A White Heron and Other Stories

by Sarah Orne Jewett

  “I do declare, ’t was like a scene in Scriptur’ to see that poor good-hearted Nancy Fell run down her walk to open the gate for us!” said Mrs. Persis Flagg later that afternoon, when she and Miss Pickett were going home in the stage. Miss Pickett nodded her head approvingly.

  “I had a good sight better time with her than I should have had at the other place,” she said with fearless honesty. “If I’d been Mis’ Cap’n Timms, I’d made some apology or just passed us the compliment. If it wa’n’t convenient, why couldn’t she just tell us so after all her urgin’ and sayin’ how she should expect us?”

  “I thought then she’d altered from what she used to be,” said Mrs. Flagg. “She seemed real sincere an’ open away from home. If she wa’n’t prepared to-day, ’t was easy enough to say so; we was reasonable folks, an’ should have gone away with none but friendly feelin’s. We did have a grand good time with Nancy. She was as happy to see us as if we’d been queens.”

  “’T was a real nice little dinner,” said Miss Pickett gratefully. “I thought I was goin’ to faint away just before we got to the house, and I didn’t know how I should hold out if she undertook to do anything extra, and keep us awaitin’; but there, she just made us welcome, simple-hearted; to what she had. I never tasted such dandelion greens; an’ that nice little piece o’ pork and new biscuit, why, they was just splendid. She must have an excellent good cellar, if’t is such a small house. Her potatoes was truly remarkable for this time o’ year. I myself don’t deem it necessary to cook potatoes when I’m goin’ to have dandelion greens. Now, didn’t it put you in mind of that verse in the Bible that says, ‘Better is a dinner of herbs where love is’? An’ how desirous she’d been to see somebody that could tell her some particulars about the conference!”

  “She’ll enjoy tellin’ folks about our comin’ over to see her. Yes, I’m glad we went; ’t will be of advantage every way, an’ our bein’ of the same church an’ all, to Woodville. If Mis’ Timms hears of our bein’ there, she’ll see we had reason, an’ knew of a place to go. Well, I needn’t have brought this old bag!”

  Miss Pickett gave her companion a quick resentful glance, which was followed by one of triumph directed at the dust that was collecting on the shoulders of the best black cashmere; then she looked at the bag on the front seat, and suddenly felt illuminated with the suspicion that Mrs. Flagg had secretly made preparations to pass the night in Baxter. The bag looked plump, as if it held much more than the pocket-book and the jelly.

  Mrs. Flagg looked up with unusual humility. “I did think about that jelly,” she said, as if Miss Pickett had openly reproached her. “I was afraid it might look as if I was tryin’ to pay Nancy for her kindness.”

  “Well, I don’t know,” said Cynthia; “I guess she’d been pleased. She’d thought you just brought her over a little present; but I do’ know as ’t would been any good to her after all, she’d thought so much of it, comin’ from you, that she’d kep’ it till ’t was all candied.” But Mrs. Flagg didn’t look exactly pleased by this unexpected compliment, and her fellow-traveler colored with confusion and a sudden feeling that she had shown undue forwardness.

  Presently they remembered the Beckett house, to their great relief, and, as they approached, Mrs. Flagg reached over and moved her hand-bag from the front seat to make room for another passenger. But nobody came out to stop the stage, and they saw the unexpected guest sitting by one of the front windows comfortably swaying a palm-leaf fan, and rocking to and fro in calm content. They shrank back into their corners and tried not to be seen. Mrs. Flagg’s face grew very red.

  “She got in, didn’t she?” said Miss Pickett, snipping her words angrily, as if her lips were scissors. Then she heard a call, and bent forward to see Mrs. Beckett herself appear in the front doorway, very smiling and eager to stop the stage.

  The driver was only too ready to stop his horses. “Got a passenger for me to carry back, ain’t ye?” said he facetiously. “Them’s the kind I like; carry both ways, make somethin’ on a double trip,” and he gave Mrs. Flagg and Miss Pickett a friendly wink as he stepped down over the wheel. Then he hurried toward the house, evidently in a hurry to put the baggage on; but the expected passenger still sat rocking and fanning at the window.

