmin' with savages, 'n they'd divided th' men round, each fam'ly takin' care o' so many, 'n fed 'em on raw fish 'n cocoa-nuts. But th' cocoa-nuts was givin' out 'n pervisions gittin' scurse, 'n so th' savage critters had drawn lots 'mong 'em two 'r three times t' see which they'd kill. But ev'ry time the women--'n women, mates, 're jest alike th' world over, alw'ys pitiful--th' women had throwed themselves between th' savages 'n th' men, 'n begged f'r their lives, 'n so they'd spared 'em. But the very next day a part o' 'em _were_ t' be killed anyhow, f'r the savages said they couldn't stand it any longer; so we was jest 'n th' nick o' time, 's 'twere.

"Wa'al, th' savage critters took advantage o' our necess'ties, 's civ'lized men will sometimes, 'n made the cap'n pay a good round sum f'r th' poor fellers. It took all the cap'n's tradin' stuff, tobacker 'n sech, 'n a good part o' the ship stores, t' ransom 'em, 'n then we steered straight f'r th' S'ciety Islands, f'r th' cap'n thought he'd find vessels there short o' hands, 'n then he could divide th' poor fellers among 'em, 'n so give us more sea-room aboard the _Chandler Price_; but 'twa'n't t' be, 'n we kep' most o' them t' th' end o' th' v'y'ge. That resc'e cost Cap'n Pease two thousand dollars out o' his own pocket, 'n he never got a red cent of it back. But I reckon, mates, that when a man sets sail f'r his final port, the most val'able cargo he c'n carry 's a good deed like that."

Here Skipper Joe's narrative ended. He dropped his head upon his breast and fell into a brown study. The fire burned low. It was late, and Ned went off to his bed, which consisted of a ship's hammock hung in the garret, and Dolly to hers, which was a sack of clean straw spread upon a cot in a closet-like room opening off Mrs. Park's bedroom; and they were both shortly asleep, lulled by the booming of the surf on the beach not far away.