The Opened Shutters: A Novel

by Clara Louise Burnham

  CHAPTER XVIII

  HAWK ISLAND

  An hour later Miss Martha had the escort of her niece down to the shoreagain. She peered about alertly for a sign of her boatman.

  "Now I told Benny that I shouldn't fail"--she began with annoyance."Oh, there he is," for the top of the mast was visible beyond a fartherjutting point of rock. "Benny!" she called. His hand appeared and waveda signal. "I suppose we shall have to go over there. I should like toknow why he couldn't stay where I told him to. Benny," as they drewnear enough to be heard, "you gave me a start for a minute. Why didn'tyou wait for me in that same place?"

  Benny glanced toward Sylvia. "Thought yew mightn't care to squat onthat rock all night," he drawled imperturbably.

  "What do you mean? Oh--wasn't the tide right?"

  "No; most likely it didn't hear what you said. Anyways, it didn't wait.It kep' on a-goin' down jest the same."

  Miss Martha's lips drew in. "You absurd boy. Benny, this is my niece,another Miss Lacey; and Sylvia, this is Benny Merritt. We couldn't getalong without him at the island; and now we must fly. How's the wind,Benny?"

  "Pretty good chance; we'll have to beat some."

  "Well, you mustn't let the boat tip," responded Miss Martha, as shecrept gingerly along the slippery rocks, and helped by Sylvia jumped inand took her seat. "Don't fall so in love with The Rosy Cloud that youcan't come to see us, Sylvia, and do be careful with your new toy. Itdoesn't look much more substantial than a cloud to me. Benny, look_out_!" For the wind had seized the sail and flapped it noisily beforeit set firmly. The last words Sylvia caught were, "You are letting ittip now. You know I don't like it, Benny."

  Sylvia laughed as she sprang up the bank. Even in this brief visit shehad observed how habitually the uppermost thought in her aunt's mindeffervesced into speech, and she saw how natural had been Miss Martha'slack of repression at Hotel Frisbie. She felt for Benny Merritt withhis nervous passenger, but her sympathy was wasted. When Miss Laceysailed alone with Benny she always kept up an intermittent stream ofdirections and suggestions to which the boy paid not the slightestattention.

  "Doin' my best, Miss Marthy," he used to reply sometimes. "If ye say soI'll stop and let ye get out and walk."

  Each time the boat had to come about for a new tack, necessitating thesail's passing over Miss Martha's head, the air was vibrant with hersmall shrieks and louder suggestions; but to-day, every time theysettled down for the smooth run, a pensiveness fell upon her.

  "The Mill Farm is looking real prosperous, Benny," she remarked duringone of these calms.

  "I s'pose so," returned the boy. "More folks comin' to the islandsevery summer. More folks to want their truck."

  "Seems to me," observed Miss Martha, "I used to hear that thingsweren't very pleasant between the mainland folks and the islanders."

  "Used to be so. Hated each other, I've heard my father say, but senceI've been a-growin' up things have changed. We've ben findin' out thatthey wasn't all potato vines, and they've ben findin' out that we ain'tall fish scales. My father says Thinkright Johnson's at the bottom o'the change."

  "Thinkright's a good man," returned Miss Martha, and with that she fellinto pensive mood again until time for another acute moment of dodgingthe sail and coming about.

  To think that in those few hours Judge Trent should have come to takesuch an interest in Sylvia. So her thoughts ran. Was it the girl's goodlooks, or was it simply that twinges of the judge's conscience hadinduced the wish to make the _amende honorable_, and that the gift ofthe expensive boat was an effort to reinstate the giver in his owneyes?

  Something of an intimate nature must have passed between them. To whatcould "the rosy cloud" have reference which should bring such consciouscolor to Sylvia's softly rounded cheek?

  Miss Lacey shook her head. "If I only had Thinkright's chance," shethought, "I'd find out; but men are so queer. Probably he won't makethe least effort. Provoking!"

  She was correct in her suspicion. Thinkright did not ask any questions.He suspected that the judge's interview with his niece might havebrought to light some of her new ideas, and he knew the judge's opinionof all that class of thought which he termed transcendental; buthowever ironical might be the reference in the boat's name, he wouldnot have gone to the trouble of having it lettered thereon without akindly intent.

  Thinkright was satisfied, and contented himself with building a smallboathouse on the waterside for Sylvia's new possession. She was hisconstant companion during the work, and sat beside him on the grasswhile he sawed and hammered, waiting upon him whenever opportunityoffered.

  He missed an eagerness of enthusiasm which he would have expected inthe girl regarding the handsome boat. He could not know how ferventlyshe wished that Uncle Calvin had given her instead the money it hadcost. She could not express this thought to her cousin for obviousreasons; but as she sat beside him on an old log she built air castlesthat grew faster than the little boathouse.

  "There isn't anything too good to be true, is there, Thinkright?" shesaid to him during a pause one day.

  He came over and took a seat beside her, wiping his lined brow with hishandkerchief.

  She looked at him wistfully. "I'm expecting something very good tohappen to me," she added.

  "That's right; and something has. How about The Rosy Cloud?"

  She sighed, and leaned her head against her companion's blue cottonshoulder.

  "It's beautiful. I shall have all sorts of fine times with it. Think ofthrowing a lot of cushions inside, and taking a good story, then rowingout into the middle of the basin to float and read. All the trees wouldbe leaning forward and beckoning, and I shouldn't know which The RosyCloud would favor."

  Thinkright clasped his knee. "The Tide Mill would do its share ofbeckoning, remember. Look out for the current."