  “No, sir; I ain’t got any passengers,” exclaimed Mrs. Beckett, advancing a step or two to meet him, and speaking very loud in her pleasant excitement. “This lady that come this morning wants her large trunk with her summer things that she left to the depot in Woodville. She’s very desirous to git into it, so don’t you go an’ forgit; ain’t you got a book or somethin’, Mr. Ma’sh? Don’t you forgit to make a note of it; here’s her check, an’ we’ve kep’ the number in case you should mislay it or anything. There’s.things in the trunk she needs; you know how you overlooked stoppin’ to the milliner’s for my bunnit last week.”

  “Other folks disremembers things as well’s me,” grumbled Mr. Marsh. He turned to give the passengers another wink more familiar than the first, but they wore an offended air, and were looking the other way. The horses had backed a few steps, and the guest at the front window had ceased the steady motion of her fan to make them a handsome bow, and been puzzled at the lofty manner of their acknowledgment.

  “Go ‘long with your foolish jokes, John Ma’sh!” Mrs. Beckett said cheerfully, as she turned away. She was a comfortable, hearty person, whose appearance adjusted the beauties of hospitality. The driver climbed to his seat, chuckling, and drove away with the dust flying after the wheels.

  “Now, she’s a friendly sort of a woman, that Mis’ Beckett,” said Mrs. Flagg unexpectedly, after a few moments of silence, when she and her friend had been unable to look at each other. “I really ought to call over an’ see her some o’ these days, knowing her husband’s folks as well as I used to, an’ visitin’ of ’em when I was a girl.” But Miss Pickett made no answer.

  “I expect it was all for the best, that woman’s comin’,” suggested Mrs. Flagg again hopefully. “She looked like a willing person who would take right hold. I guess Mis’ Beckett knows what she’s about, and must have had her reasons. Perhaps she thought she’d chance it for a couple o’ weeks anyway, after the lady’d come so fur, an’ bein’ one o’ her own denomination. Hayin’-time’ll be here before we know it. I think myself, gen’rally speakin’, ’t is just as well to let anybody know you’re comin’.”

  “Them seemed to be Mis’ Cap’n Timms’s views,” said Miss Pickett in a low tone; but the stage rattled a good deal, and Mrs. Flagg looked up inquiringly, as if she had not heard.

  The Foreigner

  I

  ONE EVENING, at the end of August, in Dunnet Landing, I heard Mrs. Todd’s firm footstep crossing the small front entry outside my door, and her conventional cough which served as a herald’s trumpet, or a plain New England knock, in the harmony of our fellowship.

  “Oh, please come in!” I cried, for it had been so still in the house that I supposed my friend and hostess had gone to see one of her neighbors. The first cold northeasterly storm of the season was blowing hard outside. Now and then there was a dash of great raindrops and a flick of wet lilac leaves against the window, but I could hear that the sea was already stirred to its dark depths, and the great rollers were coming in heavily against the shore. One might well believe that Summer was coming to a sad end that night, in the darkness and rain and sudden access of autumnal cold. It seemed as if there must be danger offshore among the outer islands.

  “Oh, there!” exclaimed Mrs. Todd, as she entered. “I know nothing ain’t ever happened out to Green Island since the world began, but I always do worry about mother in these great gales. You know those tidal waves occur sometimes down to the West Indies, and I get dwellin’ on ’em so I can’t set still in my chair, nor knit a common row to a stocking. William might get mooning, out in his small bo’t, and not observe how the sea was making, an’ meet with some accident. Yes, I thought I’d come in and set with you if you wa’n’t busy. No, I
never feel any concern about ‘em in winter ‘cause then they’re prepared, and all ashore and everything snug. William ought to keep help, as I tell him; yes, he ought to keep help.”

  I hastened to reassure my anxious guest by saying that Elijah Tilley had told me in the afternoon, when I came along the shore past the fish houses, that Johnny Bowden and the Captain were out at Green Island; he had seen them beating up the bay, and thought they must have put into Burnt Island cove, but one of the lobstermen brought word later that he saw them hauling out at Green Island as he came by, and Captain Bowden pointed ashore and shook his head to say that he did not mean to try to get in. “The old Miranda just managed it, but she will have to stay at home a day or two and put new patches in her sail,” I ended, not without pride in so much circumstantial evidence.

