The Opened Shutters: A Novel

by Clara Louise Burnham

  CHAPTER XVI

  EVOLUTION

  It was only when they had guests at the Mill Farm that a seven o'clockbreakfast was served, and as yet Sylvia was accounted one of thatprivileged class. Thinkright had asked her when she arrived at whathour it was her custom to breakfast, and she had shrugged hershoulders.

  "Father and I never liked to take it before nine o'clock," she said,"but it made the landlady so cross that when we owed for board weusually tried to get down by half past eight."

  Thinkright smiled at this. "Here you can go to bed earlier," hereturned. "We will try breakfast at seven o'clock." Sylvia lookedsomewhat aghast, and it was not for some time that she discovered whata concession had been made in her favor.

  One morning, a fortnight after Judge Trent's visit, she came out on thestone step at the kitchen door to scent the morning, while Mrs. Lemscoured the cooking dishes.

  Cap'n Lem came along. His red face with its white fringe beamed kindlyupon her under the old straw hat.

  "Wall, now, you're lookin' smaht, Sylvy," he said, as he paused."Beginnin' to look real kind o' sassy and rosy. I guess they use yepretty well here." His shrewd blue eyes twinkled at her, and he gave asharp nod of satisfaction. "Shouldn't wonder if you'd be gittin' up inthe mornin' some o' these days."

  "Oh, I do," replied Sylvia. "It's no trouble for me any more. Mrs. Lemlet me make the coffee this morning, and we all sat down at seveno'clock promptly. Where were you? I don't believe I've seen you atbreakfast since I've been here."

  The old man's shoulders heaved in his toothless laugh. "Seven o'clock,"he said scornfully. "Yew look through a knot-hole in your floor anymornin' when it's handy to four o'clock and yew'll see my breakfastdoin's."

  Sylvia opened her eyes, genuinely bewildered. "But why do you want toget up in the night?" she asked.

  "Night!" he repeated. "What ye talkin' abaout? It's jest the hahnsomesttime o' the hull day. I git up to go to the pound, o' course."

  "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 Lucilthat!" 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 thefishin' 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 caughtout there. No knowin'. Well, anyway, I'm glad to see sech a change comeover a gal in a few weeks as there has over you. Yes, indeed, you'll begittin' up in the mornin' some day. It beats all how folks kin stay inbed. I've took garden sass to the Derwents' to Hawk Island, and I'vefound 'em eatin' breakfast at half past eight. Why, it's jest as easyfer 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 forme?" asked Sylvia disconcerted.

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

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

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

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

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

  The old man shook his head. "I don't cal'late to call myself lazys'long's I don't git one o' these here motor boats fer fishin'. Let aman use one o' them three years, and by that time he's got to hev anauto_mo_bile to git from the house to the boat. They're a good thingfer religion though, 'cause they make a man so mad he can't swear. I'mlazy to what I used to be," continued Cap'n Lem after a meditativepause, "when I used to fish all day and then row all night in a calm togit the ketch to market. Tell ye that wuz workin' twenty-five hours outo' the twenty-four; and when a man does that he 'd ought to git alife-sentence, and if he outlives it he'd ought to be hung." Thespeaker took off his hat and fanned himself. "It's a-goin' to be somescaldin' to-day, Sylvy."

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

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

  "No."

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

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

  Thinkright had taken an early start that morning with the team. Sylviawould have liked to go with him, but he explained that he had to bringback a cumbersome load and needed all the room in the wagon.

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

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

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

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

  Upon which his daughter would be likely to respond that neither of thembelonged to the laboring class, and he could not contradict her.

  While she was still very young he had perceived her talent, and fromtime to time in his desultory fashion had instructed her. There werethose among his friends who endeavored to rouse his ambition for thegirl, but he had not the force to combat her hereditary objection towork, and he always shrugged away their pleas.

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

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

  When her father had seen his end approaching with swiftness, and therealization came that his pretty child was unprepared to meet theworld, he had said a good word for his actor friend, as the mostpractical and substantial admirer on Sylvia's list; and this sheremembered, too, with a great wave of gratitude 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. Thinkrighthad 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 thereand listen to the rhythmic murmur of the waves answering the strains ofan AEolian harp which Thinkright's clever hands had fashioned and placedin the shadow of the upper branches. There Sylvia took the books whichher cousin gave her to study, and read and study she did, despite thetemptation to day-dreaming. Little by little, by gentle implications,Thinkright had conveyed to her that there was to be no thought of herleaving him; and her love moved her strongly to do his bidding and winhis approval.

  "He doesn't do it for my sake. He does it for God and mother," shereflected, 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 grewfainter with each discovery of her own ignorance, and her mental worldenlarged; and in this inner realm she always found two ideals reigning,a prince and a princess,--John Dunham and Edna Derwent. They werebeings who breathed a rarer air than she had ever known. All that wasfine in her leaped to a comprehension that the more she developed, themore she should value that in their experience which at present was asealed book to her. She always classed them together resolutely in herthought. It was a species of self-defense which she had begun to employfrom the moment of mental panic which ensued upon Miss Derwent'smention of Dunham's name.

  Sylvia had read countless novels, for her father had been insatiate ofthem; but she had been so confident of her own charm, and so busilyengaged in picturing the manner in which she should discourage or makehappy her suitors, that the possibilities of her own activeheart-interest had not absorbed much of her thought. The coming of JohnDunham into her life had changed all that. In a moment of high andsensitive excitement he had dawned upon her vision as a novel type ofmanhood, and one representing all that was desirable. In vain she knewthe superficiality of this judgment. In vain she reasoned her ignoranceof him and his character. He had captivated her imagination, and thiswas the reason that Edna Derwent, as soon as she mentioned him, loomedto Sylvia's stirred thought in the light of a dangerous foe. Edna'svery invincibility, however, aided Sylvia's final capitulation toThinkright. There was neither reason nor comfort for her in desiring torival the finished and all-conquering Miss Derwent. Thinkright held outthe hope that she could alter her own thought; change that sore andmiserable consciousness to one where reigned the beauty of peace. Neversince that night of bitterness had she strayed from the path which hernew light revealed. Judge Trent's visit removed the last doubt as toher remaining with Thinkright, and she knew that if the Mill Farm wereto be her home neither Miss Derwent nor Mr. Dunham would remain astranger to her. Then it became doubly necessary for her to think rightconcerning them. They had not met for years until this summer; and nowthere could surely be but one result from their meeting again. So theystood, equal and preeminent, prince and princess of Sylvia's mentalrealm, and there she meant to let them reign; meant to rejoice in theirhappiness, and never to permit herself to dream one dream of this idealman which could not pass under the espionage of Edna's bright eyes.