  "The poor old thing!" remarked Sylvia. "Sometimes the mill looks sodignified and pathetic that I sympathize with it, and then again itseems just sulky and obstinate."

  "We're very apt to read our feelings into the landscape," returned theother.

  "Yes," went on the girl, her eyes as she leaned on her cousin'sshoulder resting on the deserted, weather-beaten building in thedistance, "when I first came, my heart just yearned toward that oldmill. It looked just as I felt. It had made up its mind never toforgive. I had made up my mind never to forgive. Love has opened mylocked shutters, and do you know, Thinkright, some afternoons thoseclosed mill blinds seem to be melting in the sun. They grow so soft androsy, I watch them fascinated. It seems as if they were giving way andI find myself expecting to see them slowly turn back. Oh," impulsively,"I want them to turn back! Couldn't we get a ladder and row out theresome day and climb up and open them?"

  Thinkright smiled. "They're nailed tight, dear, and they don't belongto us."

  Sylvia shook her head. "Well," she persisted whimsically, "I believethey will open some time. I shan't be content until they do; andsomehow or other I shall be mixed up with it."

  "Is that the good thing you are expecting?" asked Thinkright, smiling,"to become a house-breaker?"

  "No. Love will open the shutters yet. You don't understand me."

  "Nothing that Love should accomplish would surprise me in the least,"was the response. "Well, what is your hope then,--the thing youreferred to a few minutes ago?"

  Sylvia's eyes looked across the water. "I'd better not tell you yet,"she replied. "It isn't your problem. It's mine."

  "Very well," agreed Thinkright. "Just keep remembering 'Thy will bedone,'--His great Will for good. His great Will that all shall be onearth as it is in heaven; that all shall be good and harmonious; andthen your own little will and its puny strength won't get in the way,and you will find yourself helping to carry out your Father's designs."

  Sylvia took a deep breath. "That is what I want to do. Once I shouldhave been so happy, so contented to float in my boat with cushions anda good story!"

  "Well," Thinkright smiled, "I hope you're not going to lose thatability. It has its pla
ce."

  Sylvia turned her curly head until she met his shining eyes. "I'm toostrong now to play all the time," she said.

  Her companion patted her arm. "Mrs. Lem says you are a regular busybee."

  "Yes, but she did perfectly well without me."

  Her companion met her gaze for a silent moment and speculated as towhat its gravity might mean.

  "Are you thinking again of the stage, Sylvia?"

  "No, no!" she exclaimed vehemently, for instantly a vision of Nat rosebefore her. "I"--she hesitated, looked out again to the water and backat her cousin. She was sorely tempted to tell him, but the old motiverestrained her in time. That was not the way for the solution to come,merely by making herself a heavier tax upon Thinkright's simplefortunes.

  "Then you have some definite idea of what you would like to do?" heasked.

  His manner was quiet, but there was a note of mental exultation withinhim at the healthful symptom.

  "Yes, but it isn't time yet to tell you of it."

  He put his arm around her. "Very well. What more can we wish to be sureof than Omnipotence and Omnipresence. You know that it is only goodthat is constructive. Evil is destructive, and in the end even destroysitself. So long as you want only good you are safe in the everlastingarms and are blessed." The speaker changed his position and his tone.

  "This is rest enough now for me, little girl. I must be up and doing,for we want to get that boat of yours out of dry dock."

  It was about a week later that Sylvia made her first visit to HawkIsland. Thinkright sailed her over. It was the longest trip she hadmade by water, and the changing aspect of mainland and islands fromeach new viewpoint delighted her.

  The landmark which most interested her was the dark clump of trees bywhich she had always distinguished Hawk Island. It began to spread andalter in form as they approached, until it became a low forest,cresting the hill which gradually rose some seventy feet above thewater. At last they entered a still cove which made a natural harbor inthe island's side, and there Thinkright moored his boat. As soon asthey stepped out upon the shore Sylvia saw a girl hurrying toward themdown the sloping grass, and waving her hand. She wore a short darkskirt and a white waist and no hat.

  "We've been watching you with the glass," she said, greeting them."Your note came last night. I'm so glad you had such a perfectmorning."

  Her cheeks were brown and her eyes danced with good cheer. "Why, MissSylvia, your aunt told me; yet I was not prepared to see such a change.There's nothing like Casco Bay, is there?"

  Sylvia's gaze clung to the vivacious face, and she had a realization ofthe small part which time plays in our mental processes. It seemed toher that transforming years had passed since that evening when sheshivered outside the door of the Mill Farm, and heard this samelaughing voice within.

  "Miss Lacey is watching for us." Edna took Thinkright's arm, and theybegan to walk up the path through a green meadow. Snowdrifts of daisieswhitened the field. "The dear things are lasting so much longer thanusual this year," said Edna, as Sylvia exclaimed over their charm. "Wehave the last of things out in this exposed spot, you see, and I thinkit's quite as pleasant as having the first of them the way you do inyour sheltered nook."

  The breeze freshened as they ascended, and at last they stood on thecrest of the green ridge.

  To the south of the island the pointed firs made a dark, irregularsky-line against the azure. Here there were no trees, nothing toobstruct the illimitable stretches of water and picturesque shore. Itwas a nearer and more overwhelming view of what had taken Sylvia'sbreath when she discovered the mighty sea on that first day, driving tothe Mill Farm.

  How far away seemed that day and the sore heart whose resentmentembittered all the beauty; when her hand was against every man becauseshe believed every man's hand to be against her.

  As the three stood there, watching, in silence, Edna saw the blue eyesfill, and her heart warmed toward her guest, although she could notguess at the flood of feeling that forced those bright drops from theirfountain.