  Mrs. Todd was alert in a moment. “Then they’ll all have a very pleasant evening,” she assured me, apparently dismissing all fears of tidal waves and other sea-going disasters. “I was urging Alick Bowden to go ashore some day and see mother before cold weather. He’s her own nephew; she sets a great deal by him. And Johnny’s a great chum o’ William’s; don’t you know the first day we had Johnny out ‘long of us, he took an’ give William his money to keep for him that he’d been a-savin’, and William showed it to me an’ was so affected I thought he was goin’ to shed tears? ‘Twas a dollar an’ eighty cents; yes, they’ll have a beautiful evenin’ all together, and like’s not the sea’ll be flat as a doorstep come morning.”

  I had drawn a large wooden rocking-chair before the fire, and Mrs. Todd was sitting there jogging herself a little, knitting fast, and wonderfully placid of countenance. There came a fresh gust of wind and rain, and we could feel the small wooden house rock and hear it creak as if it were a ship at sea.

  “Lord, here the great breakers!” exclaimed Mrs. Todd. “How they pound!—there, there! I always run of an idea that he sea knows anger these nights and gets full o’ fight. I can hear the rote4 o’ them old black ledges way down the thoroughfare. Calls up all those stormy verses in the Book o’ Psalms; David he knew how old sea-goin’ folks have to quake at the heart.”

  I thought as I had never thought before of such anxieties. The families of sailors and coastwise adventurers by sea must always be worrying about somebody, this side of the world or the other. There was hardly one of Mrs. Todd’s elder acquaintances, men or women, who had not at some time or other made a sea voyage, and there was often no news until the voyagers themselves came back to bring it.

  “There’s a roaring high overhead, and a roaring in the deep sea,” said Mrs. Todd solemnly, “and they battle together nights like this. No, I couldn’t sleep; some women folks always goes right to bed an’ to sleep, so’s to forget, but’t ain’t my way. Well, it’s a blessin’ we don’t all feel alike; there’s hardly any of our folks at sea to worry about, nowadays, but I can’t help my feelin’s, an’ I got thinking of mother all alone, if William had happened to be out lobsterin’ and couldn’t make the cove gettin’ back.”

  “They will have a pleasant evening,” I repeated. “Captain Bowden is the best of good company.”

  “Mother’ll make him some pancakes for his supper, like’s not,” said Mrs. Todd, clicking her knitting needles and giving a pull at her yarn. Just then the old cat pushed open the unlatched door and came straight toward her mistress’s lap. She was regarded severely as she stepped about and turned on the broad expanse, and then made herself into a round cushion of fur, but was not openly admonished. There was another great blast of wind overhead, and a puff of smoke came down the chimney.

  “This makes me think o’ the night Mis’ Cap’n Tolland died,” said Mrs. Todd, half to herself. “Folks used to say these gales only blew when somebody’s a-dyin’, or the devil was a-comin’ for his own, but the worst man I ever knew died a real pretty mornin’ in June.”

  “You have never told me any ghost stories,” said I; and such was the gloomy weather and the influence of the night that I was instantly filled with reluctance to have this suggestion followed. I had not chosen the best of moments; just before I spoke we had begun to feel as cheerful as possible. Mrs. Todd glanced doubtfully at the cat and then at me, with a strange absent look, and I was really afraid that she was going to tell me something that would haunt my thoughts on every dark stormy night as long as I lived.

  “Never mind now; tell me to-morrow by daylight, Mrs. Todd,” I hastened to say, but she still looked at me full of doubt and deliberation.

  “Ghost stories!” she answered. “Yes, I don’t know but I’ve heard a plenty of ‘em first an’ last. I was just sayin’ to myself that this is like the night Mis’ Cap’n Tolland died. ‘Twas the great line storm in September all of thirty, or maybe forty, year ago. I ain’t one that keeps much account o’ time.”

  “Tolland? That’s a name I have never heard in Dunnet,” I said.

  “Then you haven’t looked well about the old part o’ the buryin’ ground, no’theast corner,” replied Mrs. Todd. “All their women folks lies there; the sea’s got most o’ the men. They were a known family o’ shipmasters in early times. Mother had a mate, Ellen Tolland, that she mourns to this day; died right in her bloom with quick consumption, but the rest o’ that family was all boys but one, and older than she, an’ they lived hard seafarin’ lives an’ all died hard. They were called very smart seamen. I’ve heard that when the youngest went into one o’ the old shippin’ houses in Boston, the head o’ the firm called out to him: ‘Did you say Tolland from Dunnet? That’s recommendation enough for any vessel!’ There was some o’ them old shipmasters as tough as iron, an’ they had the name o’ usin’ their crews very severe, but there wa’n’t a man that wouldn’t rather sign with ’em an’ take his chances, than with the slack ones that didn’t know how to meet accidents.”

  II

  There was so long a pause, and Mrs. Todd still looked so absentminded, that I was afraid she and the cat were growing drowsy together before the fire, and I should have no reminiscences at all. The wind struck the house again, so that we both started in our chairs and Mrs. Todd gave a curious, startled look at me. The cat lifted her head and listened too, in the silence that followed, while after the wind sank we were more conscious than ever of the awful roar of the sea. The house jarred now and then, in a strange, disturbing way.

  “Yes, they’ll have a beautiful evening out to the island,” said Mrs. Todd again; but she did not say it gayly. I had not seen her before in her weaker moments.

  “Who was Mrs. Captain Tolland?” I asked eagerly, to change the current of our thoughts.

  “I never knew her maiden name; if I ever heard it, I’ve gone an’ forgot; ’t would mean nothing to me,” answered Mrs. Todd.

  “She was a foreigner, an’ he met with her out in the Island o’ Jamaica. They said she’d been left a widow with property. Land knows what become of it; she was French born, an’ her first husband was a Portugee, or somethin’.”

  I kept silence now, a poor and insufficient question being worse than none.

  “Cap’n John Tolland was the least smartest of any of ‘em, but he was full smart enough, an’ commanded a good brig at the time, in the sugar trade; he’d taken out a cargo o’ pine lumber to the islands from somewheres up the river, an’ had been loadin’ for home in the port o’ Kingston, an’ had gone ashore that afternoon for his papers, an’ remained afterwards ’long of three friends o’ his, shipmasters. They was havin’ their suppers together in a tavern; ‘twas late in the evenin’ an’ they was more lively than usual, an’ felt boyish; and over opposite was another house full o’ company, real bright and pleasant lookin’, with a lot o’ lights, an’ they heard somebody singin’ very pretty to a guitar. They wa’n’t in no go-to-meetin’ condition, an’ one of ’em, he slapped the table an’ said, ‘Le’ ’s go over, an’ hear that lady sing!” an’ over they all went, good honest sailors, but three sheets in the wind, and stepped in as if they was invited, an’ made their bows inside the
door, an’ asked if they could hear the music; they were all respectable well-dressed men. They saw the woman that had the guitar, an’ there was a company a-listenin’, regular high binders all of ’em; an’ there was a long table all spread out with big candlesticks like little trees o’ light, and a sight o’ glass an’ silver ware; an’ part o’ the men was young officers in uniform, an’ the colored folks was steppin’ round servin’ ’em, an’ they had the lady singin’. ‘Twas a wasteful scene, an’ a loud talkin’ company, an’ though they was three sheets in the wind themselves there wa’n’t one o’ them cap’ns but had sense to perceive it. The others had pushed back their chairs, an’ their decanters an’ glasses was standin’ thick about, an’ they was teasin’ the one that was singin’ as if they’d just got her in to amuse ’em. But they quieted down; one o’ the young officers had beautiful manners, an’ invited the four cap’ns to join ’em, very polite; ‘twas a kind of public house, and after they all heard another song, he come to consult with ’em whether they wouldn’t git up and dance a hornpipe or somethin’ to the lady’s music.

  “They was all elderly men an’ shipmasters, and owned property; two of ’em was church members in good standin’,” continued Mrs. Todd loftily, “an’ they wouldn’t lend theirselves to no such kickshows as that, an’ spite o’ bein’ three sheets in the wind, as I have once observed; they waved aside the tumblers of wine the young officer was pourin’ out for ‘em so free-handed, and said they should rather be excused. An’ when they all rose, still very dignified, as I’ve been well informed, and made their partin’ bows and was goin’ out, them young sports got round ‘em an’ tried to prevent ‘em, and they had to push an’ strive considerable, but out they come. There was this Cap’n Tolland and two Cap’n Bowdens, and the fourth was my own father.” (Mrs. Todd spoke slowly, as if to impress the value of her authority.) “Two of them was very religious, upright men, but they would have their night off sometimes, all ‘o them old-fashioned cap’ns, when they was free of business and ready to leave port.